Tia Lilly's Tea Company
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The Monsoon season finally began in the Rockies! Thunder, lightening and rain! Ba Boom!
I didn’t grow up in a place where lightening comes to the ground, so today when I was on Steepster just sitting on my couch looking at my Kindle Fire by my big window a huge bolt came Zip Zing down in the street outside with a Zap Crash that scared me so badly that I bolted and ran into the hall with my cup of tea. If anyone had a camera, I think I could qualify for the cat photo contest that Verdant has going on. A very scared cat cowering in a ball on the floor with big round eyes!
Things did eventually calm down. Drats, I was out of food! Venturing out was brave I think for an ex-California gal. But out I went.
When I grocery shop at Sunflower Natural Market I always meander over to the cold beverage case and look over the chilled tea to see what’s new and what’s local. I found some bottled tea’s that were from Arizona which borders Colorado. They said ‘Unsweetened’ and ‘Brewed in the Bottle’. Hum. No artificial flavors either (mumbling to myself) so I bought one.
I was lazy and picked up a roast chicken with no seasoning. Who does that? No seasoning (I get to do it!). 1 bird = 4 meals for me.
Later, after roasty chicken, I opened up the cold tea and took a long cool blasty drink.
A long cold…unimpressive blasty drink of sour unflavored fruity tea that could be passion fruit I suppose maybe.
The tea smelled more apple, pear and maybe there is passion fruit. Well, to tell the truth it smells like Motts applesauce but tastes very sour.
And tastes like Motts applesauce when you doctor it with sweetening like I did. It was just tooooo sour to drink without sweetening. Yucky!
Here’s the deal. Some fruit you can’t leave in the bottle too long because it gets sour. Unless you temper it with another fruit or sweeten it, bad things happen. Adding black tea didn’t help this fruit. The tannin created a mixture that could take grime off furniture.
Sorry Tia Lilly…this was not a happy unsweetened passion fruit flavor tea experience!
Wah wah :(
Hallelujah for the rain! We stand a slight chance tomorrow. We are starting to get small fires breaking out around here. He had the driest month ever recorded in Indiana during June. Usually it is one of our wetter months.
I love to watch storms unless it hits the TV tower and sends sparks through the house. Several years ago it actually hit so hard it welded a skillet to the burner. Cat eyes indeed.
As for this tea – I think this is the first really negative review I have seen from you. Rejoice you don’t have to drink bad tea too often! Grab something you know you love and leave this one behind.
I did upset The Tea Spot with a review about sour tea the other day. So here’s why I’m not super negative, I can’t just judge a tea on personal taste and mark it down. Something else has to be wrong with it! Sourness, weak, bitter, horrid blending …something.
I might go so far to say that is the blessing and curse of having tea companies active on Steepster. So many positive aspects – and the communication and care some companies put in to responding to reviews is unheard of in other businesses! The only downside (in my opinion!) is the feeling of being watched and not wanting to start a conflict with a negative review. I don’t want to feel like I censor myself, but I think I do sometimes! Just speaking from my experience – I don’t think that’s what others do as well, it’s just something I’ve come to discover about myself (self awareness). Now I’m just rambling!
I have made it absolutely clear that if I receive a tea from any company to review (I don’t care who it is) I am going to give an honest opinion! Fortunately the tea I receive is usually some of the finest. That could change at any time though. What I won’t do is inflate a review. Why? What would be the point? I am looking always for the tea’s that speak to me wherever they come from. The other recreational fun flavored tea’s I’m not expecting quite as much from but still…I expect care and service.
And ….I pour myself out into a review which is hard to do if you are insincere and a phony. Now I’m rambling!
I grade on a curve. A simple bagged tea can get a high score from me if it is good at what it is. Same with entry level loose leaf. Is that fair to the more expensive loose teas? My thought is it is a different audience with different expectations. Some (a few/lots, I don’t know) here probably disagree. But, yeah, sometimes bad is bad. Lord I was born a ramblin man..
On the other hand these companies are trusting us to be honest with our reviews and have invested much effort in creating /procuring tea. That’s a lot of power and responsibility! We shouldn’t forget and bash on a whim or because we had a bad day which I’ve seen before!