Spicely Organics

I drank this a few times now but have yet to log it apparently. However, I did blog about it: http://sororiteasisters.com/2016/11/06/organic-ginger-calendula-spicely-organics/

sipdown
I wasn’t too impressed with this tea for the price but I have finished off the tin fairly quickly. Now I just need to bring to work the Trader Joe’s version I got for $3. I do like a cuppa peppermint tea in the evenings.

Evidently combining spearmint and peppermint is a mint melange? I think there should be at least 3 ingredients to qualify as a melange, but I guess I’m being picky :)

I was jonesing for a simple mint tea the other day. My old standby, Twinings, was at home so I decided to get this from the Spicely store. It’s a pretty standard mix of peppermint and spearmint and kind of tasty. My main complaint is the price – $10 for 20 teabags seems like a lot when we’re talking about plain old mint. Bonus that it’s organic but I wouldn’t buy this again unless I was feeling desperate. I liked it better with a little plain cane sugar.

Interesting that they recommend steeping at 190 F as I’ve always used boiling water for mint teas.

As far as detox teas go, this is better than most I’ve tried. It isn’t too bitter and has a pleasant minty flavor from the organic peppermint & tulsi. This is pretty good plain but would also be nice with a bit of sweetener. There’s lemongrass in here too but I can’t really taste it. The burdock root, dandelion and red clover seem like the “detoxifying” ingredients in this blend but… like all detox teas it’s kind of difficult to tell if they’re actually doing anything. I like this as an afternoon beverage so far.

More adventures from the Spicely tea and spice shop on Market Street. I went in asking for a black tea that I wouldn’t necessarily need to drink with milk. They recommended this so I thought I’d try it. It’s from the Assam region and normally I would drink a tea like this with milk and sugar so I was a bit skeptical.

The package instructions say to brew this at 175 degrees for 5-10 minutes. I never brew black teas that way! But I decided I would add some cold water to my boiling hot to cool it down a bit. No variable temp. kettle here in the office.

I’ve steeped it around 3-4 minutes both times I’ve had it (today and yesterday). It has a nice malty flavor with some fruitiness too. A bit of astringency but not overwhelming. This is tasty but I must admit I think it would be better with soy milk or almond milk so I’ll have to try it that way someday. I was also told this would be good as an iced tea and I can definitely see that. Perhaps with a bit of lemon.

I picked this up at the Spicely store and was kind of sold on it after they told me it was like a peppermint patty. Unfortunately I am not really getting the cacao with this one. It’s a pleasant white tea with mint flavor and that makes it nice for the afternoon. I’m picking up more vanilla than cacao. It’s ok enough but they should fix the flavor or the name, me thinks…. I’ll probably finish off the tin I have but don’t think I’ll be buying more of it.

Not getting a lot of cacao or cocoa in this at all, other than perhaps in mouthfeel. I do get the mint – it’s soft and velvety, and surprisingly buttery/thick for a while tea. It’s okay, in that it’s a lovely tea, just not as billed.

A new tea from the lovely MissB.

This is not really what I was expecting, and unfortunately I don’t really like it that much. There’s a LOT of cinnamon in it. A LOT. Wow. In fact, where’s the chocolate? There’s cinnamon, a hint of vanilla, and a strong stevia aftertaste.

Dry it smelled really good and balanced, but steeped, I’m afraid I don’t care for it at all. If it were cinnamon and vanilla, with no chocolate or stevia, I think it would be a lot better.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. I normally don’t like chocolate teas because they have this sort of “wisp” of chocolate that makes me just wish it were the real thing. But the base tea is very rich and nutty and gives the chocolate a little thickness that makes it not taste watery at all. The jasmine is very present as well, and it all works together. I really really enjoyed this.

I think I hate this tea. I was trying to be generous, and think that I only dislike it, but I really feel like this tea is weird, unnatural, and unpleasant.
And yet I insist on sipping it down. What up with that, eh?
But we are not there yet. I may yet change my mind.

I am, apparently, an optimist. I have not enjoyed this tea. Its weirdly herbal, not a lot of fruit flavor, and even less tea flavor. It has not been a liked tea.
But, I don’t hate it to the point of throwing it out. I’m a person who is determined to use up even not very well liked things. Maybe today, with hot water and a long steep, it will be alright?
Nope. This is still weirdly herbal, a sour note, with a hint of the orange flavor. Nope, nope, nope. Stay away, friends.
That said, I don’t have much left. I might still try to sip this down.

Ok, I don’t think this has any tea in it. It tastes herbal, and a medicinal herbal at that. I can barely see the leaf in it, for all the giant red things (that I assume are freeze dried raspberries, but they look like fruitiy pebbles.)
Blerhg. Not impressed at all.

