TeaMaze

Normally, by the first week in January I am absolutely done with chai, mint, and spiced concoctions and crave just plain strong black tea—but after four days of clogged nasal plumbing, I can’t seem to get enough. I killed off multiple bags of Twinings Gingerbread Joy at work, and have settled down for a nighty-night with this loose leaf blend from TeaMaze.

As I mentioned in a previous review, I’m still not getting a lot of ginger bread vibes, but I’ve discovered that with the leaves in a DIY paper teabag, the longer you leave it, it starts tasting like a cookie with a little ginger in it. The citrus hasn’t gone bitter, and there’s enough spice to open the sinuses and burn out the throat gunk. Without the Christmas-y label on the packet and more accurately renamed Ginger Citrus Rooibos, I think this would still sell well.

Well, friends, it’s winter. Clammy gray sky, temperature 30 degrees with 20 to go before we bottom out tonight, we are de-treed, de-decorated, and de-flated at the prospect of returning to work Monday.

A little spice sounded just like what the afternoon needs. TeaMaze’s take on gingerbread fits the spice category, but I’m not sure it conveys “baked goods” very strongly. The ingredient list on the website says that there’s lemon peel, but what’s in my packet looks like orange. So instead of gingerbread with a little lemon zest, we’ve got a pleasantly juicy citrus-and-spice melange to take the chill off.

I’m thinking the results might be a little different with milk and sweetener, but now that I just got warm, I’m reluctant to throw off the blanket to make another cup. Can you take care of that for me?

Gmathis sent a tea mail with this tea, thanks! It’s definitely chocolate orange, but a bit weak. The base is very smooth black tea with no astringency, so it’s quite an enjoyable cup. The aftertaste is not chalky or artificial, just a light lingering chocolate orange candy taste. A nice cup for holiday season.

Since there’s coconut in this green tea/walnut/almond blend, I’m endeavoring not to let it sit until next Nutcracker season. However, with a little mental imagery, this would do nicely retitled “Nutty Tea Party” or “Almond Macaron.” Very sweet and pastry-like.

We were gifted with a sunshiny Christmas with temps in the upper 60’s—windows are open and my husband used part of our quiet day to clean out the backyard shed (a gift almost as as good as the ones I opened)! The surprisingly springy weather, however, made heavier, sweeter, spicier Christmas teas a bit less appealing—plenty of winter ahead to enjoy them!

TeaMaze’s light, Christmasy green tea with coconut and walnuts fit the bill precisely. A crisp, light base balances offsets the heavier flavors and were perfect for sitting in my sunny spot and feeling grateful. Comfort and joy to all of you today!

Break time: trying to make order out of domestic chaos is a weary job! This afternoon’s treat was sponsored in part by my husband, who braved the mall long enough to pick up some fresh Great American Cookie gingerbread peoples, and in part by this nice little seasonal tea that appears to be storefront only—I don’t see it on the website.

I think the green tea base is sencha, which provides a nice little almost citrusy counterpoint to the creamy, sweet coconut and nuts. It smells like a sugar cookie, and now that I’ve downed the first cup, I’m self-administering some aromatherapy by smelling the mug!

The description on the packet recommends enjoying it along with an enduring holiday classic—I don’t know that “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” quite counts, but close enough!

I decided to “rebrand” this for myself—had just enough to make a double-strength cup of this white tea with white chocolate flakes, added some milk, and ate a handful of jelly beans alongside…Voila! Cottontails. A timely sipdown for the last official days of winter (but how lovely it is to have the windows thrown open this evening and listen to the peeper frogs on Turkey Creek.)

Watching back-lit snowflakes waft down quietly among the lights in December is one thing; listening to two hours of sleet whacking against your window in late February is another. But I’m safely indoors and able to burn a little discretionary time off work, so I suppose I shouldn’t bellyache much.

I did have to drive home at noon in this stuff after uncovering the windshield and ducking icy precipitation coming in sideways and got so chilled that I’m still working on warming up. This nice little tea is helping. The white tea base is a little creamy and buttery, accented by some white chocolate chips. I compared it to Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride in a previous review and I’ll stick with that up to a point. It’s not as sweet. More delicate and refined.

I couldn’t find this listed on the Teamaze website yet, but if yesterday was an indication of how busy the proprietor has been, she’s been far too holiday busy to make updates! Constant traffic in her cheerful little storefront and she was hopping to take care of multiple to-go orders as well as answering touristy questions (“Do you have anything with caffeine here?”) and more informed ones for (ahem!) us serious shoppers who stocked up enough for the next three winters…

But I digress.

