Just Organic Tea

Sipdown!

I’ll probably resteep this once or twice today. I like the smell of this, but I’ve got so much tea to deal with that I’ll just bid this one a fond farewell for now.

When I first tasted this tea, my tasting note said it would be perfect on winter days when the snow was piled in drifts against the door.

Well, Monday was that day! Looots of snow fell on Monday. Hubby was (and still is) sick. I’m sick too, so I’m glad I had this before my nose and throat declared mutiny on me.

Anyways, this was pretty good! I’ve found that JO’s teas taste best if you steep them on the low end of their recommended range (3-5 minutes) and a 3-minute steep of this turned out pretty well. Rich, kinda chocolaty, and definitely a nice treat.

I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of this tea. Maybe it’s the carob? It smells nice, but it’s far too sweet.

Happy Labour Day!

This morning, I decided to make French toast for breakfast for myself and the hubby. I normally add cinnamon and vanilla to the egg and milk mixture to make things nice and sweet, and I wanted to have a sweet, dessert-like tea to go with my breakfast.

It seemed like the perfect opportunity to try Just Naughty ’Nilla out.

To be honest, this tea was very different from what I was expecting. I was expecting a lot more vanilla in the scent and flavour of this tea, but instead when I opened the package I smelled a dark, deep, sweet smell like burnt sugar or molasses.

I’ve never had carob before, so I’m wondering if that flavour was what I was reacting to. I’ve heard carob is rather chocolate-like, but this didn’t really remind me of chocolate very much.

The dark sweet molasses nature of the leaf carried over into the brewed liquor, and the result was almost coffee-like. It wasn’t bitter, but the in the thickness and mouthfeel of it were similar.

This was interesting. I haven’t quite fallen for it yet, but I can easily see this tea being perfect on midwinter mornings when the snow piles in drifts against the door.

Made this as a cold brew a few days ago and I’ve still got a ton of it sitting in the fridge. It brewed up a golden colour with a really strong minty taste after less than 12 hours in the fridge – about 1 tsp per cup.

I also added about 2 tsp of dried lemongrass to the pitcher to see if I could get a lemon mint blend.

However, this tea tastes pretty much the same way cold as it does warm – strong, minty, and with a weird chemical backtaste to it that I dislike. I’m going to try and cold-steep the rest anyway to get it out of my cupboard. (Oh, and there was no taste of lemon at all from the lemongrass. Surprising)

I tried adding some lemon juice and honey to the mix, and that has helped, but I think I added too much lemon and not enough honey.

Blllaaaaarrrggg. I’ve got a cold. Stuffed up nose, sore throat, achy head.

I may not like this tea a whole lot, but I’ve been drinking this almost exclusively for the past few days for a few reasons:

1. It’s got mint, and that’s good for colds.
2. It’s letting me use up the last of my lemon-honey, also good for colds
3. I have a ton of this left and wouldn’t drink it if i weren’t sick.

Blarg.

Backlog from whenever.

I think I have this tea figured out, now. This is best with a 2 minute steep and some sweetener. I added a touch of lemon-infused honey into the teapot, and the sweetness both accentuated the mint flavour and helped mask that funky chemical undertone I keep sensing.

I think I’ll reserve my lemon honey just for this tea, since I want to use it up. Once I finish it, though, it will not be a restock.

Just had this a second time, and my impressions of it tasting chemically are confirmed. I tried a 2 minute steep this time instead of a 3 minute one, and while it was more palatable, it still tasted odd.

I think there’s just too much spearmint in this blend – it needs to be a lot lighter for this tea to work.

Wow, first note for this tea! The pressure, it’s so intense.

This was the first tea I tried after I got my Just Organic kickstarter teas. I have to admit that out of all their blends, this is the one I was looking forward to most, because I’m a sucker for spearmint.

I’m really going to have to try brewing this again, though, as the flavour from my first attempt at making it tastes somewhat… off, somehow. Sipping the tea was fine, as I tasted mint and a fairly non-descript green tea in the background. However, if I chugged a lot of tea at once, I got this weird taste hovering in the background I couldn’t figure out.

I’ve noticed that if I oversteep peppermint, there’s sometimes a really harsh chemical taste, so I’m wondering if that’s what’s going on here with the spearmint. Anyways, more experimentation is needed.

Very tasty, a bit peppery, but also a bit sweet! I enjoyed it immensely!

I enjoyed it hot with milk and sugar, but I wouldn’t recommend it iced—the spice too rich, almost clove-y, to really work as a cold drink for me. I would have also liked a stronger orange flavor.

Backlog:

A really good black tea from India. Smooth and even-tempered. Well-rounded and malty. Not an overly aggressive or assertive tea. Just really nice.

