Stash Tea

For my birthday I decided to indulge in two things I love: tea and videogames. Subscribed to WoW and FFXIV for two more months each, and put in a pre-order for KH3. I would have liked to add Code Vein to that list, but sadly it’s been delayed to who-knows-when. Thanks, Namco Bandai. Anyway.

Unlike the white chocolate mocha which was mediocre at best, this is really good. I followed the package’s directions and steeped it for 3 minutes at 175 degrees. It tastes just like honeydew. There’s supposedly guava flavoring in it too, but I’m not picking up on it. All honeydew, all the time. The green base isn’t overly bitter or grassy, and just sort of fades into the background. I could probably drink this every day.

I’m really not of a mind to make iced tea right now, but I imagine this would make for a really nice iced tea come the spring and summer.

Stash’s Moroccan Mint Green is well balanced and pretty smooth. I appreciate that I can taste the green tea – Young Hyson – which I’ve never knowingly drank. I think I got a nutty impression from it. The spearmint and peppermint are both present and mingle appropriately, never overwhelming. The lemongrass is thankfully light and adds just the right amount of citrus touch. Pretty good for a bagged green tea and nice to have after a second Thanksgiving meal.

I was not expecting to like this tea much – I’m not a great fan of herbals, and the description of chocolate was not doing my impression any favors. But I was pleasantly surprised. The chocolate made it feel a bit like black tea in how my mind processed it. Rich flavors, warming, and very enjoyable.

I’m actually pretty impressed with this tea. I like that it has some matcha, and I will probably drink it again.

This is just a note to say that this is not the same as Asian Pear Dragonwell. I talked to some Stash reps on Twitter and they said that the loose leaf version is made with Dragonwell, and Harmony is made with Premium Green tea. They are both wonderful, I am sure.

Growing up, I drank licorice tea all the time. This is my first time trying the version from Stash. I’m happy to report that it tastes like the flavor I love and expect. I do not like licorice mixed with real tea, but as an herbal, it’s so lovely. It’s sweet on its own, it pleasantly coats your mouth, the flavor is strong. I’ll say that I didn’t notice where the “spice” comes in. Maybe the slight warming in the mouth is from a hint of spice… But anyway, it’s been a few years since I’ve had a licorice tea on my shelf, and I’m happy for its return!

I got this from Lexie Aleah as a surprise! I love pear teas, so yay! Though this was packaged as Asian Pear Harmony. I hope they’re the same thing. If not, please correct me and I will make Harmony a page.

Anyway, this is another one that I fell in love with as soon as I smelled the bag. Lovely and realistic pear aroma and flavor. Sort of like the flavor when a pear is soft, about to be overripe. It’s fruity and juicy and brews up to a cat’s eye green. The dragonwell base they used is very mild, mostly hidden under the added flavor. I could see it being wonderful both hot or iced. It’s definitely something to consider when I start thinking about spring teas…

EDIT: I tweeted at Stash to see if Harmony is the same as Dragonwell. We’ll see what they say.

EDIT 2: Stash tweeted back saying “They are similar flavors and both are green teas, but Asian Pear Harmony is bagged tea and Asian Pear Dragonwell is loose leaf.” So… yes? They are the same, it just depends on the packaging?

EDIT 3: I asked Stash if it was just the packaging, and a different rep wrote back that no, they use different green teas as a base. They use Premium Green for the bagged and Dragonwell for the loose leaf one.

I got this from Lexie Aleah! Thanks again!

I have a thing for honeydew melon. Real melon, melon candy, melon boba, you name it. But I haven’t really explored it in tea form until now. (Which is definitely something I’m going to have to correct.) So, I when I opened the packet, I was delighted. It smelled like straight up Bath & Body Works in there.

The tea came out to a bright yellow with the slightest green tint. It smells a bit more like guava than melon, but the melon flavor is very prominent. It’s what I had hoped it would be. Fruity and a little exotic, with a mild green tea base. Not a fall tea in any way, but after all those spiced and heavy black teas, this is very refreshing. The taste really does remind me of Bath & Body Works’s Cucumber Melon, though. I’m having flashbacks to my very early teens at the taste of this. Going to have to get more…

This morning begins my journey into the world of tea. A few years back I visited the Russian River Valley in Sonoma. There I stumbled across a little tea shop called Mr. Trombly’s Tea. I felt like Alice stumbling down a rabbit hole. The teas were absolutely intoxicating. Tea drinking is a experience that I would like to learn more about.

I found a box of Stash Ginger Peach green tea with matcha in my cabinet. While the aroma is lovely, the taste is a bit grassy but still a lovely way to begin the day. Stepping away from Starbucks.

One of my favorite treats with milk and sugar. Definitely tastes like chocolate mixed with something a little tangy and red. If I tasted it without knowing, I don’t think I’d call it red velvet, maybe more like a chocolate berry? I really enjoy this though.

Having a cup of this and it is still amazing.

So I just wanted to make a note to share something I learned today. Apparently The owner of Steven Smith Tea also created Stash tea and Tazo tea as well.

