T-We Tea

I’m finally getting around to trying this herbal blend I got in S.F. a few weeks ago. Dolores Day… evidently named for Dolores Park, a place the locals like to go hang out on the weekends when it’s sunny. This is definitely a good blend with lemon balm, peppermint and lavender. I don’t normally like lavender in tea but it’s subtle and nice and the lemon balm gives it a pleasant, herby note. I also feel like this would be good with some turbinado sugar but I’m trying to resist that for now. T-We makes some really nice blends and this just makes me happy for some reason ….

I think I love this tea’s name more than I do the actual tea. I always want it to taste like Twinning’s Buttermint… sigh… okay, stop ruminating about ole teas of yore there Miss B, you’ll get back to the UK to get more soon enough.

Kind of reminds me of Twining’s Buttermint, but it’s easier to find here. :P Still, not that easy, but, tasty enough and with enough in my cupboard that it’ll do me! Yay…. minty vanilla, who knew I’d love you so much.

Something about this was painfully off when I had it – so much so that I packed up the rest immediately and planned on sharing it with someone who might like it more. Can’t remember what it was, but it just wasn’t to my tastes. Maybe the rooibos, maybe the combination of flavors? Dunno, but it made me sad, because I love this company to bits.

Finished off my box of this today, I never added it to my cupboard but it was gone fairly quicky after I purchased it. I drank this a lot as an after lunch digestive type of tea, my currently I’m on a ginger & peppermint mix or just plain ginger. I may get some more at some point but I still have a cupboard full of tea to drink at home. =)

Afternoon tea that I got at local company T-We tea in San Francisco. I wasn’t expecting too much from this blend but it’s really good in my opinion. Of course, I love ginger and that is the predominant flavor of this blend: ginger with a slight hint of orange. There’s white tea in it too but it’s actually hard to find to detect the white tea in it. I might have to go back and get some more of this next week. If you don’t like ginger I wouldn’t bother though.

I definitely felt this was warming, invigorating and SPICY! I also found if you buy a glass tumbler from them they will give you a free cup of tea every time you go in. Pretty good deal if you’re in the area, the tumbler would pay for itself in a little over 10 visits. I think I will be doing that more often :)

Nasty nasty nasty

Guurl Greggnog Tea Latte.

Of course.

This one I was really hesitant about, but it’s actually really freaking good. Eggnog and earl grey, who woulda thought.

What with the jasmine blossoms and citrus peels, I thought this tea was going to be over the top floral soapy… but it’s not!

It’s actually a super mild earl grey with some additional floral notes. Not bad, but not really enough, either. As in, it’s not distinct enough or different enough to find a permanent place in my cupboard.

That being said, I really enjoyed the mug I had this morning. Yum!

Thank you for sharing, MissB!

Aww, it looks like MissB didn’t try this one (it was the lavender, wasn’t it?)! So now it’s up to me to review a tea that I… don’t really have any application for. Oh well, it smells good!

There is definitely a LOAD of lavender in this tea. Sniffing it, I can also smell the raspberry leaf, but wow it’s almost soap. And it takes a lot of lavender to make things smell soapy for me.

Steeped, it smells like herbal soap tea. Umm… I’m kinda scared.

It’s been sitting there for about 15 minutes while I putter around and consider drinking it.

Well, it’s not terrible. It’s a bit sweet from the “anise seeds” (aka fennel) and the lavender. The raspberry leaf is tasty enough. I can’t tell there’s fenugreek in it. But I would still much rather be drinking something else.

I think that if it’s a tea you need, this would be a much tastier option than some others, but as a tea I don’t need… I’m gonna pass.

Ah… this is a beautify-full and fragrant herbal blend that I just blogged about today so you can read all the details here:

http://teabre.ws/1sjcJc3

Ahhh, somehow the lavender is refreshing!

I’m not a huge fan of plain black teas, but I like this better than some others I’ve had. There is a subtleness to the taste that is almost sweet, while still being earthy without any bitterness. I like this.

