Savoy Tea Co

Chocolate candy for breakfast this morning.

This one isn’t on the Savoy website any longer. It’s just one ingredient away (no chocolate chips) from their Chocolate Cream Truffle. It would stand to reason the Savoy folks streamlined it from their product line since the two are so similar.

Enough chitchat. What does this taste like? A Russell Stover chocolate coconut candy, heavy emphasis on the coconut. Sweet, thick, heavy on the tongue.

A little pricey for this cheapskate ($2.50 for a half ounce sample) but it is tasty.

All of us have a unique, nobody-knows-but-me set of criteria for choosing tea. With me, it’s either mood or level of awake (or lack thereof).

Every note I have written for this one is attached to crinkled, crumpled nerves. Local flooding made the Weather Channel, turned Turkey Creek into Turkey Rapids as close as the other side of the street, and kept me on “clench” all day. (I was also a little cheesed with the wannabe videographers who kept blocking the only safe access point out of my neighborhood with their vehicles simply to get a good shot. It doesn’t have to go on Facebook, folks; I have to get up the hill.)

So a cup of gentle orange and almond with a little vanilla-ness was a much needed soother this afternoon. I made sure to include a big hunk of orange peel and a peppercorn. Sometimes you just need to stack the deck in your favor.

Flipping back through recent notes on this one, it seems to be the subconscious go-to for moments of mild creative frustration: in this case, it was losing a wrestling match with a Cricut mat that is losing its sticky (those of you who know how expensive those confounded mats are understand the need to beat them into submission until they’ve lost their last iota of tackiness).

At any rate, this lovely orange-almond green is perfect for an afternoon, slightly sweet, easy to steep. One I will chase down next trip to Arkansas.

Be amazed: we did a frivolous and delicious autumn run to NW Arkansas yesterday (primarily Eureka Springs for those of you familiar with the geography), stopped at Savoy on the way home, and I restrained myself to two small packets of tea. This was one of ’em, because I know of no other source for a similar orangey, almondy, cookie-y green tea. This is gooood!

I associate green tea with focus and clarity; need lots. The closest I come these days to algebra and geometry is figuring out the composition of a teacher resource pack: you get X units of Y kind of paper (three different weights) and you have to leave Z units unbespoken for required items, so what’s left is like trying to fit 9 shoes in 4 shoeboxes without the lid coming off….oh, my hurtin’ head….

The name of this one conjures up images of neither mist nor meadow. I don’t think any of the ingredients even grow in a meadow, unless it’s a safflower, maybe.

Vocabulary and imagery differences aside, this is still mightily tasty. Orange and almond sweetness; not a tart nor a pucker to be found. (I splurged and made sure a dried orange slice made it into my measuring spoon tonight. Hey, it’s been a rough week. I needed a little perk.)

“Misty Meadows” sounds so much more refined than “green tea with almond and orange.” But orange and almond it is, and an excellent blend at that.

Almonds have this pesky habit of going bitter in a black tea. With the lighter temp and steep time required for green tea, the flavor is just perfect. Not sure the peppercorns are kicking in much kick, maybe a little uptick at the end of each sip.

Enjoying this on a morning when a quick wake-up isn’t necessary, but it’s definitely not a hurry-up morning tea. Much better for afternoons or “prevenings” when you have time to rock and relax.

Score another one for Savoy’s pleasantly-flavored green teas.

This is a decent, lightweight IB. This is not the tea to drink at 6 a.m. when it’s the only cup you’re going to get all day because your workday is screamingly nonstop from the moment you walk in and then when you get off you have to run screaming in another direction to take an elderly father to the E.R.

Thank you for indulging me in a bit of self-pity :) Surely there is hot water around here somewhere. I have a bag of Twinings on me….

Ever notice you’re getting fond of a tea precisely at the time the packet is getting distressingly thin and you can’t find it any more?

This is a cheerful, smooth, and bumble-friendly breakfast tea—not heavy work-boots stout; more like a sturdy pair of sneakers to help you stride out the door.

Brrr! First cold snap. We tried to tough it out and forego turning the heat on last night; hubby woke up with a cold looking at he’d been hit by a truck, and my joints were screamingly painful. So WARM trumped any other tea quality this morning.

This is a decent morning cup that takes absentminded steeping well. Smooth, not sharp.

This is better with a longer steep. Easily more than five minutes this morning (was trudging more slowly than usual), and it is much deeper, juicier, with a hint of slightly overdone caramel toast at the back. It grows on ya.

Which is worse: a week with no time to drink tea, or a week so nuts you’ve been drinking it all along and failed to enjoy it? It’s falling somewhat toward the latter here.

So, in keeping with the “brainless” theme, picked a morning cuppa that apparently needs no thought whatsoever. This is good, but awfully mild for an Irish breakfast; just a half-tone shy of a Ceylon, a trifle less sharp than that. Takes long steeps with no problem; I may have to double up on leaf and time and see what happens with the rest of the packet.

This morning, I’m picking up some nice fruity tones along with the malt. If I were consistent enough to be consistent with numeric ratings, I’d bump it up a few numbers closer to the green smile.

Can’t find this one on the website to provide a description or picture; no surprise, as it was in a clearance bin at this nice little shop in NW Arkansas.

