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Love the variety of flavors in the sampler, love the tins, hate that they’re bags. Decided to make this in latte form- 2 bags, 8oz water, steeped 7min 40 sec., added 8oz milk and reheated.

Before I add the milk, I admit the tea itself looks kinda scary… I steeped it so conentrated for long that there’s a ring of tea schtuff around the water line. I can’t imagine what it would look like if I made it concentrated enough for a gallon of tea…

Once I add the milk, it looks much more normal. Kinda like chocolate milk actually. Not a whole lot of aroma (due to the milk I’m sure), but I am getting a faint wiff of mint.

WHOA This is abso-freakin-lutely amazing! The candy cane is much lighter than I expected, but there is definitely a minty flavor as well as a sweetness. I doubt this would need any sugar even if you normally sweeten your tea lattes. And the black tea base… almost gives it a chocolatey quality… which is good cuz I like my candy cane/mint best when mixed w/ chocolate. Not something that screams “THIS IS TEA!” …but INCREDIBLY good. …and don’t be scared by the steeping time I used, it definitely needs it.

FINALLY reviewing this! There are several reasons it took me so long. For one, I didn’t order any so I had to wait til I got to WA. 2nd, I wanted to make sure we had enough (ended up NOT being a problem… there was 3/2 pounds and we didn’t even use half of it lol) 3rd, after seeing and smelling that much of one tea I needed a break. 4th, I really wasn’t in a location to have good control on my water til I got home. 5th, I’ve been suffering serious jet lag/post vacation depression and just not feeling well in general since getting home on Tues. And last- the Beckners get home from their honeymoon tonight so I thought it would be good to save it and celebrate:)

Ok… on to the tea. Served as packaged: 1tsp/teabag (there were 2/favor) plus one honeystick (again, 2/favor)

The tea itself is, as someone said, very Christmasy in appearance. The aroma; however, is off. Almost… potpouri-ish…? But that could be just from smelling such a large amount of it.

When people think “white chai” most automatically assume the spices will overwelm the tea… but from the appearance of the steeped liquor, I doubt that will be the problem. The aroma is of apple and vanilla and a darker and more dull brown than I expected. The flavor is much like the aroma. The apple hits me first. It’s; however, the most authentic apple flavor I’ve encountered w/o it being candy-ish. The vanilla lends a sweetness that isn’t artificial either. The added honey makes it a bit too sweet for me. Honey is one of those flavors that I only like as an added flavor in tea. (Anyone else have flavors like that, or is it just me?). Unfortunately the best things I can say about the spices is that they prevent the tea from being bland. The base (specifically the shou mei I’m thinking) prevent this from tasting like an apple chai or even an apple cider tea. I’m rating this pretty low, but I think I might be able to boost the rating if I had more to tinker w/. I need to e-mail Irina and see what happened to the rest of the tea. Hopefully she can send me some. I’m just not satisfied at how unsatisfied I am w/ this yet.

Tall NF NC NW +2M +2P GLT w/ Whip + choc sprinkles… or so my cup says. In other words: tall non fat no classic no water 2 pump mocha 2 pump pepermint green tea latte w/ whip and chocolate sprinkles. I’ve actually had 3 of them since Sunday… yay! One of the girls I stayed w/ this week is a barista so she even made me one free. She tried it (due to allergies, the soy version), but said it was too sweet. But then again the soy milk is sweeter and she doesn’t even do mochas.

2nd infusion… due to the short steeping, no need to increase the steeping time.

Ok, I said I’d post a tasting note, so here it goes!

I love jasmine teas… but when it comes to pearls I like them cool, light, and short. Light on leaf, cool water, and short steeping times.

1 tsp/140 degree water (8oz)/10 sec.

The result is an extremely light liquored cuppa that still has lots of floral flavor, a light tea base, and is not only smooth and crisp- but also thirst quenching! I personally do not find hot beverages thirst quenching and probably could count the times I’ve thought that on one hand if this isn’t the 1st. The only bad thing I can say about this tea is that you get so many infusions you’re likely to waste them because you want to move on to another tea.

