Stash Tea
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My friend who met me at the tea exchange recommended that I gave this one a try. It was the second cup for the afternoon and it was fairly good. I liked that there were gentle peppermint with chocolate notes. While my taste for Christmas-y teas has gone, I enjoyed this cup.
Flavors: Chocolate, Peppermint
I was away for the weekend and tea options were limited so I opted for this one on Sunday morning.
It’s very mild, to the point that it’s really difficult to actually describe.
I added a little soy milk and sugar and it was good, smooth and agreeable.
Reminds me of something that would be a staple in someones cupboard who didn’t like a lot going on in their tea.
It’s just simple and pleasant (nothing fancy) and sometimes that’s the safest bet.
Flavors: Smooth, Tea
February 2024 Steepster Sipdown Challenge — Your cheapest tea
2/11/24 Sunday – I tend to not discriminate and buy all kinds of tea. After all, Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice is one of my boyfriend’s favorites. Was trying to find some easy options for the weekend in my stash and found this unopened box. I’m always work at a hotel, but working the front desk on the weekend is not the same as my office job on the weekdays. Also, it was a nice play with the name of the tea with Chinese New Year this weekend.
I brewed three teabags in a large DT to go tumbler (using the hot water in the lobby!) and it was honestly very pleasant to sip on, enjoyed the spices (I’m a fan of ginger, and not sure if cinnamon and clove were distinct) and the fact the rooibos gave it a base as I was sipping it towards the end of my evening shift and didn’t want caffeine to keep me up.
I was ready to now love this tea bag, but it actually ended up being pretty solid. Mostly because of the peach notes because wow those were some intense and juicy peach notes! Like, juicy in the sense that it did taste a lot like I was drinking actual peach juice. The ginger added a soft earthiness, and a bit of back end heat. It was weird because I think I’d have enjoyed this tea just as much if it were solely peach but I did feel like the ginger did TECHNICALLY create more balance. Just the peach would have been very sweet and maybe a little cloying. The matcha dusting and green tea base weren’t entirely eclipsed but they definitely took the backseat here…
But yeah, peach loves don’t sleep on this one!
Had this last night and it was pretty good, but was it acai!? Definitely an intense berry flavour with a lot of top note tang and tartness from the hibiscus, but I don’t feel like it specifically said acai to me. More generic (though tasty) mixed berry. Maybe a blueberry and raspberry cross, if I had to name something?
I don’t really ever think of making iced tea with teabags, but this is maybe one teabag option that would be pretty good chilled…
Evening cuppa from a few night ago! I’m normally not really into chamomile, but I actually enjoyed this quite a lot. I think that’s largely because the cinnamon and apple flavours are both pretty potent and they mask the chamomile base almost entirely. That’s probably a con for some, but it’s a big pro in my books. I also like that the cinnamon and apple are fairly well balanced. I guess I’d say the cinnamon is stronger, but only by a hair.
Homemade Advent Calendar from Arby: Day 9
Catching up! This teabag was a victim of the Minor Lavender Sanitizer Spill of 2023, but happily it seems to have sustained no lasting damage.
As soon as I ripped open the bag, I could smell an ingredient/flavoring beyond the standard chai flavors — turns out there’s rum flavoring. It’s an interesting addition, and I’m not opposed!
I’m mostly getting cloves, allspice, and nutmeg in the brewed tea, with a bit of the rum flavoring at the back. The base is a bit weak. I bet it would be nice brewed with milk.
Flavors: Allspice, Clove, Ginger, Rum
This black tea is a little plant-like, but not bad. It’s from a past TTB. It does decently with some sugar and milk. I expect an assam to be bolder, but maybe this batch is old.
I think I expected this to be a little more tart and juicy raspberry, but honestly for a tea bag cut it was still pretty flavourful and definitely evocative of its name. Nothing fancy/high quality, but nothing to turn your nose up at either – especially for the cost and convenience.
I like to believe that there’s a way to make every tea into something you can enjoy, no matter how unimpressed you are when you steep it as directed. Maybe that’s just because I can’t bear to throw away tea when I know that I’ve spent (mumbles) on the collection.
