Lisbet

This is one tasty tea, and perfect for the mornings. I’m spoiled, because I woke up to this pre-brewed by my lovely husband, who encouraged me to partake. I’ll concede that I had my morning coffee first. This is much gentler on my stomach.
While it’s downright warm right now in Houston compared to the snow covered Northeast (I have a chuckle everytime I imagine what Houstonians would do in a freak blizzard), it’s a bit chilly by local standards. After getting down to the low 40s overnight, it takes a while to warm the house back up. So this tea is so welcome as I sit and feel a little cold.
It reminds me of – forgive me for this comparison- a really, really good version of a standard Lipton tea bag. And that’s why I like it. It’s familiar, but much much better. Yum!

Hey this IS a good earl grey. My husband brought this home from the grocery store, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I have a black-tea based earl grey with vanilla in it at home, and the vanilla just tastes really overpowering and artificial. This is different. The tea looks really high quality- the bai mu dan leaves are lovely. The vanilla is a nice, muted backdrop. And the bergamot dominates just enough to make this a good earl grey, without wiping out the delicate white tea leaves. Am digging this one.

This is the only thing saving my stomach right now and keeping me from curling into a little ball. Ow!

This one just smells divine in the pouch, almost like eggnog. I love the combination of chai spices with sweetness, and the mallow/cacao here is quite pleasant. Alas, it’s still hot hot hot in Houston, so I use this tea to pretend that I am somewhere more autumnal.

I like this one because it really does have a touch of smokiness to it on top of the sweetness. It’s definitely a clever take on a s’more. Yum. If I ever actually had people over for tea I’d make a big pot of this and serve it with pumpkin cookies. I would love to make this one into a latte, but the tea lattes I make tend to be terrible. Why is that, I wonder? I just make well-steeped extra strong tea with foamed milk and sometimes a shot of vanilla. What’s not to like? They taste better at $tarbuck$, and I’m not sure why.

But I digress, massively.
Brewed this one is a lot simpler than it smells dry. It’s a decent chai, with a hint of smoky- sweetness.

No notes yet.

No notes yet.

This one is growing on me a lot. I can enjoy my beloved cinnamon raisin toast tea at night now because this tastes a lot like it, but has no caffeine! I just love this date flavor, and the little nuts in the tea bag. A great evening tea, especially with a cookie.

I’m not quite as into this as most of the other reviewing folks are. I LIKE it, but I’m not gaga for it. I’ve been drinking this iced, of course, because even though it’s nearly October in Houston it’s still in the upper 90s. (It’s 8pm right now and 82 degrees). So, while hot tea has its place, like when I’m stuck in the many overly air conditioned buildings around town, iced tea still happens daily.

Anyway, this one manages to remind me closely of a rooibos lemon meringue I have, despite being honeybush and having lime in it. It’s citrusy and bright, but I’m not getting cheesecake or crust or anything some of the other folks are getting. Just a good decaf citrusy tea, perfect for icing.

How are there no reviews for this one yet? Ida thought people would be jumping to try datey muffins. Anyway, I was. I actually think this manages to taste quite a bit like a muffin, which is to say if you think of the way the batter tastes, this is quite spot on. It has little nuts in the mix too, which is just cute. I missed my Rooibos while I was in Japan, the land of green tea over the summer, and it’s absolutely too cold in this library I’m writing from so tea is just what I need. I’m snuggling my travel mug like a heat blanket.

Anyway, this is actually a rather nice autumnal one. Sweet like dates, with that muffiny component. Not too nutty tasting, but decent nonetheless. I think this would combine really well with other teas too for a unique cocktailing experience. Something of the backdrop reminds me of my beloved cinnamon raisin toast tea, but without the smokey “burnt tea” note that the black tea adds to that one.