Got this box for $2.50 on sale and couldn’t resist as It’s a new flavor as far as I know. I’m not a fan of the texture of honeydew but love it as a bubble tea flavor. Stash is a local tea company where I live but it’s also really well known across the US.

I tend to add some sweetener to fruity green teas for some reason. Even though I don’t add any to plain. So I added a lil bit of agave. It definitely helped bring out the melon notes. I made this hot but I bet it would be excellent iced as well. I don’t taste any of the Guava that is mentioned but my only reference for Guava is juice. The flavor here has a slight floral quality to it as well.

My boyfriend was given this tea by his buddy at work. I was excited to try it as I LOVE the apple and cinnamon combo. This tea smells sweet like apples and cinnamon. Such a lovely scent. However, I don’t taste much apple or cinnamon as it is overpowered by the taste of hibiscus. Hibiscus is pretty much all I taste actually. This is so not my cup of tea. But it was nice to try!

This tea is great for a sore throat or stuffy nose. I would recommend drinking it in the winter time or iced on summer days. Since it was an herbal infused tea it wasn’t my favorite because I’m partial to black teas and true green teas. All in all a solid tea.

Double bergamot earl grey by stash.

I don’t usually drink bagged teas, but this is really yummy. Zesty like oranges, sweet and all around yummy. If you’re into tea bagged teas, I suggest you give this a go.

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I love this tea. It is hard to describe the flavor because there is nothing quite like it. It has a soothing minty herbal taste with delightful fruity undertones. It is one of my favorites. I haven’t been able to find it lately which is really disappointing because there truly is nothing else like it!

I am on the quest to try ALL the peppermint teas in the world! Or at least try as many as I can get my hands on! It is my FAV tea EVER! This one makes it in the top 3 peppermint teas so far. Another freebie tea with my PC Optimum points!

Summer Vacation! I decided to do another bagged tea revisit. In general these are always such a disappoint, as I continually discover that the grocery store teas I used to be fine with back in the day I just can’t tolerate now that my palate is more sensitive. But I’m always willing to give them a second chance.

I do like Moroccan Mint blends, and this one actually uses Young Hyson Chinese green tea rather than gunpowder green (Moroccan Mint is one of the only times I actually find gunpowder green somewhat tolerable, it definitely isn’t my favorite kind of green) so that already improves it a bit for me. It’s also a mint/spearmint blend and includes a touch of lemongrass, and the last Moroccan Mint blend I tried that included a touch of citrus (it had lemon verbena) really worked for me, so maybe I’ll still like this one as much as I remember I used to? Then again, Stash has not had a very good revisit streak with me… I think I’ve only still liked one Stash tea upon revisit, with all the rest scoring very lowly with me upon revisit. Hmm…

I decided to do this one as one of my quart mason jars of iced tea. Prepared hot brewed first, then left to fully chill overnight before drinking. Call me shocked, it… still holds up! I mean, it’s by no means the most amazing Moroccan Mint tea I’ve had or anything (Steven Smith Teamaker’s full leaf Fez is far nicer), but as far as cheap, bagged tea goes… I can actually drink this and not think to myself, ugh, this tastes nasty, like I usually feel when I’m drinking cheap bagged tea. The spearmint leads as the dominant flavor, and is really refreshing as an iced tea. It’s nicely minty and lingers a bit on the tongue, and I feel I get that slight touch of citrus.

You’ve done okay with this one, Stash.

A Berry Frui-tea July! Decided to have a bagged tea revisted tonight, and a fairly standard one at that… Stash’s Lemon Ginger. I’m six days in on a prolonged migraine attack, and mint and ginger have always been things that are fairly soothing for my migraine nausea. I actually have a special nausea blend that is a mix of both of those things that I’ll sip on when the nausea is at its worst, but this even a lazy ginger herbal sounded fine. I still have some of this, and though it’s old, it appears it isn’t past date yet.

I have had some very nice lemon ginger loose leafs in the past, so I’m imagining based on that this revisit is probably going to be a little more lackluster than I’m remembering… I do recall I used to like this quite a bit in the past. I really dislike the orange variety of this tea by Stash, Sunny Orange Ginger, which I revisited pretty recently and still have pretty recent memories of, so I’m even more hesistant that this will hold up now… but we’ll see. Of course I had to remove it from the paper bag, because paper teabags taste nasty to me.

If I’m honest, this… really doesn’t hold up, because it does remind me of Sunny Orange Ginger. It definitely isn’t as bad as that tea to me, but the same things that bothered me about that Stash flavor are bothering me about this tea now that I’m trying it again. The lemon just tastes too artificial, and the ginger tastes way too strong, to the point it leaves this lingering heat on the back of my tongue after every sip. Between the two I’d take a cup of this any day, because the lemon is definitely a more pleasant sort of artificial lemon taste than that weird orangey taste was in the Sunny Orange Ginger, but… eh. When I can make a cup of my Tulsi Lemon Ginger loose leaf, it’s just hard to imagine finishing all the teabags of this off…