If you haven’t caved on Rishi’s sale today, you should.

Got a text from my friend Helen yesterday afternoon asking if I wanted to go to an Asian vegan dinner night w/ some of her friends. I like my poultry as well as dairy products so I’ve never had a completely vegetarian, much less vegan, meal but I decided to jump in. My head started to spin… I was still in my pjs and needed to be completely ready in 2 hrs… what to bring? I didn’t have means or even the time to go grocery shopping… Tea! So I went to my tea stash trying to figure out what to bring. Didn’t want tea bags (didn’t have any anyway). I have no paper filters. That means I need to take my ingenuity. But I didn’t want to limit everyone to once choice and I didn’t want to dump leaves after just one use to give people a choice… hmmm… Then It hit me. DUH! This is asian night! Matcha! I brought all the matcha I have Lupicia’s, and 52teas cranberry, strawberry, apple, banana, and mandarin. Yes it went with the theme, but I admit I was nervous about bringing matcha. I bring tea to EVERY party I go to and mostly it gets left un touched. I admit that I take that more personally than I really should and matcha is even more off the wall than your average tea so my worries increased. Luckily, this is a very amazing and unusual conglomeration of people and the matcha went over REALLY well! I’m not sure what everyone had, but I heard cranberry and mandarin a couple times- a couple of the guys even had 2 mugs! The preparation was less than authentic- 1tsp in 8oz of hot water served in coffee mugs… but some of us did stir the matcha w/ chop sticks instead of a western utensil so I think that made up for it. I had the cranberry which is why I’m logging it here. Oh, and the food was wonderful and I didn’t leave hungry- it definitely wasn’t a “here, have a salad” type of night!

It’s been forever since I had this sans milk/creamer, but I’m not feeling well so I decided to add a tsp of rum extract. Whoa, I forgot how spicy this is. The rum extract doesn’t deter from it, but does add an extra layer of flavor. Very good! I just wish I could find a good rum flavored syrup.

Mom takes these to work- she’s the manager of a retail store that was not left in good condition by the previous manager (hence why she has the job) and isn’t given enough pay roll hours to get everything done so she barely has time to drink tea much less make any- even bagged. I added 2tsp of matcha to this in attempt to make it taste better.

Wow. Still INSANELY sweet. The flavor profile is nice and fresh and sweet (in a good, natural fruity kinda way)- but it’s too over the top. I get really frustrated when sweetener (even a natural and calorie free one like stevia- although that’s the lesser of evils) ruins an otherwise wonderful tea. But that’s just me. If you like sweet teas, consider using these to flavor matchas… not sure how they’d work hot though… may need to experiment w/ that…

Tried to make a s’more latTEA by using 1 1/4 TB leaf, 1 cup each Fat Free Smart Balance milk and water, and 2TB marshmellow mocha creamer. I love my s’mores ozzing chocolate, but for a drink this was really good inspite of a pretty weak chocolate flavor. The nuts and spices of the tea really bring out the toastyness of the marshmellow and even a graham cracker type taste. It’s REALLY good.

Sample 2/7

Wow! This hasn’t even been put in the data base til now. I’m really getting anxious for my December vacation for my best friend’s wedding (37 days!) so I reached for this for my daily milk consumption.

The dry leaf smells very strongly of spice and just a hint of fruitiness.

16oz cuppa: 2.5tsp, 8oz water, 8oz Smart Balance Milk

Ok… I’m worried. I steeped in in only half the total liquid it calls for and the liquor is really light. Here goes nothing.

Yummm! What a wonderful suprise! I love how my brain works though. My immediate reaction when I took my 1st sip was “Hmm… it’s like a nutty, spicy, hot egg nog without the eggyness”. Anyway, it’s insanely good. It’s not chai like, but I could see myself switching to this for the month of December. And the orange is light enough that it does NOT taste like a hot creamsicle which is a major plus for me. I’ll wait to rate it til I try it clean.