Tazo

I steeped this for less time today to see if it might help with the bitterness, and it has. I can taste the orange, but it’s more like the bitter bite of zest or pith, and there is also an artificial sweetness which I think must be coming from the licorice. This cup is more tolerable than previous versions so I really think the shorter steep time was beneficial. It’s still tart and astringent but not overwhelmingly so.

My husband picked up a box of this but really doesn’t like it. I’m hoping I will so that we’ll be able to finish it off. The dry tea is very strong and smells like orange zest. It’s very powerful. There is also a sweetness there so my fingers are crossed that this will taste just like a warm orange marmalade.

It definitely seems more tame while steeping. It does smell like marmalade and also a bit like orange juice. I can also smell a touch of mint. The color is a deep, deep orange. It’s almost red. The taste of the tea is very tart so I think next time I’ll try steeping this at a lower temperature for less time. Maybe I’ll even add some raw sugar and vanilla, or maybe make some vanilla sugar, to see if I can make this taste similar to my favorite marmalade.

Oh wow, this is even worse once it has cooled. I’m going to have to do my research on this one to see if I can find other ways to make it. I reheated my cup and added some heavy cream thinking it might be something like an orangesicle, but apparently even the cream doesn’t want to play nicely with this one. I thought with the heavy cream it would be fine, but nope. They’ve just gone their separate ways inside the cup. It looks grainy but doesn’t taste bad. I think it might have even helped a little.

Minty and refreshing! Great hot with dollop of honey or iced.

The starbucks iced tea staple! Always much better at the store. No matter how long I steep this tea, it never has the same amazing tart flavour the Starbucks iced teas do. Oh well.

It’s not good but not for me. I really don’t like spearmint.

Well, I was thrown off my Daylight Savings more than usual. As a result, I rushed out of the house without my mug and other tea things that I brought home for the weekend. So I had to make do with teabags and paper cups at work. I don’t think that this tea is necessarily that terrible, but the paper cup really makes it taste like malty paper. I guess the upside is that the tea is not bitter at all! I wouldn’t buy these teabags for myself, but it was a nice quick fix at work this morning.

This is the best sleep tea I have ever had, and I have tried many! I am heart broken that it’s discontinued! !!

Noooope. I yoinked a bag of this from my office mate just to try it. I hated the caffeinated version of this tea but somehow thought the decaf option might taste better. I was wrong. Even rice milk can’t salvage this mess. Who puts black pepper in a chai anyway? That’s all I can taste here. Down the sink it goes, even though that means wasting what used to be perfectly good rice milk until this tea tainted it.

I am graduating from a strictly herbal tea drinking to having some black tea! Hopefully it means that I’m at least feeling better even if my cough isn’t gone yet. I am coughing less and I am convinced that my cups of chamomile are helping with that because even cough drops weren’t working that well for a while.

This week has been a very stressful week for me. This past weekend, I managed to pick up this tea when I was sick with a headcold and the mix of vanilla, caramel, and ginger has been a dream come true to my sore throat and my morale.

But that wasn’t the hard part of this week.

Tuesday, I received news that my Alma Mater Sweet Briar College will be closing its doors for the very last time in August. People may think that a women’s college is nothing more than a finishing school and isn’t worth getting worked up about, but to many women (and their families) it is more than just a school. It is the place where they first found out that they can do more than what they thought they could do.

When I first received a pink letter in the mail during my senior year of high school, I was intrigued. What type of school would send out their material in a pink envelope? Little did I know that this letter was akin to my Hogwarts letter into a school that would finally let this shy, sensitive girl develop into a strong, independent woman. But, even more than that. When I was young my family moved around a lot. We weren’t military, but we had to move because of my dad’s job. I never grew up in a place that I called home because I was constantly being uprooted and having to start all over in a new place. My four years at Sweet Briar ended up being a place that I felt comfortable enough to call home for the very first time and mean it.

The Alumnae are trying to save our school because we all believe in a woman’s education. It is hard to describe a place where all of your ideas are taken seriously by everybody there. Sometimes, it is hard to get that in a regular co-ed college or university, especially if you are in the sciences or engineering. It may seem strange, but when you don’t have to worry about what other people will think about how you look, it is easier to remember that you are all there to do the same thing: challenge yourself and strive to become the best that you can be.

So, without dragging this on for too long, if you know of somebody who would like to help save Sweet Briar College, please feel free to visit www.savingsweetbriar.com.

Sorry for sounding a little bit like an advertisement, but thank you for listening.

Amazing! Can’t believe I never knew these existed till now.

Easily my favorite drink.

I was really smooth and dumped nearly a full timolino of good jasmine green tea all over my desk at work (luckily just on the desk and no important papers or electronics). I didn’t pack any other green tea today but I seriously need a boost today so I picked up a bag of this at the caf at work. This stuff is pretty decent-better than the Tim Horton’s green tea (and cheaper since I just bought tea bag and not a cup of hot water as well (although I still hate paying over $1 for one tea bag!)). This’ll be my new go-to tea if I ever forget my green tea at home.

This is my favorite tea. I enjoy with hot, iced, plain, with cream, without cream, with turbinado sugar, and without turbinado sugar. Now it is DISCONTINUED. I need a replacement ASAP.

This tea is unusual because of the

Great tea! A little on the sour side, but it has complex flavors that make for a great anytime tea!

Ughhhh. I woke up with a sore throat this morning. I felt it coming on last night and now it’s full-blown. Hoping it’s just a brush of allergies due to seasonal transition and not a cold.

Double-bagged this and added honey. It’s pretty tasty for a bagged tea, albeit wayyyy overpriced. The ginger is soothing to my throat and the honey brings out the pear notes more prominently.

Going in for a second double cuppa of this. Expect more ginger tea reviews from me today!

For some reason, I really wanted ginger today… So I made a cup of this and had it with my steamed veggie dumplings. It was a match made in heaven! I get smooth green tea, a bite of ginger, lemongrass, pear, and steamed vegetables. Not bad at all!

Cup #2 of tea at work. The pickings for herbal teas are slim. I knew reading the ingredients on the bag this tea wasn’t going to be great but my goodness this was bad. When I took the bag out of the package it smelled like vitamin c chewables. The taste was like orange drink (you know- the kind made with crystals?) heated up in a mug. I took a couple sips and dumped it down the sink. Yuck.

Mate is just one of those flavors I have a hard time getting behind, so I was definitely okay with not being able to taste it in this cup.

The cocoa is more of a scent than a present flavor, but the licorice root is just enough to make it deceptively sweet, so if you close your eyes you can definitely imagine the flavor. The blend of peppermint and spearmint adds an element of depth without being overpowering.

All the pick me up of mate without the mate taste. Count me in!