Stash Tea

Loved this tea growing up, it must have been one of the first teas I’ve ever had. Just finished a box a bought on a whim a while back, and in order to finish the box I have been using these bags to make crazy delicious lattes. I am quite fortunate to have access to an espresso machine throughout my life, thanks to working in foodservice for almost 15yrs and having a partner in the coffee industry. Espresso machines aren’t too expensive, if you know where to look and are into finding ways to get your latte fix in. The past week or so I’ve been petsitting for a couple who have a really nice Breville machine, and i have been going ham on it every morning, making myself as many tea lattes as I can drink. figured I would use this review to put my recipe.

MiepSteep’s Tea Latte
This recipe is for those who have access to an espresso machine btw
I typically use the smallest filter basket in the portafilter if possible, since you wont need too much tea… relatively. It’s very important to flush out the group head and wash out the portafilter before adding tea to the portafilter basket, so no lingering coffee smells taint the brew. Basically, all I do is rip open 3-4 teabags and empty the contents into the portafilter. No need to use a tamper to squish it down, since the leaves will do some minimal expanding as the shots are pulled. I have also used other types of tea, like rooibos (the messiest), honeybush, CTC, and spices. I’ve also been using T2’s Melbourne and New York Breakfast for lattes this week as well.Have yet to use green tea, maybe I’ll try that this week!

The idea is to make a concentrate. After filling the portafilter basket with leaf fannings or what have you, either pull for twice as long as you would for an espresso shot (around 10-15seconds) or if your machine has a 1shot/2shot button like the Breville does, pull the equivalent of 5 shots into your cup. Steam some milk of choice in there and enjoy! Tastes just like a cookie to me :)

This was back-to-back with some nice Alishan loose leaf, how does a flavored and bagged tea fair?

Quite a strong white peach nose, probably some guava in there, caramelized sugar.

Now, granted my bags are probably expired at this point since they have been sitting around for ages, but this one falls really flat. The cooler it gets, the more I taste a little of the profile. It’s pretty subtle, but I covered that in my previous review. I guess I just thought there might be more flavor with hotter water to start.

Dropped a couple points as I would rather drink this iced or cold-brewed.

Edit: I threw some ice cubes into this one and it’s much better. I think there just isn’t a lot of flavor when it is hot so the little that comes through is available at low temperatures.

This bag has no right being as good as it ended up. I cold brewed overnight, using two bags in a 16oz mug, probably 10 hours? I figured it was tossable as these bags are out of date range I’m sure.

The tea ended up a nice peachy gold, and while I’m not pulling a lot of peach flavor out of it on tongue, the smell is definitely there from the flavoring used.

See, when I first read this bag I misunderstood; I thought it was peach white tea, not white peach Oolong tea.
So, in this iteration the flavors are light and bright with a little kiss of fruit sweetness on the finish. Maybe I could have gotten a bit more flavor by starting with warm water (I went with room temp to cold brew) but I also don’t care that much. This turned into a mellow morning refresher with little to no effort on my time. It’s a bit above average, or at least I would much rather drink this than Lipton…

I like to add flavoring syrups and milk to my bagged chamomile tea, and this one works as well for that as any! Plain, it was a bit flatter than some alternatives, but dressed up, it’s decent enough both warm and cold. It definitely didn’t taste high quality or flavorful without the help.

I slipped on the floor at PetSmart today on a catfood run and managed to sprain both my right ankle and right wrist. Not recommended.

Only now realized I hadn’t written a note for this yet, and I’m on the last teabag. I have been looking for a good black licorice tasting herbal, but this isn’t that. That said, I do really like it… It’s strongly sweet licorice root which I know is a polarizing flavor, but I enjoy it. The spice is gentle and the sweetness is nice for an evening sweet fix. I’ll likely grab this again sometime as I like quick and easy herbal teabags in the evening.

A tea from Advent calendar from Devon and with flavour of my favorite cake, that counts…

But, sadly, it was just robust black tea with little cacao notes and sadly no cherry nor vanilla here.

I don’t even see it on their website? It’s discontinued blend?

My office tea yesterday thanks to Devon and her advent calendar.

I have to say I am not much impressed about this one. It was quite clove-heavy with cinnamon whispering. And base black tea was somehow tannic water, without much to write home about.

I have been expecting more spices and overall more spicy cup for a chai.

Yay, the last one! \o/

This is a nice one. The spearmint and cinnamon are well-balanced. I don’t really get much orange, vanilla, or clove, but I’m not missing them. I’m a spearmint fan so this is right up my alley. It’s a nice, mellow spearmint tisane with the sweet cinnamon adding a festive touch. I could totally imagine sipping this on Christmas Eve!

Glad to be ending on a high note. And now I have to decide where to put all of these boxes of teabags! :|

Holiday grocery store teas tried: 19/19

Not gonna lie, was pretty much dreading this one. I tend to dislike both chocolate and lavender teas, and this has both.

But actually it’s quite good?! Mostly I taste peppermint supplemented by lavender, which is a nice enough combination. The lavender is mellow enough that it doesn’t taste like soap to me. I do get a bit of the chocolate flavor, but mostly it’s a creamy milk chocolaty taste from the cacao shells and the vanilla.

Pretty good for a chocolate-mint tisane, and the peppermint seems like it’s good quality – fresh and clean without tasting like a wet rag. The addition of the lavender keeps it interesting with an almost savory edge. Pleasantly surprised!

