Herbal Infusions

So the bad news? This used to be orange and vanilla and had a much creamier creamiscle sort of taste. the good news? I still like it :) Though truth be told i really liked the vanilla/orange thing Herbal Infusions had going on with this one. I may have to see if i can find a way to replicate it. Dropping the rating a bit since the tea has changed, but it still generally tasty. :) Of course now this also makes me wonder if they’ve changed their cacao tea from when i fell in love with it…

Final count: 168

Sipdown…and i’m SOOO SAD! I wish I’d accosted Indigobloom for more than a cup of this one. I don’t have the same issue with Lapacho that the girls do – for me it’s just another honeybush.rooibosy whatever leaf thingy dingy :) (yes technical term)

This smells heavenly and steeps to a delicious creamy orange brew. On a random side note, this would probably make some seriously kick ass tea infused vodka for my next experiment. This really is an orange creamsicle in liquid form, just a little less sweet, making it PERFECT.

Honestly…i’m just going to go see if i can eek out a bit more from my leaves….i hope. please. YUM!

SIPDOWN! This one is interesting. I probably should have started with the regular version of this before the vanilla one but you only live once! :) This isn’t a bad tea but there’s a weird taste going on that i don’t like. I have a feeling that if this was just cacao, then i’d likely enjoy it a bit more. We’ll see, as i have both the mint and the regular version from my swap this weekend.

Thanks to Indigobloom for passing along a sample of this one yesterday! Also, sipdown!

I’ve had a lapacho orange (without vanilla) before, and don’t recall being terribly enamoured with it, but after giving her pouch of this a sniff, I felt it was necessary to try this. The orange flavour here is quite strong, and combined with a lovely creamy aroma (vanilla), which came off as almost a yogurt-type smell when I poured the leaf into my infuser.

Flavourwise, this is actually rather good. Very orangey, in kind of a cross between orange pop and fresh orange sort of way (but thankfully not orange peel!), which is tempered by a creaminess. (I really seem to like citrus cream teas, though I don’t much care for citrus in tea by itself despite loving lemons/limes!) The lapacho isn’t even really causing “scratchy throat syndrome” too much (maybe a little), which it usually does for me.

I don’t think this would be a tea I’m too likely to purchase for myself, only because I’m wary of lapacho for a few reasons, and don’t like that it makes my throat feel scratchy, but the flavouring is pretty great here. If the base was honeybush or something, and the tea tasted the same, I’d probably knock my rating up to about 90, but given that it’s not a tea base I favour, it does lose a few points. I’m curious, however, how this one would be iced and/or made with milk and frozen into popsicles… (it tastes like a creamsicle, and how awesome would it be to have healthier creamsicles…)

ETA: Re-steep in half the water still has flavour, but I’m not in love with it.

1.5 tablespoons for 375 ml
10 minute infusion

Authentic chocolatey flavour. Thin mouth-feel. Slight woodsy note.

I used 1 tablespoon (emptied triangular pyramid bag unit) for 188 ml of water.

Brewed tea has a chocolatey richness to the aroma with the mint in the background.

On the sip I getting primarily a mint flavour with the chocolate in the background. The mint flavour is found near the front of the sip which disappears into the chocolate taste near the end. The immediate chocolate aftertaste is rich and reminds me of a thick hot chocolate.

Thank you to Indigobloom for passing on a couple of bags of this tisane to me!

Just a quick note before I crash.
This required FAR too much sugar to make it chocolatey. The mint seriously dominated. Milk helped a little.
I much prefer the regular, non minty version. Oh well I need to experiment!
That said, it was pretty tasty. Only my comparison to the amazing regular cacao tea makes this one pale.
I really enjoyed the mint and chocolate combo, I just feel that the reg version has more depth.

WANT
I have only a sample of this, given to me by the gracious owner of Herbal Infusions. He gave a presentation to our group all about his shop, and tea of the month club (actually that part is under a separate company. We learned all about cacao and how the supplier is fair trade etc, which I think is awesome.
Anyhow, now that I’ve tried it, well his evil genius plan seems to have worked. I must buy some. Right Now!! oh wait, it’s 9:40p and he won’t be open. Right. Darn.
There is one more serving left, so that will have to do for now. Until then, I am going to be spinning in circles, waiting waiting waiting…
because I loooove dark hot chocolate. And this? this tastes just like it! only there is a fraction of the caffeine and all the antioxidants. I won’t ever have to feel guilty for drinking cocoa again!! ever! yeeeehaaaww!
I wonder what this’d be like with milk? or in a smoothie! Yummmm.

Here’s the trick for this tea: the longer you steep, the better it tastes. I usually can’t resist steeping it for longer than 6-7 min, and add a bit of soymilk. It tastes like hot chocolate. I’m honest. Forget about Carnation, this is MUCH BETTER.

I quickly sampled this one a while back but didn’t have enough time to officially log…but I do remember it being very flavorful and memorable!

So…here I am drinking it again before I pass the rest along to LiberTEAs!

I gotta GOOSEBERRY, a GOOSEBERRY…I gotta GOOSEBERRY, a GOOSEBERRY! I gotta GOOSEBERRY and it floated to the TOP! (to the beat of Pop Goes The Weasel, the Weasel!)

:)

Anyhow…
The orange, gooseberry, and apple work amazingly well together but you throw in that succulent vanilla and all is well with the world!

This smells and tastes just like anything CREAMSICLE should! Really REALLY wonderful!!! Excellent! Great flavor!