I wish there were an aftershave with the scent of the dry leaves—dark and peaty and malty. Then I wish I could get my spouse to wear it…but he probably wouldn’t like me sniffing him all over :)

Steeped as prescribed at 5 minutes, the flavor isn’t as representative of the smell as I had hoped, but it’s still a fair breakfast tea, leaning to the strongish side of Assam. Not a thriller, but not a disappointment.

Going to propose the theory that the folks at Savoy do much better at blends and flavored teas then they do straight-up stuff.

I like to shop at The Savoy Tea Co, taking advantage of their sample jars to choose teas by scent. This one smelled really good—like roses and strawberries. I brought it home and cold brewed it, putting the standard measure in a mason jar of cold water and leaving it in the fridge for 24 hours.

With the summer heating up, I’ve been doing a lot of cold brewing. I never much cared for sun tea—it always tastes rancid to me after moldering in the heat for a few hours— whereas cold brewed tea diffuses nicely and the flavors stay clean and fresh. This time of year I keep three mason jars of cold brews in my fridge, tisane or fruit water, black or green tea, and coffee, all cold brewed and ready to drink at a moment’s notice.

So today, the selection of tea was none other than Love Song. It tasted pretty much like it smelled, like Strawberries and Roses. There was a hint of the background tea but nothing bitter or astringent—It actually had a very smooth mouth feel. I didn‘t add any cream or sugar but didn‘t miss them either, it was quite good. In fact, I decided to have a second cup.

Mmmmm Strawberries and roses…Perhaps a little overbalanced on the strawberry side. I reflected that this could do with more rose flavor, just to make it fair. Shortly afterwards, I felt like a numbskull when I consulted the package and learned that there were no strawberries at all. Ah well, I‘ve heard roses and strawberries are related. It is also possible I was fooled by the passion fruit and apple flavoring. Or maybe I was just having olfactory hallucinations.

Either way, I like this tea and look forward to brewing up some more soon. It’s a nice refreshing drink for a summer day.

One of those mornings where about two sips of hot tea are all you get to before the outdoor temps make hot anything unnecessary—so this was a good morning choice. The ginseng gets stronger as it cools, which is OK by me—I don’t like ginseng hot, but cold or iced it hits the spot. would like to get some more of this.

I have really been digging this one—light, almost citrusy green flavor with the kick of a good British breakfast tea.

The only downside is the steep time—just two minutes. Which means it can’t be left unattended while one schleps around the house in morning routine mode. Funny how something that piddly can make your groove un-groovy.

All the same, I want more next time I’m at Savoy; I’ll just save it for the mornings when the minutes don’t matter as much.

Equally nice iced when you double up on the leaf. Crisp. If I didn’t know what was in it, I’d tag it as good, plain green tea.

This green tea blend with a mate’ kick is very refreshing on a hot summer morning, and as mentioned previously, you don’t notice the ginseng flavor much. Would try some cold, but I keep drinking it up before any makes it to the fridge. Larger purchase predicted. Oh, shoot—that means a trip back to the tea shop. What a tragedy :)

Curiosity prompted the purchase of this sample rather than taste preferences; ginseng is traditionally too “rooty” to be very pleasant.

It’s a pleasure to be mistaken in this case—this is a nifty little combo with enough green tea to counteract the ginseng bark-i-ness. Just tastes fresh. The mate’ is doing something in the bass line as well, though I’m at a loss for an accurate flavor adjective.

At any rate, nicely done and a good eyes-open tea for those of you who really don’t like the dark, deep, builders’ blends.

I always approach floral teas cautiously; I’m not a perfume-y person and so many of them taste like cheap cologne (sorry, flower lovers). But this, a tastelet from a work friend who ran to our favorite little shop in NW Arkansas, is nothing to be afraid of.

The flavors run as advertised. Black tea—mild; lavender—plenty; jasmine—mild to minor, but that’s OK by me; natural flavors—I’m catching some vanilla behind it all.

One for milk and sugar and china cups and big hats and feather boas and stuffed animals.

If you haven’t, today you might say a prayer for the little girls in Moore, Oklahoma, who are without a “lovey” to hug. When I think where we were—physically and emotionally—24 hours post-storm, my heart hurts for those families.

I have a kind of fascination with the idea of matching rooibos up with different flavors. It’s as if I’m watching a favorite bachelor dating various women and laying bets as to which one he’ll marry. This combination looked interesting so I decided to give it a try.

It smelled good during it’s five minute steep, though my big sis’s observation that rooibos tends to crumble into tiny fragments and find it’s way out of the tea strainer and into the cup was sadly evident. I really ought to pour this stuff through a coffee filter but I’m too lazy. Oh well, ce la vie…

This blend is rather nice, actually. The lavender goes well with the rooibos and the additional coconut flavor rounds it out and gives it a little something. There’s a hint of caramelized flavor as well, as if the coconut were toasted. I’m pretty sure this one would be lovely with cream or coconut milk and sugar, but it stands alone quite nicely. I’ll look forward to more of this in the future.

But next time I brew this, I’ll be using a darn coffee filter.

Posted an hour ago on FB, sharing here for your amusement:

Career tip: I strongly advise against taking up cat juggling, particularly after the age of 40. You’ll likely end up sitting woefully balancing a bag of frozen chicken noodles on your sprained foot and picking sawdust out of your backside.

I’ll leave the highly unglamorous details to your imagination. A tango it wasn’t.

Pride is bruised as much as the tootsie. I needed something sweet to make it all better. Cocoa with orange, bag in.