Art of Tea

Sipdown! I can’t remember who sent this to me but thank you. When steeped it has a very strong cinnamon aroma but surprisingly the cinnamon is not as present in the flavor as I thought it was going to be. It’s light but it’s still good. It has soft apple and fig flavors. Definitely more of a dried apple kind of taste.

I’ve tried to like this tea, but it just smells burnt. The first time I made a cup, I smelled the infusion and I almost threw up, the liquor is much better little astringency but the aroma still tastes burnt.

I drink this tea every morning and love it. It is the most fragrant Assam I have tried so far in my short tea drinking life. I’ve made it in a mug with a large strainer and recently switched to a purple Yixing teapot which seems to lock in the fragrance. I drink it straight: no milk, no sugar.

It’s 2pm here, and this is my first tea of the day. Yes, it’s been that kinda crazy around here.

Vanilla tea is so comforting to me. It’s simple but indulgent at the same time, and sometimes (like today) it’s exactly what I need to help me relax for a few minutes. I’m very fond of the base tea of this one now. It’s smooth and well balanced against the vanilla. No funky aftertaste. No bitterness. I’m running really low on this one, so a trip to the tea shop may be in order later this week.

Another nice cup of this one. I added some sweetener and milk which helped to make a good tea even better. I think once I run out of this, which will be soon, I’ll try a few other vanilla teas to see how those flavors stand up to this one. Going back to this one won’t be a problem if I don’t find another vanilla tea that absolutely knocks my socks off.

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve had this one, and I forget how nice it is. It’s fairly basic. Vanilla and tea. The white tea stars are mostly there for show. They don’t lend much to the tea itself, but they are pretty. My guess is that the black tea is Assam. There is some malt and a thickness that I tend to associate with Assams. The black tea is strong and a good base for the vanilla which is sweet but not at all artificial. Add a touch of milk and sugar, and this is a tea I can easily enjoy.

Tea of the morning. Lately I’ve been craving plain blacks for my morning tea, but today I thought vanilla sounded good. This one is as nice as ever. Decent vanilla flavor with a good tea base. My daughter was more than happy to grab an extra cup to drink while waiting for the bus. She also asked if I was going to resteep the leaves to make a cold tea for later today. When I told her yes she claimed a cup for after school. And here I thought I was the big tea drinker in the family! :)

This was really good. A great cup of vanilla yumminess. I added some sugar and a bit of milk, so it was wonderfully sweet and creamy. It was exactly what I wanted for an afternoon treat.

I like this tea. It has a strong base tea and a nice vanilla flavor. However, every time I drink it I find myself thinking about Harney and Sons vanilla teas. There’s a depth to the vanilla in H&S teas that this one is missing. I’ll have no problem finishing the rest of this one, but I don’t see myself reordering.

Still one of my favorite vanilla teas. I only use the black tea and save the white tea stars to brew another time. The base tea is nothing amazing, but the vanilla is really good. Since discovering good vanilla teas it’s become difficult for me to have anything (drink or food) with artificial vanilla flavor. It has such a strange aftertaste. Thankfully, this tea has a very natural vanilla flavor. It’s rich and almost creamy.

The next time I make vanilla bean scones I’m thinking of substituting the water with an equal amount of this tea. I’m thinking it’ll add another layer of flavor that could be amazing.

Got this from Queen of Tarts:)

I woke up in the mood for a lemon tea, but the 2 that interested me didn’t have caffeine, so I thought I should save those till later. So picked this instead. I like it well enough, though this is only my 1st cup of it, I think I might be inclined to order more when it’s done. But we’ll see.
It’s light, and sweet. A little bit grassy. Last taste on my tongue is some astringency, but not a bad thing. Something tells me that this tea would not make a good iced tea. Probably wouldn’t be terrible….just uninspiring.
It is raining outside, was going to go grocery shopping, because not much food in the house, but with the weather, I’d rather stay in, drink a few cups of tea and do some writing that I keep putting off.