Take two of this tea has not improved my opinion.
It claims it is a black tea, but it tastes so herbal, and medicially herbal as well. Bleh.
I am not super impressed. I had hopes for this company as it was easily avalible, so I hoped that I could find decent tea. Judging from this one, I don’t think I’ll be getting more from this brand.

So I picked some of this up from my local Whole Foods on a whim. It had been a while since I bought a new tea, and this one sounded summery and interesting. I had visions of a raspberry style creamsicle, and I like fruity black teas. Worth a shot, anyway!
This is an unusual blend. For starts, its super colorful. Lots of cornflower petals, bits of orange peel, and what look like Fruity Pebbles but must be the raspberries. Not a lot of actual tea, in comparison.
Brewed up, this has a strong flavor of herbs, and just a hint of a brighter fruit note, but not enough for me to tell if it was the raspberry or the orange.
Hmm. I’m not impressed by the first brewing. I’ve got a bit more (though not a great deal, thank goodness), so I can experiment a bit more.

I got this chai from the World Tea Expo along with TEA INFUSED CHOCOLATES!

Anyways, this is a pretty good rooibos chai. This one does not skimp out on spices, so with a longer steep you’ll get more spice and less rooibos (a win for me). The key in this chai is the BIG chunks of vanilla bean which add a great creamyness to the chai.

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl. Plus a tasting of tea infused chocolates! http://oolongowl.com/spicely-tea-infused-chocolates-chai-rooibos-oolong-owl-tea-review/

Oh stevia, you ruin everything.

I hate stevia. I hate all fake sugar but stevia might be the worst to me. It is metallic and weird and this probably could have been a great tea. Why why why add a sweetening agent when people could just choose to sweeten on their own?

If you don’t hate stevia, you might like this.

Good afternoon Steepster…
I was in a pretty good mood until I got home from taking a walk. I asked my work to send me some boxes a few weeks ago with my personal belongings and they arrived today. I forgot how much tea I was keeping at the office, now I have LOTS of tea, my gosh.

Aside form being reunited with my tea collection, I’m just feeling really sad about not having a job. I was ready to move on from these people anyway but it would have been good if they had treated me better after the 9 years I was working there. I see they are still advertising my position though, maybe nobody else wants it? lol

Anyway as to this tea, it isn’t on the Spicely company website and I’ve no idea why, so no picture. Sorry. This looks to be a Chinese green tea with coconut shreds. It has a nice coconut-vanilla flavor, although not the best coconut tea I’ve had by far. Here’s a nice nutty flavor in this as well. Glad to have this one back, now I just have to figure out where I am going to put all this tea that I got back… :)

I picked this up from the Spicely store down on Market Street just because I like tulsi and it’s relaxing. the flavor of this one is a little “meh”, however, mostly it is tulsi and there’s not very much ginger involved it would seem. I suppose I could add my own and maybe I will next time!

Backlog:

I was actually impressed by this blend, and I didn’t expect to be. The ginger is nice and zesty. It’s spicy but not too hot and it is an interesting contrast to the honey-like sweetness and woodsy tones of the rooibos.

Also very nice on a sore throat.

A simple blend but I enjoyed it.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/04/16/organic-ginger-calendula-rooibos-tea-spicely-organics/

Looks like the Steepster dashboard is frozen again… sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Anyway this is a sipdown, this isn’t a very good chai in my opinion since it just contains cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla. It’s ok for a rooibos blend but not something I will need to repurchase.

I’ve never really been a fan of “tea ball” type infusers, they either fall apart or they don’t allow enough surface area with the water to allow a proper brewing. I got a free teaball with a recent tea order (can’t remember which one, sorry). It’s already making a big mess in my cup. :(

This isn’t my favorite rooibos chai because it needs more spices. But it is good as a bedtime tea, especially with a shot of Fireball thrown in (the cinnamon flavored whisky). TGIF!

In other tea geekey news, I am seasoning a yixing teapot that I got for black teas. I will probably do a blog about it soon but I did drink a pot of tea that came out of the yixing this morning and it wasn’t bad. I think I noticed a slight clay taste so I am doing a couple more throw away steepings with cheap tea in order to break it in a bit more.

Tisane of the afternoon here from Spicely, this was one I bought last week after my acupuncture appointment.

Although this says it’s a rooibos chai, it is lacking in flavors you would normally associate with a chai, such as ginger, cloves and black pepper, etc. Instead it has cinnamon, vanilla, cacao nibs and cardamom. This makes for a very mellow concoction that’s a decent dessert tea. I guess I was hoping for something slightly spicier and could definitely add my own ingredients if I wanted to to sort of perk it up a bit. This isn’t a bad rooibos blend it just doesn’t seem that much like a chai to me. It’s fairly tasty though, I like this one with soymilk and it doesn’t really need sugar.