Holiday grocery store teas tried: 13/19

Sipdown! (11 | 166)

This tea was just not great. There’s basically zero evidence of white tea IMO, it mostly just tastes like a peppermint wet rag, and I feel like the earthiness of the ginger is only exacerbating that wet rag quality. There is a slight tingle of ginger warmth on the tongue.

Kind of annoyed that I had to order from the Stash website to get this, since it’s apparently an online exclusive. At least I got some cute mugs in that order LOL. :P

Sigh.

So I made an order from the Stash website specifically for this tea, because it’s apparently a website exclusive. And I like mint and white tea so it seemed right up my alley.

Welp, for a tea called “White Christmas”, I sure don’t taste much white tea in here. The peppermint leaf completely takes over the blend. It might as well be a plain peppermint tisane, because that’s mostly what I taste. I do get a touch of earthy ginger heat on the backend, but mostly it’s herbaceous peppermint that leans a big wet rag-ish.

I mean, I’ll drink through it as a bedtime tea, but I was so excited for it. Sad panda. At least I got a couple of cute holiday mugs in that order… :P

Holiday grocery store teas tried: 12/19

This one’s a bit of an oddball as far as holiday teas go. There’s nothing really holiday-ish about it, their thought process seems to be that you need caffeine on Christmas morning? A bit of a reach, lol.

Anyway, it’s fine. If I’m honest, I’m not smelling or tasting the jasmine at all. It mostly tastes like a breakfast blend, which is essentially what it is. Not too strong or tannic, which is nice, but there’s not a lot going on either. Some bready, malty notes maybe. But otherwise it’s mostly tea-ish.

It’s all fine and drinkable, but basically just a breakfast blend, and not a very interesting one at that. Another one for rehoming, as I can’t see myself drinking the rest of the box.

Holiday grocery store teas tried: 8/19

Sipdown! (20 | 56)

Finished off this one by making it into a chai concentrate – steeping it on the stove with water and then putting it in a pitcher in the fridge.

It’s not bad, I mixed it with oat milk and a bit of maple syrup. It’s not my favorite just because of the added flavorings, to me they take away from the spices and make it more of a flavored tea than a chai. I can definitely taste the nutmeg and allspice, which are interesting and do make it feel a bit holiday-esque.

Anyway, I’ll finish it off this way, but certainly not something I would reorder.

This is fine. It’s about as generic as a chai can get, with mostly clove and cinnamon along with a bit of nutmeg and ginger. Apparently it has gingerbread flavoring, which I guess I get a little bit. It doesn’t have any of the lovely molasses notes of better gingerbread teas though. I definitely don’t get the rum at all.

It’s inoffensive, but the spices just kind of muddle together into a generic “chai” flavor profile for me. I guess it has a bit more nutmeg than usual? I’ll probably end up using this as a chai concentrate for iced lattes.

Holiday grocery store teas tried: 5/19

Ahhh, feeling better than yesterday. Much better. It is still not up to par, but at least stomachache disappeared and no back pain anymore as well. A little sore throat remains.

Anyway, third tea from Devon’s Advent Calendar, thanks again.

I am trying to recall, if I had pear tea before. I am pretty sure I had, *checks notes, yes, I had. Anyway, dry bag smells like banana, like most of you wrote about before.

It is gently flavoured and I actually liked it more than I thought I will. Crisp, buttery pear with sweet profile. Enjoyable. Mellow green tea, which is good choice for blending it with the pear. It was floral, hay-like green tea.

As I in general don’t eat much pears, and it is not my favourite fruit, I would not drink it as daily drinker. But I think there will be some who will.

It was kind of a shame to wind up with a Christmas Eve and Christmas “holiday spice” teas back-to-back, but that’s really on me; sipsby just gave me a “bag 1” and “bag 2” with 12 teas each and I randomly put them into pouches.

This was somehow even stranger than the mulling spices in water from the Davidson’s Christmas Tea, and I think it’s the spearmint in it. There’s definitely spearmint, orange, and cinnamon together here. The spearmint is the strongest flavor, though the subtle orange is there through the sip and the aftertaste is mostly cinnamon. I think it was really the orange with spearmint that was bothering me and kept it from being a win, because separately I love these ingredients. I drank it, but the whole time I kept going “so weird”.

sipsby bagged advent, day 11

I can’t understand why the overall rating for this tea is so low???!!! (69 at the time of this review.) I guess simplicity is underrated these days.
I thought that this tea was really good. Simple but lovely!
It reminds me of toothpaste but in the best possible way. I found it super-comforting. For me, it’s all spearmint and cinnamon and I’m here for it! A perfect choice for Winter.

My bag looks different than the one pictured. Brown with a mint green stripe. I am going to try not to be subjective because I usually avoid tea bags. But it is hard. For one, I do not feel that oolong belongs in a tea bag. If it is in a tea bag it is because it must be a lower grade. Despite that, this is decent. Though the main flavor is peppermint. I also taste the chocolate which reminds me of the chocolate used in Andes Mints. But it also leaves a kinda meh note in the finish. Sawdust and dusty shelves.

So I made an order with Stash to get their White Christmas tea (which is an online exclusive for some reason) and this piqued my interest so it tagged along. And I also got a couple of cute holiday mugs because I have no self-control… ^^’

Anyway! I was excited to try this one, but sadly I just don’t like it very much… The elderflower is fine, but I’m not a fan of the yuzu flavoring. It’s a bit… chemical-tasting? It’s too pithy and bitter, and it’s just an odd combination with the soft elderflower.

So I guess this is going directly into the rehoming box! :P