I liked tea before tea was cool. (Sorry. I just couldn’t resist.)

This tea is one of the strangest teas I’ve ever drunk. Yes, there is green tea in it but there is far more carrot so it was less green tea with carrot, and more carrot tea. The jasmine did add a nice touch, but I wish it tasted like… well, tea.

Guess I’m not a hipster.

I stopped by this shop for the first time last week and picked this up. I think ashmanra told me about this company. I didn’t know it existed, and it’s only a couple blocks from my work! Anyway, it’s a very modern, tiny little shop. They have their regular blends and then they have their “fancy pants” blends. Haha! Their teas seem to only come in 2.5 oz. packages. They don’t have a huge selection, but they did have 3 different chai’s. They have Chai Me (herbal), Chai This, and Chai That. I picked up Chai That because it had star anise in it. I think it’s supposed to be the spicier of the two black chai’s. I was a little disappointed in the packaging, because inside the box, the tea is in kind of a thin plastic bag with one of those curl-down ties, but once you open it, it’s not as secure.

The dry leaf of this tea smells great! There only seems to be one little star anise in my little bag though. Once steeped, it still smells great! However, the taste was disappointing. I thought the spice blend was pretty flat, meaning I couldn’t discern high or low notes. Oh well, it was fun to try, but apparently not the blend for me.

Mmmm… sipdown!
I have rather enjoyed this and will probably get more someday. I’m not a huge fan of Keemun but somehow it works here with the Nilgiri and Ceylon. I wouldn’t have thought of putting those together myself but it’s a tasty blend.

I’m happy to have my Silk Soymilk back for tea. Regarding plant based milks, I keep trying different ones and Silk Soymilk is definitely the best one for tea, it doesn’t impart much of a flavor but it makes things nice and creamy.

Tea of the morning here. The Bay Area weather can be so bizarre – yesterday we were at the Marin County Fair in San Rafael and it felt like it was in the 90’s. This morning in San Francisco it’s foggy and under 60 degrees. Brrr. I’m glad I have this tea!

p.s. – I had the most wonderful 4th of July yesterday at the Marin County Fair!

Strange, I thought I had done a tasting note for this tea but evidently not.

Tea of the morning. This is a local San Francisco company with a very unique blend of black teas here, assam, nilgiri and keemun. This gives it somewhat of a stout flavor profile with a bit of heft as well. Not really for the faint at heart, I definitely needed soymilk in this but it’s good for the morning time, hence the name. Nilgiri was an interesting choice to blend with the keemun and assam, which gives it an almost lemony component.

Can’t write too much more or I’ll be late for work!

Sipdown this morning

I’ve had this tea for far too long. It’s a decent blend of Indonesian Java tea, Keemun, cinnamon chips and cacao, very good with soymilk as well. It’s a tea that is tasty but one I haven’t reached for too often for some reason.

So it’s been a while since I’ve had this one and I went to the T-We website and saw they have some new stuff, I need to go back soon and check out some of their other offerings. :)

Anyway this is a very strong and in your face blend which is why it’s called RENEGADE, I guess! This morning it seems really strong to me, almost a bit like coffee. The cinnamon is very pronounced too… It’s really good and getting me moving today!

I discovered this tea company recently when I was at the Treasure Island flea market and it will be worthy of a blog post pretty soon. :)

Don’t know why there isn’t a photo of this tea on their website. Anyway I thought this combination sounded intriguing: Indonesian java black tea, Chinese keemun black tea, cacao nibs and cinnamon.

It is interesting. The cinnamon is a very predominate flavor.The cacao is pretty light but the black tea base has a bit of smokiness. I can’t remember how long I steeped this for exactly because I’ve been picking up and trying to get my laundry done. I’m sure I steeped it for at least 5 minutes and then added some soymilk to add a bit of creaminess. It’s good! The blend is really creative and I look forward to trying more from this San Francisco company.