Meh. It’s stopped raining. I guess grocery shopping is in the cards afterall. Probably just as well…need food.

I got this in a trade with TastyBrew.
I brewed a 16oz pot of it to share with my student, & we were both surprise to note a noticeable fruity flavor to it that the scent did not imply. The flavor also had a really nice fruitiness, probably blackberry.

I know for a fact that Drew polished off the Tardis Blend yesterday, (Sipdown…already accounted for in my list), so I’m wondering if he didn’t rinse the pot well enough? Or maybe the steeping basket? I’ll probably mention it to him, for future reference, but to be quite honest, it really was tasty!

I have enough of this to have it one more time, & I’ll know for sure then. Thanks TastyB!

So I coldbrewed this for a really long time. It didn’t make it gross or anything though. It’s a lot like an apple pie herbal with a bit of rooibos in it. It’s not bad. It’s a bit more cinnamon flavored than I’d really want in an iced tea.

This really is the only Art of Tea sample I bought that I have even slightly enjoyed.

The problem is though that its name has a cocktail connotation, as does the description, and the tea does not match it whatsoever.

So I guess nobody else has ever bought this tea and that is why Art of Tea discontinued it. For good reason, it’s not very good. I used my entire mini tin to make a pitcher of iced tea last night.

It’s alright…the black tea just has this odd almost musk to it and it overpowers any of the flavoring. I ended up having to add splenda to bring out other flavors, but it only did so for strawberry. The kiwi’s absolutely nonexistent. The black tea just overpowers everything and it doesn’t taste like it’s even a good type to use for iced tea.

I guess I am going to be the only one drinking it. Bleh. It totally made the steeper thing disgusting too with the little sugar stars. I’ve never had a problem with sprinkles in there before and now there’s a nice red sugar ring in a spot I can’t reach. Lovely.

Another Momo box tea. This tasted exactly like cinnamon gum! The artificialness of it kind of just turned me off from this even though I kind of like cinnamon gum. I couldn’t really get into it. I swear there was a little of the dreaded soy lethicin in there too. I think it upset my stomach a bit. Yarg! Oh well! My mother liked this tea and my sister wants to try it, so the rest of the leaf I have will not go to waste.

This smelled pretty good in the package and looked interesting with little yellow shreds or thin petals (Chrysanthemum perhaps?) and orange bits of what might be dried peach amid the stems and shreds of black. I put a teaspoon in my strainer and gave it a try. When water was applied, it smelled like …um…tea? I’m not much of a tea connoisseur but it had kind of a greenish scent from the leaves—like green vegetables.

When I strained out the liquid, it didn’t smell so green, but it didn’t smell particularly peachy either, or even terribly appetizing. I briefly considered dumping it out and then dismissed the notion, opting to wait for it to cool and find out how it actually tasted. This was a sample from my big sis, Terri Harplady, so I felt obligated to see the experiment through.

No sir, I didn’t like it. Blah blah bland. A few days later I learned that Terri prefers a tablespoon per cup and my previous conservative attempt hadn’t done it justice. I resolved to try again with a stronger brew, though I really wasn’t liking the flavor base of this.

Attempt #2 This time I used a full tablespoon for my standard three minute steep. Once again, it smelled like green vegetables, but the surface of the tea looked…scummy. It tasted like the water left when I cook vegetables, with a slight astringency from the tea, so I pulled out the stops and sweetened it.

Ok, there was the peach, just a hint of it, as well as an undertone of vanilla beneath a kind of funky, gamy vegetable flavor I guessed to be the oolong. I concluded there IS something there, but I don’t have much use for a tea that needs sweetener to be appreciated.

My big sis said she preferred it iced. I decided it was worth a try.

Attempt #3 This time I tried a cold brew. Sometimes a batch of tea brewed slowly in a jar of cold water in the refrigerator will turn out infinitely better. Not this time. No sir, I didn’t like it. Fortunately, I used the last of it up in this attempt.

There’s something in the base of this tea that disagrees with me. Tastes differ, and I don’t doubt that someone else is giving this variety a shining review. I gave it a fair shake but must sadly conclude this is not my cup of tea.

