HEB

Maybe the big red chewing gum flavor and chamomile base will lull me to sleep this evening. How many boxes of this tea have I bought? I don’t have enough toes and fingers to count. What a great on the go tea it is and I hope to always have it in my travel stash.

Catching up on some tasting notes, but going to try to be efficient about it since I’m tired.

I was sure that I had already written a tasting note for this tea! I grabbed a few bags out of last year’s TTB. This is the last one, so it’s a sipdown. Which is too bad, because I really enjoy this tea! Yes, the chocolate flavor is just a tiny bit alcoholic in aroma and flavor, but it ends up being evocative of drinking a chocolate liquor, in a good way. Especially with some oat milk, this makes for a great hot cocoa alternative.

Teabag from the last TTB. The chocolate here tastes a bit like alcohol. I definitely get both the chocolate flavoring and rooibos, but sort of the worst parts of both. I drank this cold with milk. I considered not even finishing the mug, but I powered through because I hated to waste the milk. Other people seem to enjoy this one, so perhaps I’m wrong.

Ah, this tea. I was craving something sweet. Nothing much at home (if I don’t count Christmas cookies) and I wanted another hot mug of tea. I was looking to my fruit teas. Nada. White and green teas. Nothing sounded good for me. Herbals… many herbal herbals, but I found I put this one there. I remember receiving two tea bags from Michelle, but one was drank once upon a time, but second one I was keeping. And today the time for it has come!

I read a few notes, opened the tea bag wrapper and my nose was struck with chocolate-boozy-chocolate topping by Hershey’s, notes. The last metioned I actually had, but I could be 7 years old or so. But this brought me back memories. Aroma memory is pretty strong if you ask me.

I decided to steep it for suggested (by others) 10 minutes and honestly, it was still fairly same, but amazingly done! Exactly that topping aroma, rich chocolate flavour, quite sweet without sweetener and little boozy flavour.

Not a tea I would crave often, but I think I would buy a box if I would be in HEB store.
Thanks a lot, Michelle!

So when the bottom of your worn wicker basket that holds miscellaneous herbal samples falls out (in my winky-wonky filing system, most of the baskets are miscellaneous) , sometimes you find bags you forgot you had. Like this one, a really pleasant mint/lavender combo in a silky sachet. It’s helping me un-kink a little after an adrenaline day—a week’s vacation from work comes at a price when you return to the piles in your office :)

A dear friend swung our mutual “a month either way” occasion observation rule to the early side, so I came home after a really stressy workweek to a lovely little package of pre-Christmas. These tea sachets, part of the contents, made me squee and giggle, because of late I have been discovering what cool stuff HEB has … and moan and groan because I live two states away from the closest one.

If it weren’t for the grocery store box, I’d be convinced these were from an upscale proprietor—large sachets with lots of room for the leaves to play, big, intact lavender buds; not crunched or crushed, and the spearmint is a really nice, sharp counterpoint to the lavender perfume. Really lovely to relax with.

I thought I’d reviewed this but apparently not. Michelle sent me a couple of these teabags a while back. I remember being quite surprised at how good this tea was considering it’s I believe a grocery store brand rooibos tea and chocolate flavored. Chocolate-flavored teas are tricky to do well but this one was so dessert-y. I liked this one so much that I actually was looking online to see if I could buy a box anywhere and sadly it didn’t seem so. The rooibos in this tea isn’t stronger than the chocolate flavor. Thanks again for sending me these Michelle they were a winner!

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – January 2023 Tea #2- chocolate tea

Forgot to post this last night in time for chocolate day! Finishing up this tea with better steeping parameters. This time, rather than Russell Stover chocolate filling or Three Musketeers bars, I’m tasting what seems like flavoring that would be in a chocolate milkshake. Definitely not a flavor of chocolate I have had in TEA before. I’m glad I tried this, and it’s going on the wishlist again so I can remember it’s good! Also raising the rating from 72.
2023 sipdowns: 5

From Michelle!  Thanks very much.  What a lovely night time option.  The chocolate holds up for two steeps of flavoring.  I really can’t tell the rooibos is there.  The chocolate flavoring is mostly like a Russell stover chocolate filling… you know, the chocolate filling kind of like a three musketeers bar.  Now I’d really love a three musketeers bar… sigh.  But this tea will do in a chocolate craving moment. The flavor also has that hint of booziness that a chocolate flavoring sometimes has… but only a hint.

Brought one last bag on a road trip, because the cinnamon is strong enough to overcome unfamiliar water.

(Oh…I have had this before. Will y’all come see me in the memory care ward?)

