Della Terra Teas

I seriously stood in front of my tea stash area for 15 minutes trying to pick out a tea. My steepster cupboard says I have like 150+ teas, so you think I could easily find something to drink. Sigh.

I wanted something spicy, but not too spicy, and something I’ve had before. I was almost going to go with a few other spicey teas, but I feel too lazy to add milk and sugar to my tea, so it had to be sweet on its own.

Found this tea and yum! Very good! I like the cinnamon, sweetness and cookieness of this tea. It’s like snuggling in fall with a blanket and eating warm cookies.
Man… does southern california ever get fall? It was 30c yesterday!

Woot a Della Terra Teas order! OOH YEAH! So much fun looking teas!

I thought I’d share my fav oatmeal cookie recipe http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Oatmeal-Raisin-Toffee-Cookies/Detail.aspx

DRY: Ultra spicy cinnamon smell! WHoa! Lots of raisins and bits of oatmeal.
Weird oatmeal isn’t inthe ingredients list.

STEEPED: MMmmm smells just like an oatmeal cookie! Good amount of cinnamon, buttery, sweet! Light brown colour.

TASTE: Cinnamony spicey hitting the tongue, buttery, brown sugar. Raisin is slightly present but not too strong.
Sweetened, the flavors aren’t as strong, but sweet. I prefer the unsweetened version, but might be interesting sweetened with brown sugar crystals instead.

COMMENTS: Very good and unique! I’m impressed how close to cookie this tea is! I totally recommend giving this tea a shot, I’m going to enjoy each cup!

Lemon-y goodness, yum!

I picked this as another thing to try from Della Terra recently. Rooibos & Honeybush blends can be very “iffy” but I do tend to like lemon flavored things.

I steeped this for around 5 minutes and added soymilk, perhaps I am weird but I drink practically all my rooibos and honeybush tisanes this way. This really reminds me of a lemon bar, it’s slightly sweet, lemony and tart and with a nice “creamy” quality which is certainly helped along by the soymilk. I’m actually puckering up a bit… ha ha

This is good, I’m enjoying it! It’s better than I thought it would be and will probably help me kill some after lunch/dinner dessert cravings. Another nice offering from Della Terra.

Tea of the morning here…
well why not have oatmeal cookies for breakfast?

see previous notes for more information

MMmMm… this is yummy

I smell a lot of cookie flavor, like cinnamon, when I open the bag. I also get a lot of vanilla and brown sugar here. The raisin flavor is slightly subdued, but present. I wasn’t expecting to like this much but it is good. Definitely on the sweet side and perfect with a splash of soymilk. I like it!

Hmm. I forgot about this and had it steeping for around 2 hours with evidently not too much negative effect. :)

Done with this package, I really liked this rooibos…. strong and gingery! See previous notes for more details.

This is a great evening time tisane… it was very good after I went to the movies tonight and then had a huge bowl of vegetarian ramen. Just the right amount of ginger but not overwhelming. I really love this with some soymilk. :)

This is part of a recent order from Della Terra, my new source for dessert teas. :)

I only got 1 oz. of this but I wish I had gotten more! I like ginger a lot and I let this steep for over 5 minutes (can’t remember exactly how long). It is pretty strong on the ginger side but also sweet and fruity. I might try to use slightly less tea next time because it came out very strong… I like it though! This would be great as a latte, I drank mine with soymilk. yum!

Oh my goodness!

I love coconut and this smells really good… and yes I see a bunch of coconut flakes in the package. After reading Nicole’s note I was a little bummed, but was hoping that I would like this more than she did.

I agree the color is a bit light with this tea and I’m not getting a ton of “tea” flavor from the black tea but with a bit of soymilk and turbinado sugar this is a nice after lunch/dessert sort of drink. Plain, it leaves something to be desired. I may try mixing this with some straight black tea to see what happens. Overall, okay but not one of my favorites from the company so far.

I can’t recall who I received this samples from…maybe Azzrian I’m sorry i forgot but i totally appreciate it!!

I’m going to have to go with the others on this one. The scent of the tea is amaaaazing. However, after steeping it, I am underwhelmed. The cinnamon flavour goes away….and it’s a very blah apple type flavour. Not one I’d opt for unless the blend gets tweaked. The grandma’s pumpkin tea i had earlier tonight was much better.

I think I’m finally getting tired of this blend, it appears 2oz is a bit much for me to drink my way through before I am done with drinking a blend from della terra. However, this is a nice blend and is one of my happy teas from della terra, given that I don’t love a lot of them. They’re decent average teas though, with this one being one of my higher rated teas :)

so nice to be back with all my tea. Even if it is a little overwhelming. PIcked thie one out this morning since once the weather warms up, I can see myself wanting other flavours. Pumpkin and Chai’s tend to be winter teas for me.

I’m still enjoying this one quite a bit, though I’ll take a break from it once my 2oz’s are gone.

Mobile phone sucks for tasting notes. Had this while out with my better half.

Het his tonight with our Christmas get together with friends. We do it every year with everyone bringing something and our friends taking care of the turkey and (roast or ham). For this year I attempted a guiness chocolate cake with cream cheese caramel matcha icing….and yes that is as delicious as it sounds. The cake isn’t overly sweet and has a really nice dark taste to it, which complements the icing nicely. Adding the caramel matcha to it was sheer genius on the part of my better half and everyone loved it. I brought the extra icing in a container and it was going on to all the other desserts lol

But I digress…this tea was perfect for sipping on me while everyone around me had their drinks and cheer. I’m still sick so I got to relax from my corner while drinking my tea and enjoying being in everyone’s company. It was wonderful.

Even slightly cold this tea is pretty darn good. I picked up 2oz of it when it was on sale and that should about do me for the next while. Apparently this fall/winter was the year of trying out pumpkin teas. Prior to this i pretty much refused all things pumpkin. Yay for samplers that let me try this first!