The scent of this one made it jump into my shopping basket. We’ve got a mild and slightly grassy white tea, white chocolate bits, and a little extra flavoring that makes me think of Carnation condensed milk. Steeped, it’s a little less sweet than I expected, but I think I like semi-sweet better than too much cloying sweetener. Next time, I will take care of that myself, perhaps with a teeny bit of milk and brown sugar.

In short, this is the white chocolate cousin of Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride. A pleasant non-minty evening cuppa.

A surprise sample of this arrived from gmathis and I was especially excited to try it now that we are having an actual cool evening!

The aroma is very rich, nice and boozy with chocolate. The chocolate does not have the weird aroma that Ashman hates but I am making a just-for-me cup tonight and will have a other tomorrow morning. The base of this lends itself very well to breakfast as it has that slight briskness that makes it a little stimulating.

I find it similar to O’Connor’s Cream, which is slightly less brisk to me and a little creamier, whereas this one has a little more flavor from the base tea I think.

Thank you for the very welcome sample, gmathis!

I’m blatantly disregarding my “don’t open unopened tea packets in July and August” rule…it’s been a long, weary week and I need a little treat. When I picked this up some months ago, I hoped it would be a doppelganger for CuppaGeek Lemon Swirl (liquid lemon meringue pie).

It isn’t. But that’s not a bad “it isn’t,” just a different one. Both dry and steeped, the cream and yogurt leads the lineup, but it’s more of a Carnation Condensed Milk cream instead of Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk cream. The green tea shows up next; pleasantly vegetal but not bitter, and then you get the lemon. Really just a hint in the background.

For truth in advertising purposes, I would’ve had to call it Cream Green Lemon, but then that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, does it?

I might try the next cup with a little milk to see if that changes the balance a bit.

Kiki says:

“Vanilla, butterscotch, sweet. It smells like the candle we had in the kitchen.”

I think it was Crème Brûlée scented.

“So-so. I guess I don’t like vanilla taste in tea. Thank you anyway, gmathis!”

Rich, chocolatey aroma. I dunno if there is chocolate flavoring in this or if it’s only cocoa beans but I get some of that coconutty smell from chocolate scratch-n-sniff stickers and maybe almond. It also smells like irish cream . Taste is about the same intensity as the aroma, brisk, a little oily, reminds me of an irish coffee. So what did I do for this cold, wet evening? I added a half shot of bourbon (no Irish whiskey in the house) and a dab of thiiiick Three Trees vanilla almond milk. The bourbon overpowered everything, but now I’m sufficiently wound down from an exciting day. A Kiki review will be incoming when she’s in the mood for a black tea. Thanks, gmathis :)

Let’s see…I was trying to figure out how many hits on the scavenger hunt list this one fits…I guess just three: Green. Woman-owned company. Makes me happy….it certainly did this afternoon. Our first calm, sunny start-to-finish springlike day; I had my feet up in the backyard glider soaking up sunshine and hoping it will tide me over—weather change and a week of gloomishness ahead.

Review-wise, it is light, pleasantly fruity, not too tart, and you can pick out both fruit flavors separately. A really nice blend.

Now, all I need is a discontinued French green floral sleepytime tea that evokes asparagus, pancake syrup, and Girl Scout cookies. (At one time, Bigelow did a line of Girl Scout flavors and I could’ve sworn I still had a rogue bag of the chocolate caramel delight one, but I can’t find it.)

This is not a new TeaMaze acquisition; it’s just a packet that woodged its way out of sight that I loosened while taking a pre-shopping inventory. My previous reviews were spring themed and at the time, my taste buds were craving the lightness of the green tea and lemongrass. A seasonal shift in thinking makes me notice the dried fruit first now—a little like the candied fruit Mom always put in her Christmas fresh apple cake. Was a nice accompaniment to a little bit of carrot cake. (Yes, I know. More pastry. I need to go walk it off, don’t I?)

Taking a few minutes for an afternoon feet-up pondering why Mom, without benefit of Swiffers or microfiber dusters, had a house five times as clean as mine using nothing but old t-shirts and a wring-it-out-by-hand rag mop. (Couldn’t possibly be because she didn’t work 40 hours a week, plus a side gig, and wasn’t tempted to fritter away time online.)

SInce I can’t answer that one to my satisfaction ;) I’ll ponder this tea instead. One good barometer for me is, “Does it steep the same way every time, even with sloppy barbarian treatment?” It does! You smell the pineapple first, but you taste the cherry first, and the lemongrass/green tea combo cleanses your palate between sips.

Same conclusion. Very nice, very springy, and if you promise not to judge my hairy, dusty, baseboards, I’ll make you a cup.

