The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

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69

Old Tea Bag Sip Down
Part 7
More chamomile. Uh… so this one has been steeping for around 30 mins now. I made a cuppa while prepping the pizza dough and then got a hankering to play Pistol Whip and promptly forgot. The water is now tepid. As is the flavor. It’s not bad despite the fact that it’s been steeping for really long. It just tastes old. If it was fresh I can sense this would be a nice cup for one of those days when your throat needs some extra help. But I can’t say I’d reach for it at any other point.

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69

Another hotel room find. This is a good chamomile bagged tea. It tastes like chamomile. If you like chamomile, you’ll probably like this. Sorry, I can’t think of anything else to say about it.

Flavors: Floral

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 6 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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69

It’s a teabag from a hotel room, and it looks like that’s how most people have experienced this tea.

I had to evacuate from my home in Boulder Creek because of the fires. Tonight is my last night staying in the hotel, and I’m finally trying the teabags. The hint of cardboard flavor might be because I microwaved the water in a paper cup. For a basic bagged English breakfast, it’s pretty good.

I tried adding a little vanilla almond milk, but I don’t recommend it. It didn’t mesh well, just tastes kind of weak.

Before I drank the second steep, I had some Moroccan garbanzo beans. The spices left in my mouth totally overwhelmed the flavor, and it tastes a bit like chai now. Which isn’t bad, LOL. But that doesn’t say much about the tea, other than that it pairs well with the food.

Flavors: Cardboard, Honey, Malt, Tea

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 2 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Mastress Alita

Boo for having to microwave water and drink from a paper cup, and yaaaay to getting to go home to your normal tea stuff! I will miss you when you lose your Internet, though. Hope it isn’t for too long before we can have Zoom tea again. :-)

White Antlers

Todd, I hope your home is intact. Glad you are safe.

Todd

Zoom tea won’t be too far off, even if it has to be in my car somewhere with signal, LOL. Thanks! The house is fine. We’ve been back there already. Just no power or internets, and questionable water that’s only trusted for flushing the toilet till it’s checked out.

mrmopar

I’m glad you are getting to go home.

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69

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96

Wow! My all time favourite green. I can no longer order CBTL products so i hoard this tea ;) and buy more when i travel to the States. It would be my daily morning tea if it were more accessible. Until them i will keep hunting for a substitute.

Definitely bitter if you over steep. The tea bags contain more tea than most so a second and third steep are great too.

Great quality green tea for a teabag and beautiful fragrance.

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78

I think, technically, the last tea that I had in Vegas?

We found this place (The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf) in the airport on our way home, and so I grabbed something to drink while we were waiting to board. They actually had a surprisingly large tea menu for a place that seemed at first glance much more coffee oriented. I chose this one off their “Seasonal Cold Brew Tea” menu because it seemed to most unique to me.

I actually really enjoyed it, though I’m not totally sure what kind of tea was actually in it? It felt darker though, and a bit more black tea like? Honestly the flavour was SUPER heavily black cherry though – not sweet/sugary, but just smooth and distinct. The kind of delicious black cherry flavour you get when you eat the cherry pieces in Bordeaux icecream. I was impressed with the accuracy to that black cherry flavour without overloading the drink with sweetness/sugar or tasting really artificial.

I’d have been interested to try more of their offerings, but given the circumstances of how we found them that wasn’t really an option.

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My wife loves this tea lately. Wes top at coffee bean almost everyday. My concern is that there are artificial flavorings. The label and website don’t specify what exactly is the artificial ingredients. Does anyone know?

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79

I thought I reviewed this already, but I can’t seem to find it. Steepster really needs to improve its search function. .

Anyway, this is a sipdown. I bought this for a friend from The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Hawaii and she gave me a few of her sachets to try. I love oolongs and I love jasmine, so this was a must-try.

The oolong base is very green (probably some sort of Jade oolong such as Ali shan), but has natural floral and fruity notes. Specifically, I can pick out peach and papaya. It is a bit buttery, thick, and with some natural sweetness at the beginning of the sip. This was a great base to pair with the jasmine. If you use sachets and like jasmine teas, this is a great tea iced or hot. The sachet is big and gives the oolong a lot of room to expand.

