Art of Tea

Yum, yum, yum! More please! A nice smooth earthy Pu-erh with a hint of honey to it, very good iced as well as hot.

Wow I’m really the first one to review this one?! Well, I am a big pumpkin fan to the point that I even make my own “pumpkin pie” oatmeal at home so when I found this I had to try it! It is very much like pumpkin pie in liquid form except it seems a bit heavy on the cinnamon, which isn’t a bad thing – I’m just a nutmeg lover when it comes to pumpkin pie! The tea even tastes a bit creamy as if there is slight whipped cream taste. Also, there is this other flavor that I couldn’t put my finger on and it really made its presence known at the back of my tongue. This really started to annoy me because I couldn’t pick out what that flavor was that I was tasting! So I went to their site and I notice there is honeybush in here and I have never had honeybush before so I assume that is what that mystery taste was since the pumpkin and spices were all distinguishable. This will be an AWESOME fall drink and will have to make myself a reminder to get some of this around October!

Thanks very much to the wonderful CAIT, I had a sample of this tea. I’d had it around for a while but have not been drinking much rooibos at all. Last night I wanted a hot drink, and decided to try this one.

Unlike other tasters, I thought that the taste was not off at all—at least not off for me. Maybe it’s the black current? I liked the fact that the rooibos did not stick out its head and start singing “I am sawdust, hear me roar”. Instead, it was a docile and quiet vehicle for a mild-mannered vanilla/current beverage.

I think that Art of Tea has done a better job than many places of formulating rooibos blends. For me, it’s tantamount to sticking the pill in cat food and hoping that the cat does not notice. Typically the cat glares daggers at me before he or she is within a room-full of the tainted food but every now and then there’s a cat who bravely (or naively) will eat the food and eat the pill and make life easy for everyone. Art of Tea seems to conceal rooibos like the bitter pill that must be adulterated.

But I ramble. This rooibos tea reminded me that they need not all be deadly.

Oh my new fave…how I love thee! I had this hot last night and it was very comforting, this is right up there with my beloved Jasmine Pearls! My two that I can’t live without :-)

Hands down this is my new favorite tea! Hot, cold, iced, with milk, without milk, sugar, no sugar it’s great every which way! I highly recommend this tea, sweet and smooth as silk!

This smells ridiculously strong and fruit as dry leaves. It is a little overpowering. Once I got used to it I realized it smells exactly like this herbal berry tea my mom used to make me when I was little. It looks and tastes like it too. It is very sour/tart. Not in a bad way, just in a fruit tea way. Its not my favorite hot though. I think the sourness might taste better cold. I am also getting a tiny hint of something woodsy, but the taste is overwhelmingly sour berries. Kind of like when you eat a sour blueberry. The tea is also like bright pink.

In sum – it is decent but not really my favorite. Definitely won’t be buying more of this.

I really like moroccan mint tea so I figured this would be similar… I was wrong. It smells pretty good – kind of like cedar. It doesn’t taste very good. It is kind of salty almost and very weak. It doesn’t taste like green tea and I am not getting any mint. After drinking for a little while my mouth feels kind of minty like right after you brush your teeth but that is the only hint of mint. This wasn’t “can’t finish the cup” bad, but it was “really glad this is just a sample” bad. Oh well.

This is a very odd flavor combo to me…but not in a bad way, it just caught me off guard! The tea is light and the jasmine is in the background on this tea, which I figured would be the star of this tea, but no the cantaloupe is! Very refreshing, good tea!

Normally this type of tea isn’t my cup of tea, but I decided to try it simply because it sounded yummy and it tastes just like a caramelized pear, point blank! The pear is sweet and juicy tasting with a hint of tartness as it slides down the back of my tongue. Kudos to the Art of Tea for blending a great tea with great flavor and balance!

I made a big 16oz cup of this last weekend with ice and milk. It was soooo good and tasted just like sweet coconut milk! Yummmmmmm :-D

Yummm, I got me a nice sized bag of this tea this past weekend and I had it hot this go around. Still good but not as an amazing experience that I had the first time with it iced. This will be my summer tea that I will have iced with some milk and german rock sugar….yummm!