After last week, I am need of all things spring. Pink. Blue sky. Normal clothing instead of polar bear wear. Flowers. Bunnies. Confetti. Lilacs.

Therefore, a light and fruity tea was in order yesterday as I enjoyed a little silence after a rowdy afternoon helping supervise a 14-kid service project.

The picture on the TeaMaze website is an accurate representation. Big hunks of dried cherry and pineapple. An as-prescribed steep of 4 minutes gets you a cup of light, sweet, fruity sunshine. The lemongrass brightens the mix without making it tart. TeaMaze’s description references “tangy” twice, but I think that’s a little overstated. All the same, it was a very pleasant change of pace on a mild but muddy afternoon.

The only thing worse than trying to breathe in triple digit/upper percentage humidity is trying to breathe in the aforementioned conditions with a layer of fireworks sulfur on top. (We are no longer fans of low-grade explosives in the hands of amateurs. Must be getting old.)

This cheerful little rooibos is a nice cool antidote to the hot, stinky outdoors. My original review wasn’t overly complimentary, but I hadn’t yet tried it on ice. After marinating in the fridge all day, the cherry is pretty cherry-syrupy, but when it’s cold, it brings back the Kool-Aid, running-through-the-sprinkler, catching-ladybugs-in-the-backyard vibe.

After two weeks of staring at the same human and feline faces (we haven’t been 100% housebound, but it sure hasn’t been pleasant to go out) and a long, tedious work at home day, I needed a little change, so I broke into this little pouch which had found its way into my Valentine basket.

I like rooibos. I like cherry when it is done properly (which is, unfortunately, rarely). In the case of this blend, the cherry wasn’t cough-syrup cherry, but it wasn’t quite cherry-pie cherry, either. So the mildly fruity cherry butted up against the mildly fruity rooibos and my tired taste buds had a little trouble figuring out which one was which.

I didn’t dislike it and will give it further consideration, along with this perplexer: why is it so hard to make authentically cherry and authentically strawberry teas?

Mercy, you all have been busy! It’ll take me till Easter to catch up with all the Advent reviews.

I’m trying to work my way toward some end-of-year sipdowns to justify breaking into some new stuff. The half-packet of this nice little oolong called my name this evening.

The oolong base strikes me as fruity rather than floral, and the cinnamon is barky cinnamon, not red-hot candy cinnamon. The two mesh together really nicely—I used “apple pie” in a former review; after further reflection, I might tone that down to “unsweet apple pie spice.” It’s very good either way.

This Fe-BRRRRR-ary afternoon is making me shamelessly (or deliciously) lazy, depending on how you look at it. Husband helped me defrost and de-ice and wander in to play with my Sunday kids for a bit. Remember playing with the scratch paper in art class that had a black waxy coating over a swirly neon pattern? That was our early arriver activity: my crew scratched out a panda bear, a t-rex looking in the mirror, an arsenal of swords, and a “Julie and the Phantoms” tribute page.

So that made me tired. Yeah, that’s it. All the better to enjoy a cup of tea that deserves your full attention.

This is actually the second steep report. I first reported that it had ground cinnamon mixed in with the tieguanyin (I think) base. Inaccurate. Omit ground cinnamon; insert “little broken hunks of cinnamon stick that you can smell from three feet away while you are steeping.”

The second steep is amost equally as strong as the first, minus the floral lilt of the first steep. Smells good, the steam is lovely in your face.

This one warmed my cold bones all the way down to my toes after having to scrape my windshield in a thick freezing mist. The base tea appears to be a nice large-leafed tieguanyan with a liberal sprinkling of ground cinnamon that reached my nose first the minute hot water hit it. The cinnamon pairs perfectly with the fruity personality of the oolong to create a lovely little cup of mock apple pie.

I don’t care who or who else doesn’t like this one under my roof (see discussion of previous domestic oolong differences of opinion); it’s a lovely treat!

Sipdown at work. With eyes closed, this smells exactly like a cup of Swiss Miss. With real half and half, it is chocolatey, creamy, and semi-sweet. With non-refrigerated work creamer, it’s good-smelling but anemic. We’ve got a TeaMaze run on the books in coming days—while this was pretty good, I don’t think it’ll be on the “must replenish” list.

At first I thought this was just a re-labeling of the TeaMaze Dark Chocolate that I thought was decent, but not stellar. (Hubby grabbed the packet at the store, not me.) However, this has a little hazelnut brittle to sweeten the deal and it makes a very noticeable difference…a little more heft and body, and with milk, actually puts a small dent in the midwinter chocolate cravings.