Flavors: Butter, Floral, Fruity, Jasmine, Peach, Sweet

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 3 min, 15 sec 17 OZ / 500 ML

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66

A basic english breakfast. It’s serviceable but a bit thin and nothing special.

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66

Very solidly enjoyable tea. Full bodied. flavorful. I love a good Ceylon tea.

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43
drank Lychee by The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
2955 tasting notes

You Americans have so many tea companies not in Canada! Stopped in here today and ggot some jasmine oolong for a friend and an iced lychee tea (sweetened flavoured black tea) to go. As much as I like cold tea, I didn’t think of the fact that this would be heavily sweetened. Oops!

Very, very sweet. Slightly fruity but not much lychee flavouring. The base is a very bold black steeped strong. I found it very flavourful, but overly tannic and fairly bitter. I think I should stick to buying tea bags and coldbrewing it myself. Still, it was a nice refreshing drink when it is over 30 degrees C and the humidity is 100% (as seems typical in Hawaii).

Flavors: Bitter, Fruity, Sweet, Tannic, Tannin

Preparation
Iced

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75

Snagged this tea bag from my hotel room and brewed a cup after singing a song at a hardcore show, to soothe my throat and perhaps take it down a notch. Chamomile tea usually grosses me out a bit and tastes like licking the weedeater after doing the lawn in May. This tea is smooth and actually tastes palatable. There’s a slight honey sweetness to it and a mild aroma of wildflowers.

Flavors: Fennel Seed, Flowers, Honey

Preparation
Boiling 8 min or more 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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65

Sipdown! (92/395)

So I finally get around to giving this tea a more detailed note. It’s not going to be as detailed as some others I’ve written because I just don’t have as much to say about this tea, but it will at least be better than my last couple on this tea because I was paying attention this time! This was part of a hapatite tea swap I did a while back with a lovely girl named Mina, who as far as I know isn’t present here on Steepster. If you’re other there, Mina, thank you!

I find it weird that this tea is called ‘sunrise’ because I always associate honeybush with night time, and never really drink it in the morning. Each time I’ve drank this has been before bed, and maybe some of my issue with this comes from the fact that it was zingier than I expect for that time of day. I’ve written in a previous note that this gave me an ‘orange fondant’ sort of association, and after lookng at the ingredients and finding that this contains orange peel and vanilla it doesn’t seem so surprising! The malva flowers add a weird sort of botanticals note which I don’t think goes overly well with the other flavours, and I’m starting to think that I’m not a marshmallow fan at all. Other than that, though, it’s not a bad tea. The honeybush has a nice honey note which sweetens the orange, and added to the vanilla this creates an orange flavour which tastes something like an all-natural orange sweet. It’s not quite fresh fruit orange flavour, but it’s not artificial-tasting either.

I drank my last cup of this accidentally iced – there wasn’t as much water in the kettle as I expected, so I ended up brewing the tea bag in only around 4 or 5 oz of water, and then I got distracted scrolling through instagram and left it brewing for probably close to 20 minutes! By the time I remembered about it it was on its way to cold anyway, and with it being much more concentrated than expected I thought it would be best if I just topped it up with another 4 or 5 oz of iced water and called it a day. This turned out to be a happy accident, because even though I was more in the mood for a hot tea at the time, this is much less cloying iced and I think that I actually preferred it this way! The flavour combination just works better iced somehow, and the orange is more present than the malva, vanilla and honey which blend together to create a sweet backnote. We parted on good terms.

Preparation
Iced 8 min or more 10 OZ / 295 ML
Maaxie1103

Would you know what the artificial flavoring ingredients are?

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65

It seems my previous note on this tea was brief too, but I still have one more teabag so I’ll make sure that that one (eventually) is detailed. I’m too tired tonight and just found out some really sad news so I don’t really feel like writing much.

It’s okay. A bit cloying and a bit boring, but I certainly don’t mind drinking it. I still can’t place the scent and the aftertaste is really familiar. It’s putting a sort of ‘orange fondant’ idea in my head but I don’t know where I would have had that… I didn’t pay attention to steeping time/temperature at all and added a tiny bit of cream just because I had it on hand.