This is creamy and smooth; I tried this iced and it was amazing! Tastes like a delicate white tea mixed with coconut milk, very yummy and I will be ordering some soon since summer is right around the corner!

It tastes like pear, but I don’t think I want to drink pear. The taste is weak – you taste pear and then it kind of wimps out, at least for me. Probably because it is rooibos.

One of the least palatable teas I’ve ever tasted. I’m guessing I overbrewed this, so I will try it iced. But served hot, the tea is too acidic, very bitter, and has a terrible aftertaste. I’m pretty disappointed with the Art of Tea sampler I picked up on Steepster.

I didn’t steep this cup as long as I did last time. I tasted mostly the caramel and not as much juicy pear, which was upsetting.

However, I love this so much that I ordered a full tin for myself!

My new stressful-yet-awesome job plus the arrival of dreaded finals have kept me off of Steepster for a while. But today, something happened that both revived my faith in humankind and provided me with a delicious bubble of happiness in my stomach – my long-awaited package from Takgoti arrived! If you didn’t already know, Takgoti pwns at life. If you don’t believe me, look at how she packaged this tea and look at what she included in the box besides wonderful tea. http://www.flickr.com/photos/47736372@N04/4555495137/ Yes, that is some kind of wedding invitation-esque stationary with the list of teas, steeping instructions, and personal comments. She also included a note bearing good wishes to me and apologies for not sending the package out sooner. No worries, Takgoti! I should be the one apologizing! Your packaging puts mine to shame!

Within the awesome package were little individual awesome packages full of awesome tea. It was like a Babushka doll of awesomeness, if you will (and I will). She made sure that the tea reached me in absolutely perfect condition. http://www.flickr.com/photos/47736372@N04/4556121460/ I normally just put tea in plastic baggies (if I don’t have any empty tins laying around) and send them off, hoping for the best. Takgoti used freaking Gladware.

Finally, on to the tea – the lovely, lovely tea. http://www.flickr.com/photos/47736372@N04/4555488735/ The dry rooibos smelled like cherries, pears, honey, and maybe a little bit of candied almonds. After steeping, it smelled like nothing more than pure caramelized pear goodness. Those of you who know me know that I’m not fond of rooibos. I’ve had only a few blends that can cover up the tobacco yuckiness adequately enough for my own tastes. Let me tell you guys, this is the best rooibos I’ve ever had. It is one of the best teas/tisanes I’ve ever had. Period.

I have searched far and wide for a good pear-flavored tea. Adagio’s White Pear left me (almost literally) vomiting and weeping with disappointment at the same time. My search is over now. This tastes so much like those Juicy Pear Jelly Belly beans. Which, if you didn’t know, taste exactly like pears. There is caramel in here, too, which is another favorite flavor of mine. This was so worth the wait.

Thank you Takgoti! I think I can die happy now.

I got this in a Dessert Sampler pack from Art of Tea, and I have come to the conclusion that it’s a quick second to the Caramelized Pear (definitely the best of all the ones in the set). If you’re going to have a snack with it, pick up some Ginger Cookie Thins from Trader Joe’s. It really brings out the flavor of the white chocolate pieces in the tea. This tea seems to be missing something crucial— like a spice to really bring out the flavor. Without it it seems sweetly bland, like a lower-end rooibos with a touch of honey or something.

The citrus is really distant, even though this has hibiscus and black currant in it. What is a plus is that it’s smooth and full. All in all, it’s a nice base tea, but really needs to be paired with something.

Having a glass of this that I brewed last night for the chill box.

OK… this is going to sound a little strange, perhaps, but, when I smell this tea, I am immediately reminded of the seedy flesh of a fig. A fresh fig. It honestly brings me back to the days when I was young, living on a farm and picking fresh figs and eating them straight off the tree – still warm, right in the farm’s orchard. I don’t know that it tastes like that… exactly… but the scent and initial taste really transported me to those memories.

Of course, this tea is not supposed to remind me of figs… but melon and jasmine and white tea. And I suppose if I break away from those memories and focus on it… I can taste the melon and the white tea … even a faint note of jasmine …

It is very good, refreshing… and cooling (especially after drinking that spicy chai!)