A good tea to keep on hand – makes a great afternoon tea or a very delicious iced tea.

Backlog:

Of the different teas that I’ve tried from Just.Organic.Tea. this one probably stood out as my least favorite. I’m just not a big fan of hibiscus and there is a bit too much hibiscus in this for my liking.

I do like the green rooibos in this … it adds a bright, fruity note to it. (I generally prefer green rooibos to red rooibos because I like that light, fruity flavor of it.) I also like the juicy blueberry taste to this. I would like to taste more rose, and I feel like the hibiscus was sort of overwhelming the delicate rose notes.

It’s sweet and tart and not a bad blend, just not my favorite from this company. On the other hand, my daughter LOVED this. So it was a winner with someone in this family!

I believe this sample came from Shadowfall. I’ve been noticing lately that I never drink any of my chai samples. I guess it’s just something that I have to be in a specific mood for? So I figured I’d try to drink some of them within the next few days. This one actually smells fairly mild. I don’t really smell orange, just some cinnamon and a sweetness that almost says vanilla to me. I did a 4 minute steep.

I dunno, this tea is fairly weak for a chai. I added a little sugar but no milk, so I guess I’m appreciating the weak flavor right now since it’s not diluted. But normally, I feel chai should be strongly spiced so that it can stand up to the traditional preparation method. I would call this a spiced black tea, not necessarily a chai. I taste a wee bit of orange, but mostly cinnamon and some clove. The flavor that’s here isn’t bad, there’s just not enough of it.

Thanks again for the samples Just Organic! This one seems like it could be a holiday tea. Cinnamon and orange on a nice black tea base: this base seems like it has more bite than other Just Organic teas. There is plenty of cinnamon here, it seems more of the spicy/savory than the sweet, if that makes sense? I didn’t taste too much orange, but oddly enough I was tasting strawberry. There was no possible contamination with other teas, so maybe that is what the black tea base tasted like? The second steep was just as flavorful. A nice one!
Steep #1 // 3/4 mug full // 14 min after boiling // 3 min
Steep #2 // 3/4 mug full // just boiled // 4 min
JustOrganicTea.com

Thank you again for the samples, Just Organic Tea! I feel terrible they have taken me so long to get to. I’m disappointed with myself! To me, I would use a ton more leaves for each serving than Just Organic sent over, so I tried filling the mugs less than usual. I love these dark twisty leaves. I waited too long to steep – the temp should have been at 195 degrees. I’m not sure if this is the base for some of their other teas, but the flavor is like them – hints of pumpkin and tomato soup. The flavor is too light for me though! I would use two teaspoons of these leaves normally. The leaves have an intense natural sweetness, so I’m glad I didn’t steep this with the sugar JO provided. A very smooth tea!
Steep #1 // 15 min after boiling (accidentally) // 3 min
Steep #2 // just boiled // half a mug // 4 min

Backlog:

In my full-length review of this tea: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/05/01/just-outstanding-orange-spice-black-tea-just-organic-tea/ I mentioned that I never tire of smelling orange spice teas. It’s true … there is something so alluring about an orange spice tea. I won’t go so far as to say it’s my favorite type of blend – it isn’t – but there is something so tempting and autumnal (my favorite time of year) about orange spice blends.

And this one is quite good, and it’s a bit different from others that I’ve tried. The spices didn’t overwhelm me as so often is the case with orange spice blends. Everything is thoughtfully balanced. I taste orange and I taste spices and I taste TEA!

I love that this is an organic tea and I love the ideas behind this company. Just an all-around great Orange Spice!

This smells nicely like cinnamon and blueberries. There is too much hibiscus flavour though. Might be better cold.

Another freebie from Shadowfall. I’m kind of trying to get through all the samples I have, tried and untried, and these little single serving ones make it really easy on me. :P This has a strong cinnamon scent, with some clove and orange in there somewhere. I expected it to be similar to the Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice that I have in my cupboard. I originally steeped it for 3 minutes, but then I put it back in for 2 more because it didn’t seem strong enough.

Even after the 5 minute steep it’s nowhere near as strong on the spices as I expected. I find this to be more similar to Kusmi’s Prince Vladimir. It definitely has that more subtle French-style flavoring, and I can taste the base tea. The cinnamon, clove, and orange is more of an accent flavor than I expected. Not bad, but I find the base tea to be unremarkable, just kind of a has a somewhat malty generic taste. It’s not at all unpleasant, but not something that I would drink plain. I also added sugar to bring out more of that orange and cinnamon taste. Not bad!