Thanks TastyBrew, for this surprise sample! This tea is a really nice vanilla black. The little white stars are super cute! I didn’t get that feeling, like OMG, I must have more of this tea, but it was good, and it gets props for cute-ness! ;)

Another poorly stored sample, but worth a go, right? This smells tart like hibiscus but I don’t see any of the typical pink tinge. I get some sour rooibos as well, masking what I would otherwise presume to be tart blueberries. At five minutes, this tastes mainly of smoke. Like there is a fire a few kilometres away but a bit of the smoke has blown in on the wind. No tart, nor sweet, nor blueberry at all. If I could get the aroma to match the taste I would be a happy panda.

At 15 – 20 minutes I can finally get some blueberry flavour in there but it is so dominated by smoke that I am not interested in continuing. This is my fault so no rating. I wish I had drank this two years ago when it was still fresh.

Holy sweet spice! As TastyBrew said in her note to me on this tea, it’s kinda strange! Thanks, TastyBrew for the surprise sample! I kind of like this strange tea! I didn’t realize it was a puerh until I looked it up. The first spice that hits you is the cinnamon, but this tea has a whole lot more going on. It’s definitely spicy, but kind of in a chai sort of way, with a little heat. I think the chocolate rounds it out. It is not a subtle tea. Best when you need a little punch!!

I have not had the best of luck with the Art of Tea samples I bought back in November. Granted it also didn’t help it took them weeks to bother to send. This is the first of them that I have actually liked and I only have one left to try…

I didn’t think the jasmine was overpowering at all in this. Granted all the other notes for this are years old so maybe Art of Tea got the balance right finally. I’ve also had it for 4 1/2 months at this point. It’s a nice mix of fruit and floral, I think the blueberry was quite a bit stronger though with jasmine notes following.

This was actually pretty good. I often want tea before I go running but don’t want anything too rich or heavy, but I don’t love fruity teas. This tea walks the line well. I’ll reorder this next time I need something from art of tea.

A mint tea that I like! Woot Woot! I tend to get overpowered by mint very easily in teas, but I found a winner. This has a great rich dark chocolate flavor, a smooth mint flavor, and just a hint of the puerh base. I’ve resteeped it several times and the flavor stays nice and strong. Glad I snatched it up before it was gone.

This is a bit much.

I can’t believe they say to use a tablespoon per cup. I used 2 tsp TOPS and it was impossible to drink.

The cranberry flavor was completely lost underneath all the spice and licorice, which is really disappointing when there are these big rehydrated cranberries floating around the infuser.

Like, I’ve had Gran Marnier in some drinks but not by itself and I don’t think it has nearly this much spice to it? I don’t understand what they’re going for here. I don’t get orange at all.

I have a little sample tin so I’ll try it again with only a teaspoon next time.

Well hopefully I can post this without getting kicked out or power going out. Between all the errors of Steepster (coming back 2 hours later and seeing the dashboard is busted — WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED?) and how absolutely hopeless I feel regarding one of the traveling tea boxes, I’m pretty much going on a steepster hiatus. I’ll probably come post notes every so often just for brand new stuff I’m trying, like this.

Let’s be real here, the draw of this one is the white tea stars. I’m not sure what they really add to the tea other than the possibility of feeling like you messed it up.

The vanilla isn’t bad, but this tea is not that good once it starts to cool. The vanilla starts to taste artificial, and the base starts to become bitter. When it’s still hot though, it’s delicious. It wouldn’t ever replace Vanille des Iles for me as a favorite vanilla tea. I may have to try it with milk and sugar to see if it gets that vanilla frosting taste too.

just a little thing to add, please keep Adairsville, GA, in your thoughts. A tornado rolled through there earlier and one person died. Their poor dog was outside and he was rescued but gosh the picture I saw of him still in his dog house, poor baby. There were cars just absolutely flipped and crushed on the highway and 18 wheelers overturned. Scary stuff.