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65

Still feeling meh so I’ll keep it brief. This smells and tastes really familiar – I think it reminds me of a Bluebird blend? That’s going to bug me for a while. Surprisingly tangy, but tasty. I can’t pick out individual notes right now but I’ve moved it into my focus box so will write up another review when I’m feeling better.

Preparation
Boiling

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75

A sample from Miss B. It’s cold and wet out again today. Did someone say summer? Anyway, cold and wet to me signals chai, and I had this blend sitting in my drawer so, serendipity? The dry leaf looked to be mostly spices – whole cardamon pods, whole red peppercorns, whole cloves, pieces of cinnamon bark and ginger root, plus a few fennel seeds. There’s very little actual black tea, so I went for a pretty generous 2 tsp of leaf, mainly because I like my chai bold and the amount of additions makes me worry for the actual “tea” aspect.

Anyway, after 4 minutes in boiling water, I’ve got a pretty robust result – enough to take a generous splash of milk without appearing thin. To taste, it’s pretty much a standard chai, although with a hearty kick of spice. The cardamon and clove are predominant, but there’s a pleasingly warming swirl of cinnamon in the mid-sip. The ginger is a bit lost, as is the pepper, although there’s a warming tingle at the back of my throat that serves as a reminder that they’re there.

All in all, not bad. It’s decently spicy, which is something I look for in a chai, and the base is more robust than I thought it might be initially. It probably wouldn’t be a restock, simply because there are other chai blends that are equally good, and more readily available in the UK. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to try this one, though. Thanks again, Miss B!

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec 2 tsp

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50

An okay tea; I wouldn’t say it is bland but nothing outstanding either. All the flavors are a bit laid back.

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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82

Went wonderfully with a little milk and sugar. Would drink again!

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94

Very vanilla!

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 5 min, 30 sec 1 tsp 17 OZ / 500 ML

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33

I’ve been trying to save this tea – save it from the trash can. I think I’m going to fail. The flavoring of this tea is so off that I can’t come up with a good explanation. Think citrus oil and turpentine…something is horribly wrong. I’ve had this tea for several months and knew it was a problem from opening the can the first time. The wave of chemical smell was intense. I tried it anyway and got chemical taste. I have let it sit, open to the air, for two months now, All I can say is “at least my desk area doesn’t smell like solvents any more”. I’ve just shaken the can, moved the satchets around…its still there.
Pass on this one.
Edit: went back in history and found an old review of English Earl Grey (Blue Knight Special) by TeaFountain that I did a few years ago. This one reminded me of the Blue Knight Special.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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70

This is a nice change from the normal black tea, though it is fairly generic. I do enjoy the tropical flavour, though not as strong as I would like it to be.

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77

My after lunch tea here… not like I don’t have enough teas from home to try, but I didn’t get out of the house early enough to even wash my hair, much less think about what teas to bring in to my temp job.

Most cherry teas are disappointing because they taste so medicinal. That’s sad to me especially as cherries are one of my favorite fruits! (I like frozen cherries on my oatmeal or just as a dessert). This has a very authentic, natural cherry aroma.

As for the flavor, well… it’s very nice. The Taiwanese green tea is light and vegetal and reminds me of a Chinese green tea. Overall the cherry flavor is present but subtle and there is a bit of a flowery component as well. This was much better than I thought it would be, but I’m not sure I love it. The Moroccan Mint from the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is outstanding though. This is nice for an afternoon cuppa but wouldn’t go on a list of my favorites. I think the best way to desribe this is “nice” but not outstanding.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 4 min, 0 sec
ashmanra

Have you had Cherry Blossom Green from Harney? I thought the cherry flavor was light when I first tried, but as my palate grew a bit I found that I enjoyed it a lot. The downside is that I want loose leaf, and you have to buy a pound to get it loose.

TeaBrat

I don’t think I have, will have to check it out someday!

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72

I drank a few cups of this when we visited California. As far as peach teas go, it’s pretty average – good enough to have another cup, but not worth buying a box. To be honest I didn’t really even notice the oolong.

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I am going to review this tea as The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf company sells it as in a package with their vanilla hot chocolate mix.
I hosted a tea latte party with 8 friends and used this tea and the white hot chocolate mixture in a french press and it was a stunner. Sure it may have a lot of sugar and all, but it taste fantastic and I will probably buy more again when the winter comes back around.

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