Georgia Tea Company

Thanks to Dexter3657 for this sample!

I’ve been on a new medication that makes me nauseated so I’ve been really boring in my tea drinking, but since this is a rooibos, I thought I’d try it out. All the extra bits in it make it really pretty to look at and it reminds me of Davidstea Alpine Punch. There’s a lot of almond flavor and a nice creamy taste at the end of the sip. I added a bit of sweetener to mine even with the sprinkles.

If I decide to make an order from Georgia Tea Company when this tea is available, I’d likely add it to my cart.

Thaank you ifjuly for sending me a sample of this one.
This is nutty, caramel, sweet dessert rooibos.
It’s fine, it’s nice and flavorful. This is very rooibos, with nice, fun additives. I think it’s good, but it’s very similar to several others in this style that I’ve had before.

Thank you to JennyFur for sharing some of this with me in our swap!

I love Rocky Horror. I love it so much that most years I find an excuse (at least once) to dress up like Magenta and make a fool of myself in costume. This past Hallowe’en I did so, and I’d say 85% of the people I came in contact with looked at me quizzically when I said who I was. Sigh. Ten years ago, most people while out and about would literally jump me to guess who I was dressed as, or would start singing a song from the movie as I walked by.

Thus, I wanted to try this tea. Anything with the same moniker, I’d be sure to love, right?

My first sip was less than pleasant, and I seriously considered dumping it right then and there. Chemical cinnamon spice and something off and sweet assaulted my taste buds. Huh?

Okay, okay. I left it a few more minutes and tried again. There’s a an odd spice in here that I’m struggling to place. It’s also a bit drying and tart, likely from something hibiscus-y. There’s a lot going on in here, and none of it works, in my opinion… I’m just going to leave the rating off this review and say it’s someone else’s cuppa. :)

I was drinking this pretty much all afternoon. It’s a nice, lightly spiced, vaguely pear black tea. I liked it, I enjoyed the time I spent with it, I liked the version from Joy’s Teaspoon much better. This is just generic sort of pear with some spice. I think the spices are nice, it just doesn’t compare to the other version. Thank you so much ifjuly for sending me both to try, and I agree Joy’s Teaspoon all the way.

Have been drinking this for most of the evening, and I’m still undecided on how I feel about it.
I don’t think it’s coconut enough – or maybe there is too much almond, vanilla covering the coconut. I can’t decide.
I’m also getting a bit of an oil slick (ok it’s not that bad – more of an oil film) on top of the tea. That is always a bit of a turn off for me.
I guess this is just ok for me, not really special – but nothing really bad.
Thanks ifjuly for letting me try this one.

For the past 24hrs or so, I’ve had a rough time posting much of anything. So, lots of backlogging to do, and this is one of them.

Had another cup last night, and had a similar experience as before: hot it’s just okay, cold it’s really quite delicious.

From Shadowfall ’s tea sale a while back. Thank you again!

Funny how hot, I got just a hint of chocolate out of this, however cooled it all deep chocolate goodness. Overleafed slightly just because of the odd cup size (12 oz).

Definitely smells like chocolate after brewing, which was intriguing for me. Straight however, it’s just a hot rooibos tea. With some sweetener, I got a bit of chocolate out of it, but only a little bit. A bit drying, too. Made this one in the Breville so that I didn’t mess it up, since I purchased this from Shadowfall and wanted to honor the tea (as well as the seller). Thanks so much for sharing!

Tea #10 from the Here’s Hoping TTB

This is a pretty middle of the road EGC, nothing about it really wowed me. I thought that since there is coconut oil in it it would be something just a little bit different, but sadly I can’t taste it at all. I am able to taste a good dose of vanilla and a fair bit of bergamot, but the black base isn’t very appealing.

This wouldn’t be a tea that I decide to reorder for myself, if only because I’ve had far better EGC, but I did enjoy trying it. I’m out to try every EGC available and am happy to knock one more off my list.

This tea won’t be continuing on, I finished off the last little bit.