This is going to be the next tea that I chill for iced tea – but I thought I’d try it again as a hot tea since it’s been a while.

I wish that the jasmine was a little stronger, but, overall, I do like the flavor of this tea.

My order from Art of Tea arrived yesterday (which includes last week’s “Steepster Select” offer of the tasting set – haven’t used it yet, and I’m thinking I might save it and give it as a gift to someone, although haven’t decided on that either). I also ordered two teas at the same time, and this is one of them.

The dry leaf smells very strongly of melon (delicious), in fact, it’s like I just cut through a ripe cantaloupe! I must admit, though, to some disappointment that I cannot smell the jasmine. The brewed tea possesses a much softer fragrance, although hints of melon are still present.

The melon flavor is much softer than the aroma of the dry leaf lead me to believe. I mostly taste white tea, it is quite delicate in taste (as most white teas tend to be), fresh tasting, pleasant. I can taste the melon but, it is also quite delicate – which I suppose is probably good because I don’t know how I’d feel if the flavoring overwhelmed the white tea. The jasmine is also making its appearance on the palate. The two flavors – jasmine and melon – creates a very intriguing flavor combination, but I like it.

Art of Tea promotes this as a good tea for iced tea… although I am not completely convinced, as the flavor is quite delicate. I shall have to see whether the flavor develops or mutes as the cup cools.

I don’t think so.

I wanted some snacky tea that I could “munch” on, as it were, while doing some pretty hefty reading, and I thought something chocolatey would be nice so I brewed this up, trying to go for a nice strong chocolate minty flavor. What I got instead was very strong rooibos and apple. It was…not very good. I was getting almost no mint some vanilla and next to no chocolate, which are, after all, the signature flavors of this tea.

Yeah, I don’t really mind the flavor of rooibos, and generally I am open to apple as well, but that wasn’t what I wanted from the tea just now. So…fail! I have reiterate that in terms of blend, this just isn’t as impressive as the other dessert teas I tried in my Art of Tea sampler. Rating go down!

Well, my belly was feeling a little iffy (this may be a common theme in my tea notes, my belly hates me and tries to stage a coup for control of my body at least three times a week) so I was thinking of grabbing the Moroccan Mint from Golden Moon, but then I noticed that this had mint in it and I was like, close enough!

So when I smelled the tea leaves, I was really encouraged, it totally smelled like mint and chocolate – I, in fact, specially went out and got some chocolate covered pretzels today to make sure that I remember what chocolate tastes like (i suspect that is what angered my belly), so I am pretty confident about it this time. Anyway, I was pretty optimistic since this tea actually smelled like what it said it was.

I let it steep for five minutes, poured myself a cup (the bamboo strainer that comes with this set comes very handy for catching stray rooibos!), leaned down to smell it and got…sauerkraut.

Note to self: either move slow cooker away from teapot or move teapot away from slow cooker.

Ok, so when I actually smelled the TEA instead of DINNER, I got…not much actually, a light feeling of chocolate and maybe some mint. This seems, at least from my initial impression, to be the most subdued of the dessert teas, with the rooibos actually noticeable from the beginning. The mint is also obvious, and the chocolate…is there definitely, especially in the light sweetness and the aftertaste. There MIGHT be vanilla there somewhere. I think. Sometimes I sense it underneath the mint, and sometimes in the aftertaste with the chocolate. The rooibos is definitely dominant here followed by mint. To tell the truth, after the caramelized pear its almost a relief. And the predominance of the mint means that my belly is being pacified, so that’s good. And it’s not like the tea is BAD, it just doesn’t seem to have quite the same amazing…totality of flavor that the other teas have. It just tastes like a blended rooibos.

So, I’ve tried all four teas in the sampler, and right now Caramelized Pear is in first place, followed by Chocolate Monkey (even thought it’s weird), followed by the Vanilla Berry Truffle, and then this. I’m sorry Velvet Tea! Please don’t feel bad…you were just up against some really tough competition!

Ah, I’d forgotten how lovely this tastes. As usual, absence made the heart grow fonder.