Anyway, I couldn’t get this to a point where I was enjoying it steeped in a mug, so I made the rest of the bags into a concentrated chai syrup with a little sugar. Delicious chai latte this morning! The dominant flavors are still cinnamon and clove, but the ginger did come through a little more clearly, and the milk helps balance those strong spice flavors.
Really good! I had preserved the concentrate that I thought I couldn’t use quickly by pouring it into ice cube trays. I popped out a cube and added it to some fizzy water. Super refreshing and very smooth.
I’m not much of a black tea lover, so most chais are all about the spices for me. And a good chai is such a treat, but this one isn’t quite there. I’ve tried it several ways (different number of tea bags, different amount of water, various temperatures, milk and no milk) but I just can’t seem to draw out more than clove and cinnamon from this one. There’s also not a lot of heat in the spice blend — maybe a little from the ginger, but I agree with the review that mentioned peppercorns: some black pepper would go a long way in this tea.
I’m a little bummed, because it’s not like I expect Stash to be top-shelf tea, but I do feel that I usually get a solid cup from them. I’m not sure I’ll finish this box. Ah well. Some nights were just meant for hot chocolate instead, right?
Preparation
Okay, hear me out: this tea plus pineapple-flavored sparkling water over ice.
I steeped two bags in half a cup of water, then added it to large glass mug with a big handful of ice cubes and most of the can of sparkling water. It was fa-bu-lous. The pineapple flavor from the sparking water rounds out the tart finish of the tea itself by adding a little extra sweetness.
I know a lot of tea enthusiasts aren’t crazy about the hibiscus that’s in so many tart blends. If that’s you and you have some of this tea kicking around… I’m serious: pineapple sparkling water.
Preparation
Does anyone else think the dry teabags smell exactly like Country Time instant lemonade powder? When I was a child, my parents’ church would have coffee and lemonade in the entryway after the service on Sunday mornings, and they used that mix for the lemonade. This took me right back.
You know, some teas give you exactly what they say they will. The citric acid and hibiscus make this a tart, almost mouth-puckering tea, but the lemongrass mellows it out a little and the lemon flavor is there. I’m not amazed by this tea, but I’ll get through the box happily enough.
Preparation
TTB tea. This is my first time trying Stash’s loose leaf collection. I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying this! The cherry and almond combine so smoothly. The black tea base doesn’t show up too much. It actually ends up being quite a light tasting tea, almost as if it didn’t have that black base at all. My partner found the cherry flavor to be too fake, but I didn’t mind.
Review from May 2022
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Yep, that’s a chai! It’s got all the typical spices and a good amount of flavour. As always, I drank this with some vanilla soy milk and a tiny bit of sugar (~1/2 tsp). Nice cinnamon and warm peppery spices but balanced out by the clove and cardamom. Nothing particularly exceptional about this blend, but it is an enjoyable cup. Best with milk to round out the CTC black base, which can be a bit overly tannic and tending towards bitter.
Flavors: Cinnamon, Cloves, Ginger, Spices, Tannic
Preparation
Due to overexposure as a kid on the farm, I have a long-standing aversion to raw cucumbers and canteloupe, simply because they stunk up everything else in the fridge. But thanks to a kind donor (I’m sorry, I don’t know which of you lovely folks shared this), I can at least slightly revise my melon aversion. I fridge-steeped this overnight. The green tea was a nice counterpoint to the authentic melon flavor. Cool and pleasant.
I had an awful headache at work yesterday and I had to survive four research participant scans and associated assessments. I had no access to my tea, but my lovely coworker had this tea and I thought why not? There was a strong fruity smell when I opened the wee foil which did translate to the taste. It was perhaps a lower quality bergamot? The best part really was that I was fully expecting an astringent and/or bitter but the base turned out to be incredibly smooth. I may pick up a box for work!
Preparation
Loved this tea growing up, it must have been one of the first teas I’ve ever had. Just finished a box a bought on a whim a while back, and in order to finish the box I have been using these bags to make crazy delicious lattes. I am quite fortunate to have access to an espresso machine throughout my life, thanks to working in foodservice for almost 15yrs and having a partner in the coffee industry. Espresso machines aren’t too expensive, if you know where to look and are into finding ways to get your latte fix in. The past week or so I’ve been petsitting for a couple who have a really nice Breville machine, and i have been going ham on it every morning, making myself as many tea lattes as I can drink. figured I would use this review to put my recipe.