Peppermint and Lavender? I’m game! The Peppermint is STRONG and I LOVE that! The Lavender is a nice secondary to it! The flavor combo and intensity is pretty wonderful! It’s Aromatherapy in a cup! Darned Special!

I am so glad I bought some of this, and need to go back for more ASAP. This is amazing!! Tastes just like dark chocolate. In a tea. I like that it’s JUST cacao, because I’m getting tired of those chocolate blends and really just needed something like this. I love it. Like Jessie, I can’t wait to do splendid things with this tea.

I like that these teas are not as sweet, they are more tart and true to flavour. I thought this one was good, but maybe had a bit too much… lime? I’m not sure. I wasn’t sure when I was drinking it, but I wish it had a bit more coconut. This one could easily taste even more like a tropical beverage, waiting to transport you to the beach. That being said, this tea was still fantastic, and would probably be even better iced, which I’m excited to try.

Hmmm. I decided to try this one again, this time adding some ginger into the mix. Oh my goodness, what a difference! It tastes a lot like DT’s The Skinny, which is great. It has a bit more of an oolong-y taste to it than The Skinny, which I find mostly dominated by orange and ginger. This one still has great undertones of grapefruit and ginger, but the flavour is much more complex and interesting. I like it so much more now, and am glad to have an entire pot of it in front of me :-)

I thought this was THE one for me. My two favourite things rolled into one. I am enjoying it immensely, but I wish that the oolong was a bit less roasty, more floral, and that the grapefruit made me pucker. That’s okay. It’s still drinkable, and I still get some notes of grapefruit. The oolong is quite nice, and I think that my note will be biased because I had such high hopes, and now they’ve been dashed. It’s nice on the tongue: The oolong gives the first impression, then the citrus-y flavour of the grapefruit can be tasted at the back of the tongue, and lingers in the after taste.
Oh what’s the point in hiding my disappointment? I feel like Charlie Brown.

This is one of Dan’s gems – it comes with a delicious smell of dark chocolate and tastes like a better version of hot chocolate. I’ve bought several portions as gifts, and plan on buying more for christmas presents. A great gift for someone who loves chocolate – stand out by giving them something more unique than a high quality bar.

When you think red velvet, you think of the cake which is deliciously moist cake with a cream cheese icing. This tea makes the “cake” a raspberry base and the “icing” hints of vanilla. It smell delicious when steeping and tastes as good as it smells. Not being a huge fan of rooibos teas, a tea like this could change my mind.

This is the first flavoured Oolong I’ve tried that I feel successfully marries what I love about Oolongs with the added flavours. Better yet, this is a nice light Oolong, which I’m partial to. Most of the flavoured ones I have tend to be darker.

The green freshness of the base blends so well with the fruity freshness of the grapefruit, which manages not to be overpowering. I can taste the base loud and clear and an intriguing wave of grapefruit follows, like I’ve squeezed a little fresh grapefruit into the cup. Very subtle yet memorable, the way I like ’em. It makes me think I could drink this one regularly. It also re-steeps remarkably well for a flavoured tea; after a first steep, I transferred the leaves to my gaiwan and got another two or three infusions out of it before going to bed. I drank this hot but did chill a small cup of the first infusion. It was nice and, interestingly, it tasted more roasty Oolongy cold than it did hot.

Yesterday, leaving for work, I put a teaspoon of this along with some green rooibos into my travel press with some boiling water. It had a good 45 minutes to steep before I got to it, and was delicious! Earthy but decadent.

This stuff is good. Really good. I told myself when stepping into Herbal Infusions that I wouldn’t buy anything aside from maybe a tea to go. When I smelled this one, there was no resisting. It just smells like straight-up chocolate. And, sweetened chocolate at that. For some reason I get milk chocolate from it. Even once infused for a good 8 minutes, it smells like commercial hot chocolate mix in the best possible way. It tastes deliciously chocolatey but even through the sweetness maintains that great earthiness I’ve come to love in cocoa products.

I have big plans for this one. Lattes, added cocoa powder, blending with green rooibos. It’s going to be good.

I wandered into Herbal Infusions last night during Nuit Blanche, and they kindly provided me with a couple samples. This one was first to be tried as I was trying to wake up this “morning”. I drew a bath and settled in for a soak with a cup of this.

This is really nice, and a good choice for waking up with after a long night. It’s both refreshing, with the bold flavours, and calming, with the smooth black base. The lime is very potent-smelling in the dry leaf, reminding me of a lime popsicle. Once infused it’s a little more subdued (not much!), and more natural-tasting than I expected from the scent, thanks to the lime peel I imagine. The coconut of course takes a back seat here but it does chime in, lending a sweet creaminess. I can’t help but compare this to DAVIDsTEA’s Cocomama Lime, which I had high hopes for but was disappointed by, so I’m happy that the coconut holds up in the flavour of this one. I think it compares very favourably.

This also did well in a second infusion (I got out of the bath to resteep my tea; is this going too far?), which I tend not to try with my black teas. It was less tart and more sweet and I may have actually preferred the second steep. Final observation: this tea is begging to be made into an alcoholic beverage. Margarita, perhaps?

It’s good as a breakfast tea, not too astringent or malty, very light, definitely agree on Darjeeling taste (which is understandable given it’s an English Breakfast). Has a pleasant aftertaste too.

It seems like the name of the tea dictates it’s taste quite a lot, it sure tastes young. It is a simple pu-erh. It’s bitterness is a little less refined than other pu-erhs I tried, it doesn’t have many complex notes and it didn’t have much of an aftertaste for me except for standard bitterness. All in all it’s an easy drinking tea and by far not a bad pu-erh, just a little too plain for my personal liking.