Interestingly (for me anyway), this one is called “pure” in Japan. But it’s the same exact tea. I wonder why “detox” wasn’t used. I guess only pukka knows. I have been drinking this one before bed, to help settle my tummy, and because it’s actually pretty delicious. It reminds me a bit of the tea that Aveda used to give me whenever I went into their store or went to get my hair dyed by them- it’s the aniseseed and fennel, I think. Either way, I associate this tea with good feelings, and relaxation, so that’s tough to argue with. Plus, you can leave the tea bag in the water forever, and it never tastes oversteeped.

Orzo tea? Huh? This jumped out at me, as I drink a lot of cool barley tea in the summer. And the richness of the barley goes really, really well with the tart strawberry. I don’t taste any chocolate notes no matter how hard I try, but oh well. They recommend this as a tea that goes well with milk, is great for kids, and has no caffeine. I’d agree on all of these counts (although obviously the caffeine thing isn’t an opinion ;) ). Because of the fruitiness I can really see this making a good iced tea as well.

I’m definitely going to keep some of these orzo teas around as another caffeine-free alternative to rooibos, honeybush, and herbal blends. It’s worth trying! I can’t remember the last time I liked a strawberry tea.

This is unlike any kind of ginger tea I’ve ever tried before, and is part of why Lupicia is fast becoming one of my obsessions (although they’re a Japanese company, they have an English language website and many very distinctly Japanese blends among the options- including many options that are rare in the US).
Anyway, the roasted hojicha works so well with the ginger that I can’t help but continue to drink this obsessively. It’s rather calming, and despite ginger being somewhat of an odd choice for summer (too warming!) I’m finding that I’m glad I bought this one nonetheless.
I can’t find it on the American website though- on the Japanese website it’s listed in English as “Japanese ginger tea”, but what the Japanese actually says is Washouga Houjicha, or simply “Japanese-style Ginger Houjicha”. So I dunno :) But I definitely recommend it, and the link to the Japanese page is here: http://www.lupicia.com/html/ja/item/001/016/item15599.html

I love this tea company and their many shops in the Tokyo area. Yes, that’s right, I’m in the land of good tea and I haven’t been updating Steepster. This is because I have been drinking a ton of tea, but not so much in my house where I can check labels or really retain the memory of particular notes. I’m working on getting the description for this tea, because it’s no longer on either Lupicia’s English or Japanese websites.

So, this is a very mild fruit blend that tastes mostly of a kind of strawberries and cream. It’s definitely summery and would be superb iced. Anyway, it came in a tin of silk tea bags, somewhat like the tins that Republic of Tea come in, in the US, with higher quality bags.
Really, really good with a snack of dried toasts baked with blueberry jam.

I super need this today because I just could NOT sleep last night. Stupid insomnia. I think it was around 5 in the morning when I finally fell asleep, if I ever did, so I tried to stay in bed until 10. Sigh. Now I’m trying to be functional and I think this might be my new friend.
Anyway, most mate tastes sorta roasty like coffee to me. I can see why people like it in lattes. (Mate lattes seem to be the newest trend among folks I know. Maybe I’ll try it sometime.) Anyway, this brings back memories of last summer when I drank a lot of mate to try to stay awake without jangling my nerves to death during a summer language program. This has the same vanilla, cocoa, and coffee undertones to it as the last mate I had, with the overall result being very “mocha”. It’s fine, I like it a fair bit but doubt I’ll buy my own stash (Thanks to Ottawa Tea for sampling this to me!)

Ottawa Teas gifted me this one! Yay! :D I really love this blend. It’s spicy and sweet, with just a hint of fruitiness. It’s like chai meats a gingerbread cookie. I imagine this would be good sweetened, but I tend not to do that. This will be great encouragement to stick with my end-of semester work and not give up even though it’s Friday afternoon and I want to relax. Less than 10 pages more to read! Am loving this as an after dinner dessert tea. I think I could drink many mugfulls of this during the winter.

Like others, I had no particular interest in buying a chamomile tea, but this also came to me in the inventory oops sale :) And it’s not as though I can’t use some soothing- I’ve been suffering from adrenal fatigue lately because of the stress in my life (grad school). To me, this tastes mostly just like chamomile, which brings back memories of the teas I used to drink before discovering good tea. I had a lot of Celestial Seasonings chamomile in my house.