Sipdown!! (166)

JennyFur sent this tea my way and I had made it once before however it had gotten cold before I could try a sip. Today, I was able to taste it hot and tbh I was not a fan. I think the key to a great chai is balance and this, despite everything in the mix, tasted like liquid cloves. Usually I enjoy the taste of cloves but this was over-the-top. There was no pumpkin (or really any other flavor) to be found other than cloves and for that reason, this actually went down the drain. Sorry but this was a miss although thank you JennyFur for letting me try it!

Tea #44 from HHTTB2

A rather subdued EG flavor. I was expecting more punchiness from the bergamot. The cream part was played well, a nutty vanilla flavor that was both rich and smooth. Thankfully, I didn’t get much flavor in the way of coconut. I feel that would have been out of place here. I do think that’s where the nutty depth came from in the vanilla, though. Not an exceptional tea, but not bad either. Definitely a middle of the road kind of EGC.

Part of afternoon tea with the husband, had with wedges of chocolate pie. This wasn’t bad and I appreciate the cardamom, but the pear flavor is rather understated. I have a feeling I’d appreciate this more if I hadn’t just had the luxury of trying Fauchon Pear from Dexter3657 with its heady aroma and complex layers. Not bad though, probably better than Della Terra’s but not as tasty to me as Joy’s Teaspoon’s.

This one’s adorable; if you like this kind of thing it’s very cute—little snowflake candies, silver balls, sliced nuts, fruit cubes (looks kind of like apricot to me, reminds me of my favorite cookie recipe ever which includes dried apricots reconstituted in warm brandy then chopped up and added to the batter with pistachios and oatmeal), and what looks like (but isn’t) little square caramels (maybe marzipan?). It has the same strong almond extract/marzipan scent as other Georgia Tea samples I’ve tried have had. It grew on me the more I drank it (made a 3 cup pot)—at first the almond aroma is pretty overwhelming, but as that recedes (or maybe my nose gets used to it) the flavor comes out and it does a good job for a rooibos-based blend at having just enough rooibos flavor to mesh well with the other notes. It’s just a gentle-bodied, warm, sweet, nutty, comforting cup.

Had a cup of this this morning before heading to belated Thanksgiving at the husband’s fam’s house. This Caravan is not playing around. It’s definitely smoky, more in line with the sort of lapsang souchongs we used to drink at Crumpets, the kind of thing that just pervades the entire table with straight up smoke scent. If you love that sort of hardcore, somewhat one note kind of Caravan blend this is a good specimen. Occasionally I still want some of that. But usually I now (having discovered more types) prefer more nuanced and subtle smoke blends. Again though, once in a while this sort of over-the-top straightforwardly musty-smoky kind hits a nostalgia pang of mine.

Also had a few nights ago on the couch (I needed a good laugh so we were rewatching our favorite holiday-centered Seinfeld episodes). So far this has been the only major miss for me (husband too) from the Georgia Tea samples (if you can call them that…I see now the only other note for this tea mentions how honkin’ huge the sample sizes are, ha…more like an ounce) we’ve tried. I don’t get any pumpkin at all, just overwhelming spices whose heat grows as you drink until it feels pretty much practically as spicy as that one ain’t-playin’-around Butiki one (which I love, but expect to be chile-oil-in-a-cup unlike this) but without any balance. It wasn’t totally undrinkable, but it’s too unbalanced in the “hot spice” direction given what you’re expecting. I think I’m going to mix the rest with other tea to try to mute the heat and add some complexity. If that doesn’t work I’ll take the resulting bend and grind it up as a rub for meat and side dishes.