Another freebie sample from Shadowfall! I’ve never had tulsi before, but this sounded like a nice spice or citrus blend for the evening. Dry, it smells pretty spicy with some lemon in there. I steeped for 5 minutes.

I actually really like this tea! After taking a sip, I added about half a teaspoon of sugar. I like lemon better when it’s a little bit sweet, though not quite at lemon drop status. The lemon is definitely the main flavor in this tea. I’m not sure I detect anything that could be the tulsi, but I have no idea what it tastes like so it’s hard to say. I do get a little bit of the mint in there somewhere, and it gives a nice cooling sensation. The spice hides until the end of the sip and the aftertaste, where I get the kick of the pepper/cinnamon and the ginger makes my tongue tingle. Overall, this is a very likable tea, although I could’ve done without the ginger. :P

Its vanilla tea week (and its only Monday I guess). I had a sample from Just Organic waiting patiently for me to try it (thank you again for the generous sample package). Somehow it had gotten scented with one of the other spice teas in the sample and I really wanted that to settle down so I repackaged it but that still didn’t help much. So today I went through 3 vanilla teas, one new from another vendor, my current staple and this one. This helped reduce the spice scent but still the dry leaves had that issue. I like my vanilla tea to be a well rounded but not too strong tea base with that vanilla essence. This tea delivers in a big way. The tea base is nice well rounded really a medium bodied tea that sits quietly under the carob and vanilla. I drank a lot of “hot carob” as a young teen, We had it at camp and took it backpacking. After brewing @ 5 minutes the carob notes really come out the first sips are an unsweetened carob with a very light breath of vanilla to lighten it up. Carob alone is dense and too dark for me, the carob + tea + vanilla are delightful. As the tea cooled the vanilla came more to the fore with the carob buoying up the taste. Its a light and somewhat generic vanilla so I’m glad the other flavors are there. I also smell pine and wood just a hint, I think that’s the tea base and carob but I really like it. I think this would be a perfect mid-morning pick me up that transports me away to the woods for a little while and I’ll be ordering more. I do admit as “Vanilla” it disappoints its not the sweet dessertyness of the other 2 teas. As a morning tea its perfect. I added some honey about mid-way through and with the sweetness added it reminds me of a blonde brownie that Carmel and brown butter taste lingering on after I was done. Now I want MORE!

I drank all my just a trio of tulsi sample. Today I’m feeling hot and tired so I wished I had more tulsi and here is this mix. Its got a delightful pepper and ginger tingle on the tounge. I was worried about the mint because I don’t’ usually like it but this one is subtle. The mint, Tulsi and myrtle all mix together leaving a soothing coolness to the back of the throat with that hot tingle in the front. I poured the last of it over ice and that gives more lemon and tulsi taste. I like it but I liked the trio better! Thanks for letting me try this!

Another sample from Just Organic Tea! Thanks again! I tried to separate the spicy teas from the non-spicy as soon as I got the samples, but this one seems like it was still affected as others have mentioned. It isn’t bad though! It’s a lovely white blend. Somewhat creamy, fresh, but very light if I can ignore the spices and what tastes like Just Organic’s pumpkiny black tea base. Maybe not enough leaves for the cup I steeped. Since the flavor has been tainted I will talk about the dry leaves. This type of white tea is always so interesting. They always look like many different types of leaves with different colors, but they also look like leaves that were picked from the ground in autumn… just dried leaves, but some of them look fresh green.

Off topic: Since I’ve not much else to say about this one, I’ll mention how I’ve been organizing. I’ve been trying to get to many of the teas I haven’t tried yet before MzPriss’ teabox shows up in a bit. Figuring out what to add to the box, figuring out which teas I’d like to sell. I have an e-mail draft that I add teas to and who they are from. I remove the teas from the list once I write a tasting note. There is a list of sipdowns in that e-mail too. I also have an e-mail draft of all my teas listed by type (ie: green) and then listed alphabetically by company. Just a behind the scenes on how I organize and end up writing tasting notes for new-to-me teas so often. I’m sure everyone is sick of them. I guess the only break was the company-less Butiki teabox. :D

This is another sample from Just Organic.

I was whining about my last tea not being strong enough to wake me up. This wasn’t quite what I was looking for but I really wanted to sip something down especially before my kickstarter teas from Just Organic come. I was a bit meh on it(I swear all my samples were effected by some weird herbal scent/flavor that I’ve been bitching about in all of my Just Organic samples!)

I decided to add milk and sugar and that helped tremendously. Chai is the one tea I don’t fault for needing milk and sugar and this is lovely. I think it would be great made on the stovetop. I had to check my kickstarter order to see if I ordered any of this and it looks like I chose the pumpkin chai instead of this one.