Anyway, I am going to try to drink this for the good of my relaxation, but I’m bummed that I don’t get any citrus or spice out of it.

I’ve taken a while to review this one, because I was kind of abusing it before now. I put it in my tea-filter travel mug and just let it steep until I was done drinking the cup. This resulted in a cuppa very very oversteeped tea. Some teas can hold up to the tea travel mug, but not this one. Alas.

Anyway, sitting down to a cup of this while working on a long paper. Sniffing this brewed, I can definitely smell the apricot. But it’s a gentle, non-dominant taste that actually goes really well with this combination of different teas. I’d say this is a good one for those who are on the fence about drinking anything other than plain teas, as it’s got a very mild fruitiness to it. I like it- don’t love it, but it’s pleasant enough and seems to be good at soothing sore tummies.

This blend is genius. Seriously. My husband saw me with a bag of tea with actual marshmallows in it and said “So have you officially given up on drinking real tea?” I had to explain that the marshmallows scared me at first too- but that this was genmaicha, and that the toastiness of the genmaicha (it has toasted rice in it) works remarkably well with the marshmallow. As I explained, he considered the notion and agreed that he could see how it might, just maybe work.

I love this one. It’s an utterly surprising blend- the sweet and the nutty/toasty genmaicha go really well together. The sweetness of the melted marshmallows really is very mild- I don’t sweeten my teas and it’s acceptable for me :) This is truly, truly creative. Bravo!

I initially agreed with Ottawa Tea that this one was too much hibiscus, not enough sage. But my second cup is really heavy on the sage, and less so on the fruit and flowers- I got two cups worth out of the packet. I like the second cup better, although I do think this one could use a little more blueberry and less hibiscus. I’m not even sure the hibiscus needs to be in here.

The odd thing here is that the merlot name actually does seem sorta fitting. This really does taste a bit like wine to me. I had a cup of this kinda late at night the other night, and I really felt like I was drinking warm wine (which isn’t gross when you think about mulled wine). I really don’t know what to make of this one since the two cups I had were so different.

I really want to try this one. Don’t have the nerve to buy a whole tin though!

I was a little freaked out by the smell of this one- I thought “Oh no, it’s just like my dentist’s fluoride!” BUT I was pleasantly surprised when I made a mug of this. I let it basically steep all morning in my tea travel mug, and it stayed mild and pleasant. I am not sure I get watermelon from it, but I’m not sure I don’t either. I really am having trouble pinning down the flavor other than to say it’s “lightly sweet” and will make a splendid iced tea (which is what I wanted anyway).

Upping my rating of this because I have decided that I really like it. It’s delicious. Bright and pineapply and coladay and great iced AND hot. As I mentioned in my review of the pina colada green, I am so impressed that I like this without liking either pineapple or pina coladas, but as a tea it just works for me. I think it’s the perfect balance of sweet, but not sugary-sweet, and coconutty without being oily. While I don’t get rum, per se, I don’t know that I miss it. Such a yummy treat. I have a huge mug full right now.

Bleghhhhhhh! Why do I ever try red fruit teas? I hate them so much. This one in particular is mostly hibiscus though, with a strong undercurrent of cherry. It tastes medicinal and like hot jell-o mix at the same time. I made myself drink most of my travel mug’s worth, and then dumped the last 1oz or so into a bush as I was walking, where hopefully it will grow something other than Cherry Cosmo tisane plants.

The delicious apricot zingy scent of this in the bag made me bump it to the top of my list of teas to try. It’s so good, with its almondy and fruity flavor mingling together harmoniously, and giving me the wherewithall to actually get my work done this evening (are not you jealous of my grad student life? admit it!) This is YET ANOTHER Tea Forte blend that is not only more than the sum of its parts, but going on my ‘buy a whole bunch of’ list. Love you, Tea Forte!