EDIT: Clove! Yes, that’s it. Reading through other reviews of this (it’s apparently likely identical to/relabeled from a Culinary Teas blend with the same name and description), I see Dexter3657 pointed out how overwhelmingly clove-y it was. Yes. And clove is one of those spices where just a smidge too much can ruin things. (I know firsthand—there’s a special Rochester-style “hot sauce” recipe, a regionalism in that it’s not hot sauce as one thinks of it, the bottled kind, but instead a loose warmly spiced ground beef mixture similar to Greek-style Cincinnati chili that’s used to top the local “split and charred white hots” hot dogs and thin-pattied, caramelized onion-focused burgers…my family makes a version of it in vat-sized amounts to freeze and the secret ingredient that defines it is the clove but one time I put a pinch too much in and it 100% ruined the entire huge batch!) That’s the weird off-putting kind of metallic heat source in this. A-ha!

Had this a few nights ago, the first of the Georgia Tea samples we broke into. Was pleasantly surprised and relieved that this is definitely cooked apple flavor, not the tart juicy fresh kind I for some reason dislike so much in tea. There’s the to-be-expected baking spice profile too, augmented with almond but without overwhelming the fruit. And it may be my favorite Georgia Tea so far, funny enough (have only tried about 5 of them, but). Husband loved it too. The raisins add a juicy cooked/stewed sweet fruit quality.

Husband was sweet enough to watch Upstream Color last night with me ‘cause I watched it the night before alone and loved it so much I wanted someone to talk to about it with, ha—and this was after dragging him to the second Hunger Games movie earlier the same day!! Anyway, we drank a pot of this on the couch during it. He loved it, had the good ol’ involuntary “Mmmmm!” commercial-type reaction to the first sip, haha. The coconut gives it a creamy mouthfeel similar to the many beloved coconut oolongs I’ve collected, and there’s a definite amaretto-y almond extract-y flavor as well. Nice without being too complicated, and resteeps like a champ. I must say, my foray into sampling Georgia Tea Company’s many flavored blends has been pleasant so far and I’m really wowed by how huge the samples are and how promptly my package arrived. I love when sales/promotions make trying someone completely out of nowhere feasible and it works out well.

I’ve had such a great holiday week—tons of quality time with the husband, finally got around to trying a bunch of the new spots that have popped up around town pleased to discover they’re all great, watched movies both obscure and zeitgeist-y (I enjoy when we can, makes me feel “like a real person”, hard to explain but I love those rare moments when I feel “normal” and connected to pop culture in a good way), slept in, cuddled, ate delicious food both in and out (the winner this year was waffles made out of leftover stuffing, coated in leftover gravy…YUM!) including swapping holiday plates with the upstairs neighbors (they’ve got a pro baker friend so they gave us some of her three-tiered cookie crust banana pudding cake and I tell you, my eyes rolled back and I did not want to share!), met that cat’s owner finally (she leaves for Ohio with her Sunday morning), all that good stuff. That said, I can’t wait to get back to my regularly scheduled programming/life after Monday for a bit, so I can log teas and chat on Steepster like usual. I’ve tried a bunch of teas this weekend but haven’t had time to log them, and it’s kind of ehhh timing considering many are from the awesome swap Dexter3657 kindly initiated a couple weeks ago. Can’t wait. Until then, just want to say I miss you guys!

Tea #11 from Another TTB

Meh, another fall-spice tea let down. Rocky Horror spice. Where is the spice? Tim Curry would not approve.

This is a new tea for me (although I’ve had it on the shelf for 4-5 months). For some reason, this afternoon I felt like a flavored green. The aroma is fantastic and the taste was exactly what I was seeking – strong and solid but not too overpowering. Delicious with out sugar and good for two flavorful steeps.

I’ve been in a bit of a green tea mood lately, so much so that I’ve managed to run through an entire ounce of gyokuro in three days. Georgia Tea Co. suggested using “close to boiling water,” I felt that was way to hot so went with 175, which is the lowest temperature my hot water pot allows. I still think that is still hotter than I should be using, my first few cups were a bit on the astringent side, but still drinkable. Once I lowered the temperature again I was rewarded with the subtly sweet, yet vegetal flavor that I was expecting.

I should probably warn you, this tea left me craving sushi, or at the very least Chinese takeout.