MiepSteep’s Tea Latte
This recipe is for those who have access to an espresso machine btw
I typically use the smallest filter basket in the portafilter if possible, since you wont need too much tea… relatively. It’s very important to flush out the group head and wash out the portafilter before adding tea to the portafilter basket, so no lingering coffee smells taint the brew. Basically, all I do is rip open 3-4 teabags and empty the contents into the portafilter. No need to use a tamper to squish it down, since the leaves will do some minimal expanding as the shots are pulled. I have also used other types of tea, like rooibos (the messiest), honeybush, CTC, and spices. I’ve also been using T2’s Melbourne and New York Breakfast for lattes this week as well.Have yet to use green tea, maybe I’ll try that this week!
The idea is to make a concentrate. After filling the portafilter basket with leaf fannings or what have you, either pull for twice as long as you would for an espresso shot (around 10-15seconds) or if your machine has a 1shot/2shot button like the Breville does, pull the equivalent of 5 shots into your cup. Steam some milk of choice in there and enjoy! Tastes just like a cookie to me :)
This was back-to-back with some nice Alishan loose leaf, how does a flavored and bagged tea fair?
Quite a strong white peach nose, probably some guava in there, caramelized sugar.
Now, granted my bags are probably expired at this point since they have been sitting around for ages, but this one falls really flat. The cooler it gets, the more I taste a little of the profile. It’s pretty subtle, but I covered that in my previous review. I guess I just thought there might be more flavor with hotter water to start.
Dropped a couple points as I would rather drink this iced or cold-brewed.
Edit: I threw some ice cubes into this one and it’s much better. I think there just isn’t a lot of flavor when it is hot so the little that comes through is available at low temperatures.
Flavors: Peach
Preparation
This bag has no right being as good as it ended up. I cold brewed overnight, using two bags in a 16oz mug, probably 10 hours? I figured it was tossable as these bags are out of date range I’m sure.
The tea ended up a nice peachy gold, and while I’m not pulling a lot of peach flavor out of it on tongue, the smell is definitely there from the flavoring used.
See, when I first read this bag I misunderstood; I thought it was peach white tea, not white peach Oolong tea.
So, in this iteration the flavors are light and bright with a little kiss of fruit sweetness on the finish. Maybe I could have gotten a bit more flavor by starting with warm water (I went with room temp to cold brew) but I also don’t care that much. This turned into a mellow morning refresher with little to no effort on my time. It’s a bit above average, or at least I would much rather drink this than Lipton…
Flavors: Fruity
Preparation
I like to add flavoring syrups and milk to my bagged chamomile tea, and this one works as well for that as any! Plain, it was a bit flatter than some alternatives, but dressed up, it’s decent enough both warm and cold. It definitely didn’t taste high quality or flavorful without the help.
I slipped on the floor at PetSmart today on a catfood run and managed to sprain both my right ankle and right wrist. Not recommended.
Only now realized I hadn’t written a note for this yet, and I’m on the last teabag. I have been looking for a good black licorice tasting herbal, but this isn’t that. That said, I do really like it… It’s strongly sweet licorice root which I know is a polarizing flavor, but I enjoy it. The spice is gentle and the sweetness is nice for an evening sweet fix. I’ll likely grab this again sometime as I like quick and easy herbal teabags in the evening.
Flavors: Licorice, Spices, Sweet
Preparation
Sorry to hear about the injury – sounds so painful. I hope you heal quickly, and in the meantime, be extra good to yourself!
Hope you heal quickly! Have you tried yogi teas Egyptian licorice? Traditional medicinals has a throat coat that is licorice too.
A tea from Advent calendar from Devon and with flavour of my favorite cake, that counts…
But, sadly, it was just robust black tea with little cacao notes and sadly no cherry nor vanilla here.
I don’t even see it on their website? It’s discontinued blend?
Flavors: Cacao, Tannic, Tea