Well, the first time out, references were made to Big Red chewing gum. This time around, it reminded me of Brach’s Cinnamon Discs hard candy.

Do they still have the do-it-yourself Brach’s Pick-A-Mix bins anywhere? When I was little, that was big stuff, getting to fill my own bag. Mostly gumdrops and those white taffy squares with fruity blobs in them, but Mom or Dad would reach over my shoulder and make sure some butterscotch drops and cinnamon discs made it home, too.

Never mind the cinnamon. This cup tasted like nostalgia.

Another HEB first for me! The dry bag and envelope smelled eggnoggy, but there’s no cream or vanilla in it. A previous review compared it to Big Red chewing gum, and I can’t improve on that for accuracy. It’s a notch lighter than Harney & Sons’ Hot Cinnamon Spice, but then again, it’s herbal and has a little less muscle. Tasty and pleasant.

I’ve probably written elsewhere that when we’re on vacation, rather than hitting conventional tourist spots, a mandatory stop is the big local grocery store so we can see how the rest of the world shops for tea and groceries. (Favorites: a fancy-pants Dillons in Wichita, Publix under the Capitol View Apartments in Nashville, Dierbergs in the St. Louis Area.)

However, our travels haven’t led us anywhere that has an HEB, so Michelle thoughtfully sent HEB my way! For a store brand bagged rooibos, this is good! Dark cocoa scent jumped out of the packet when I opened it, and after an indeterminate work-desk steep, it yielded a nicely blended chocolatey cup with no distracting separation of flavors. All meshes quite pleasantly.

There are quite a few ingredients in this rooibos blend, but all I can smell and taste is the cinnamon. It’s that Big Red gum cinnamon, so I thought I wouldn’t love it, but I really actually do! It’s sweet, not spicy like I expected, and really tastes just like Big Red (without the mouth burn). Still not tasting any of the other flavors, but I’m cool with it. Thanks for letting me try one of your favorites, Michelle!

Michelle recommended a full ten minute steep for this one, so I steeped this according to her suggestion. It smells very much like chocolate liqueur right out of the bag, a definite alcohol aroma, but while steeping I’m getting something different. I’m immediately reminded of a hospital cafeteria. Weird. Why? And then I realized —> IT’S COFFEE. This smells like coffee. Huh? I don’t know where that’s coming from. I can taste the rooibos above all else, followed by the chocolate, but I’m still puzzled by this coffee element. I’ve search all over the internet for the ingredients to this tea and can’t seem to find them anywhere. I do hope there isn’t actually coffee in this one though, since I’m drinking this late in the afternoon and I’d really like to sleep tonight. Even though it specifically says rooibos, I have come across a couple of blends before that say herbal (for example) in the title and they ended up having puerh and black tea in the mix. Definitely misleading.

Side note – I’m so excited to have finally received my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine! Thanks, Leafhopper, for the encouragement earlier this week. :) I’ve felt so behind since I haven’t been able to get it yet. Many people I know are already fully vaccinated, including my husband. I’ve also been especially anxious about it these last few weeks, since my dad was in the hospital and my father-in-law isn’t doing so well health-wise. I was supposed to have gotten it already, but I got sick with a cold and had to postpone. Anyway, I’m typing all this out because I feel super proud of myself today and wanted to share. I have Dysautonomia which causes my autonomic nervous system to act irrationally, so I was very nervous and worried about having a reaction and/or blacking out during the vaccine. I really had to mentally prepare myself for this, as silly as that may sound, and I was so proud of myself for making it through. I came out of that pharmacy grinning ear to ear. :D

What are the health benefits of drinking green tea with honey?

Green tea is high in antioxidants that can improve the function of your body’s health and brain. Green tea boasts several health benefits and is considered as one of the world’s and can help you lose weight.

I found green tea to help with getting my weight down to normal. I drink it cold with lemon and about 6-8 cups a day.

Simple and fairly plain- this is my go to tea for anxiety and really awful nights of insomnia. Literally is just lavender flowers and spearmint leaves in a pyramid tea bag. It’s perfect. It’s calming and soothing, and comforting in an uplifting way.

This is a store brand tea, so my expectations aren’t huge. Bags are individually sealed in plastic, and they are the nylon (or whatever they’re made of) pyramid shaped kind. It is utterly decent for the price and availability (for those of us by this grocery store, HEB), but has nothing particularly remarkable about it. It’s a decent black tea with a faint taste of the mango, and if your budget is $3.00, it’s just fine. I’d prefer to spend a little more and get something better, but I wouldn’t turn this down if it was offered to me.