Climber's High

Thank you Dhart1214 for this Sample tea!

I just had my first taste of Yerba Mate yesterday from another steepster and liked it. I’m aware that there is a punch of caffeine, so today…I told myself that I’d better be careful and not wait too late to taste and review this Yerba Mate blend or I’d be wired!

One of the things I wish tea companies would do a better job of, is labeling what’s in the blend on the packet of tea. Herbs and flavors might be something that a person is allergic to! I couldn’t drink this blend before going to the Tea Spot website to look up the ingredients. There are 19 listed in this one blend! (Thankfully none I’m allergic to!)

The flavor was tasty…mellow, not too spicy or herby.
If I hadn’t read the ingredients, I would never have known there were 19 flavors present.
I could taste cinnamon, licorice, a bit of ginger, cooling tulsi and yerba mate. The vanilla was almost lost as well as the other flavors. What I tasted was very muted, in a gentle way that was not unpleasent. (I don’t always want a tea to knock me down with strong flavor.)
This was an appealing high caffeine comfort tea.

I could picture this tea in a pouch added to a backpack stash for a hiking trip. A morning tea before skiing or biking. A tea to begin the day at the office or school. No milk is needed and the tea is sweet enough not to add anything to it. (I did add sweetening…I like my tea that way).

Energy! Caffeine! Mellow flavor and tastes pretty good.

edit After having an allergic reaction to some beans, my sister-in-law sent me a list of foods in the bean family which includes licorice! Guess what? Licorice is also an ingredient in this tea!

Yes, I drank my bean toxic tea too. Lesson for tea companies would be that it’s important to label ingredients please. In the future, I don’ t want to be this violently ill from unlabeled tea!
I had to look on the website for ingredient information before knowing about the licorice so the fact that I drank the tea is not the fault of The Tea Spot.

About a month ago I ordered a bunch of samples from the Tea Spot. I like their samples because you get 5 servings! That is an opportunity to really sample something, more than one way. Like several others here, I got sick & all my sampling got set aside, pending improved taste & smell abilities. So today, I decided, “It’s on!” I started with a steaming cup of matcha, & next on my agenda was this unusual tea.

Climber’s High is a Heinz 57 type brew, with everything but the kitchen sink included. The predominant aromas are cinnamon & then licorice, but there is way more in this tea, & it’s packed with flavor along the lines of a Chai. It’s also packed with caffeine! I’ve been dragging myself around for a couple of weeks, recuperating, but not really having much energy to get things done, & POW! I drank a cup of this & the next thing I know, I’m smiling, laughing, talking in a very animated way (things I tend to do after consuming a lot of caffeine, the rest of the time I’m pretty laid back), & feeling very dynamic! I re-potted my key lime tree, which is busting out in blossoms as if it were spring. I picked a lime off it & am drinking lime water (gotta stay hydrated!). I added a little new soil to my kumquat & meyer lemon trees – the 7 lemons are almost ready for consumption, the little kumquats have a way to go, but I can tell it’s getting ready to bloom again too! I did a bunch of other stuff too.

I drank the first cup plain & it was nice, the licorice root providing a mild sweetness. I can tell it would be really tasty with stevia as well. I resteeped, & the 2nd cup is just ok, nothing spectacular. I don’t know that I’ll drink this often, but it is tasty, & I’d say it’s a go-to when I need to really get some things done!

This tea is totally hitting the spot for me this morning after not feeling the greatest and I am feeling much better today! :)
Energizing but not in a shaky way. Delicious cup – with so many flavors that I find meld together nicely!

What DOESN’T this blend have in it?

Well…I can tell you want I can TASTE in it. Here goes!

I can taste the Yerba Mate, herbs, chocolate, spices such as cinnamon and ginger, a bit of pu-erh, a little vanilla and/or cream, and it has an unexpected juiciness to it – somewhat like tangerines – but in the same breath – it’s not really citrus per say.

This one is a real trip! And I think I like it!

WOW! This blend has a whole lot going on, but, somehow the immense combination of ingredients works together. It is hard to pin-point any one particular ingredient in this blend – but at the same time, I can’t imagine that this would taste quite the same without the blend the way it is.

I taste vegetative earthiness that I associate with the Yerba Maté as well as the Pu-erh, I taste the rich background that I would associate with black tea, but at the same time, I taste a light airy/sweet/creamy kind of taste and texture that I associate with the presence of white and green teas.

And the melangé of spices are quite nice, giving this an almost chai-like taste that is warm, cinnamon-y and peppery. I am loving the notes of licorice here, as well as the subtle hint of mint.

Yes, there is a lot going on, but, I really like this. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it’s a favorite of mine, but, it isn’t something I’d turn down, and if I were to go to a tea bar, and saw this on the menu and I was in need of a big caffeine boost, I’d definitely order it.

Another swap from Terri (that leaves what, 60+ more to go?) This isn’t something that i’d have normally picked up myself since i don’t seem to enjoy yerba mate. However, in this blend? i am digging it. Maybe it’s because there’s about 9812309182309218 things going on in this blend but it’s pretty darn tasty :) The smells makes my nose itch a little but not to the point of not enjoying sitting here with a steaming mug of this.

This tastes almost like a vanila chai tea blend to me. though it’s not overly vanilla by any stretch of the imagination. There’s also some citrusy notes going on that i can’t place. Cinnamon is present, but not in that way that makes you scream CINNAMON! OMG! There’s a sweetness here as well that might be the licorice root? but i have no frame of reference for that really. :)

Overall a pretty pleasant cup.

This was one of the teas that Ellen sent in my sweetea package. Which was quite awesome! So this tea smells great a nice little bit of spice to it. This blend intrigued me with having so many different ingredients. At first sip I tasted roasted mate and the chai spices I said to myself….ummmm not digging it. I added a little turbinado sugar and it cooled a little and the flavors seemed to meld a bit better. It’s decent but I don’t know if I would keep it as a cupboard staple.

So I bought this here in Breckenridge at their spice merchant shop. Not only did it smell good, but I have been having trouble adjusting to the altitude so I bought some and whipped it up!
I actually like this tea, it’s interesting and enjoyable. Not a favorite though.

There’s nothing I love more than a truly experimental blend. So when I caught wind of Climber’s High, I rushed to order it. Experimental is perhaps the best “category” for this tea which contains black, green AND white tea, PLUS pu’erh, PLUS yerba mate AND a host of various herbs, roots and spices.

This tea certainly packs an energetic punch, thanks to the caffeine from the green, black and pu’erh teas, and the from the mateine from the yerba mate, and the also the warming and stimulating effects of the ginseng root, cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom and chocolate.

The aroma of the dry tea conjures up a spicy chocolate forest – which is lost when brewed, as many blends (without artificial flavors) are apt to do.

The tea itself is a bit too cut & torn for my liking. Out of 18 ingredients I could only identify four of them. Even the brightly colored safflower petals were all but absent.

There is a strong and bakey quality to this tea. However, the sheer amount of ingredients seems to flatten out the taste. It lacks the excitement of a journey that having such a long list of ingredients might imply. The dry finish was reminiscent of many pu’erhs I have tried. Of all the teas, herbs and spices in this blend, the most pronounced is yerba mate, but I wouldn’t say that it dominated the blend.

To bend an old axiom: Too many leaves spoil the blend.