This might be my favorite Della terra tea at the moment…. Really nice fall tea for those colder evenings. Enjoying this one tonight while I relax. Rally exhausted from the gym today, think I may be fighting getting sick.

I have to say this might be ones of my favourite teas from Della Terra. I would definately call this a fall tea. I don’t really taste the pumpkin, which is fine by me since i’m really not a fan of pumpkin. This is however a really nice spiced tea.

Edit: Also thanks to the magic person who gave me this sample…i think? it was Azzrian but i’m honestly totally not sure.

The ingredients on this one seem a little perplexing, so I got a sample size only in my Try Me pack. I mean, a green walnut tea I can get behind, but with coconut and pineapple?! Uhh it sounds good, but very tropical and not at all like walnut brittle or reminiscent of English forests as the description claims. So I ordered this with skepticism, hoping for the best but expecting something… weird. Holy cow, I was wrong! I opened up the bag and the dry leaves smell like walnut candy. No tropical scent to be found, though there’s a good bit of coconut and pineapple in my sample. Curious!

There was one huuuge walnut in my bag, but I broke it up into little pieces just to evenly distribute the nutty goodness. The whole time I was preparing this tea (cooling the water, adding the leaves to the teapot, brewing it, etc) I was blown away by the smell. I want to eat these leaves, it’s just SO good! And the flavor… it’s even better. I honestly think some kind of magic must have gone into this tea, it is so very much walnut candy in a cup. Rich, buttery walnut! I think the green tea was a really good choice, it adds a flowery lightness and a buttery quality without overpowering the walnut: I think as a black tea this would be very different and not nearly as good.

Now, about the pineapple and coconut… I can’t taste them! Well, not as individual elements. There’s an almost-fruitiness, a creaminess possibly from the coconut, and a honey-sweetness I suppose is also coming from them. But damn, I would never in a million years guess the ingredients here! The more I drink, the more I am so in love with this. It really has almost cake-y notes, a strong vanilla taste and it really is like a baked cake with walnut brittle on top. Like… a vanilla cupcake, with a creamy frosting and then sprinkled with walnut brittle! It might seem crazy but I swear it is JUST what this tea tastes like. It’s so addictive, I am already on my second cup and think I can get 3 brews out of these leaves easy.

Thankfully my sample has enough for about 3 goes, but I know I need more of this in my life. It is SO good, I really want to try it iced now! Or make ice cream out of it… or buttercream frosting. Real, 6 stick of butter style buttercream, not wussy 1-stick frosting with tons of powdered sugar. Oh god the idea of baking with this tea is making my mouth water… if you are wondering what teas to start with from Della Terra (since they have a huge selection!) I would say this and Mother of Pearl: both are very, very special teas that I must always have on hand!

While Della Terra has a lot of really unique and tasty dessert teas, I’ve found that I really adore their fruity blends the best. Their Mother of Pearl is SO amazing, I could drink it all the damn time and be happy. So of course in my second order I had to pick up an ounce of this, since it’s gotten such good reviews and I do love mango. I’ve also learned recently that I like peach teas as well, when they’re done right.

I cold brewed this overnight in the fridge, and wow! Not Mother of Pearl wow, but still really really tasty. The peach is the most prominent flavor to me, with mango coming in at the end of the sip. The peach isn’t overpowering though, and you can also taste the base and a bit of the floral taste from the rose petals. Iced it is just perfect, so fruity and juicy! I love when fruit teas do taste like they have some juice squeezed in, it amazes me that flavoring can have this effect yet it does. Mmm! Definitely a winner, and I think I’ll need to have this an MoP in my cupboard at all times. Maybe I’ll even mix them together…

In between some work and wanted to make a quick note on this one.
I have to first state I have been so sick of honeybush and red rooibos for ages now HOWEVER I really would like to get a decent nights sleep (not gonna happen) and I only have a little more work to do before I can attempt that. Caffeine does not tend to keep me awake – its ME that does – my mind does not slow down. Regardless I figure I may just not tempt fate tonight. Besides I really did want to try this.

So … its quite lovely. Taste like creamy smooth lemon! It also tastes like honeybush though. Its not that I do not like honeybush its just that I don’t really care for the way it tends to change the flavors that I keep wanting to have in a black, or green, or white, etc…

Della Terra does 95% of their teas to perfection and those that are not perfection they re-blend until they are. I totally respect that.

I would not say there is a thing wrong with this tea and am giving it the rating it deserves even if I am snubbing my nose at honeybush and red rooibos right now.

It just doesn’t get any better than this!
Perfectly blended flavored black.
The description tells you all you really need to know but let me just say I am totally amazed at this blend. THIS is a keeper!
AND a MULTIPLE re=steeper!
Oh yeah I made a rhyme! :) haha

Sipdown of this morning… with all of the new teas I’ve acquired over the last week it’s good to be finishing something off.

Today I noticed if you steep this for 4 minutes, it really helps to bring out the strawberry notes, but then it also has an intense tartness which I’m not sure I like.

I won’t really miss this but would consider getting more if I place another order with Della Terra. See previous notes for more details.

okay, I am finishing this sample up today and I really like it – I upped the score a bit and put it on my shopping list. Because of course I need MORE tea! :-D

This is another tea from the chocolate sampler pack and it’s a little early for dessert tea but I wanted some anyway… :)

I steeped this for over 5 minutes, honestly I just lost track of time. Co-workers have commented on how good this tea smells! I took a sip and then added some soymilk and liked it better that way. I am getting lots of strawberry, a slight tartness, but not as much chocolate. Still, this is very tasty and I normally I am not too impressed with chocolate teas. Definitely worth checking out.