Tea for All Reasons

I’m not certain if this is the manufacturer of the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie black tea that the Cup Cafe in Westminster, MD maintains in their establishment. The picture looks like the tea I purchased.

I was quite excited about this tea. Being an avid lover of all things autumn, this time of year really inspires me to seek out all things cozy. So when I heard of this little cafe and saw this tea on their quaint cafe chalkboard- I was moved to try it. They brewed me up a latte and I was on my way.

The tea smelled every bit like I was baking oatmeal raisin cookies in my car.

Upon tasting it, however, I was left a bit flat.

Now, I’m an Irish girl who likes my tea strong. This was by far- not.

Hoping they simply hadn’t brewed it long enough, I made a pot of this tea from the small bag of Oatmeal Raisin Cookie tea I purchased at the cafe for my mother and myself. Brewing it for 6 minutes just to be sure, I eagerly poured us two mugs for us to enjoy.

To my dismay, this simply was not a strong-brewing black blend. The cinnamon is very strong. You can see raisins in the blend, and the tea does smell of its namesake.

I brew this tea at home with Yorkshire teabags and it’s lovely- I get the strong black tea flavor I enjoy and the flavor of the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie is not interrupted in the slightest.

Picked this one up from Marzipan- I love chamomile teas but this one, I just didn’t like. It almost had an off setting sour taste. I couldn’t even finish the cup. The odd sour taste overwhelmed the tea.

this was my all time favourite tea. It was crisp delicious, smelled wonderful and I looked forward to a cup any time. Many people I introcuded this tea to agreed and purchased it.
The last time I bought it last week , it had sadly changed. No more glitter, no more nice smell and a muddy gross taste. Bring back the old glitter and gold — please

By itself, this tea really didn’t do it for me. The berry flavor I was looking for was lost in translation somewhere. But when I made it into a latte . .Wowzer! The flavors popped! Berries N Cream!

Here is the rest of the lowdown on this tasty treat!

http://sororiteasisters.com/2015/04/15/starry-night-tea-reasons/

Sipdown (111)!

Well, back at work for the day – Calendar Club, since it’s morning. Which means more plugging away at queued up tasting notes. I have a new found respect for people who work more than one job; I’m just totally drained, and everything hurts so much. Plus, when I do get home I just don’t have time for anything. But I chose this, so really I can’t complain too much.

Thank you Marzipan for this sample: I don’t think I would have chosen it for myself, but I definitely would have looked at it because it sure does look interesting dry. Very aesthetically pleasing with the bright blue cornflowers and shiny little metallic gold stars and sprinkles and stuff. I prepped it in a timolino for work.

Unfortunately, this one was not a hit taste wise: I found the base was very choppy and haad an astringent, dryness to it. There was some berry flavour, perhaps a little more blackberry then anything else but it was fairly muddled and artificial. Drinkable overall, but I wouldn’t have another cup any time soon or recommend it.

Additional notes: Sipdown of this one and I’m the only one with a tasting note? That’s a shame! I think those who like the 52Teas usual black base would like this. Oooo… but I wonder if the NEW black tea base is better?

Thank you DigniTea for this one a while ago! One of the teas I have yet to try… this one has been waiting a while. The dry leaves certainly have a sweet scent… has to be more than just those little caramel cubes (do they really have that much caramel flavor?) The flavor is certainly sweet too (and it might be hiding that cardboard flavor black tea I don’t particularly love). But with this caramel flavor it’s close to one of the MOST caramel teas I’ve tried. Well, if it’s sweet then it’s caramel, I guess. The color of the cup looks like caramel too.
Steep #1 // few min after boiling // 3 min
Steep #2 // just boiled // 5 min

This was a tiny sample from the here’s hoping traveling box…
there were no blueberries in the sample and no taste of blueberry.
This simply tasted like maple syrup in water…not even the cinnamon flavor
that is on the top of blueberry buckle…such a disappointment :-(

I bought this awhile back when I came across the site and found this blend 50% off. I love Della Terra’s version, so at 50% off I thought I would give this a try and see how they compare.

This one is very much like DTT blend, but is lacking a bit of the flavor somehow. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I feel like it’s missing something. I do notice that a resteep of this blend doesn’t yield as nice of a cup as the DTT version, which I was doing because I was hoarding my last bit of it.. now I can sip it down :) This is still a nice cup and I might venture to grab it again sometime if I find it at a great discount again.

With this I get a nice flavor that makes you think buttery cake. I don’t know if I would think pineapple so much w/o knowing the name of this one, although I can kind of imagine it. I gave some of this to my now 9 year old, he’s growing way too fast!, and told him it was “upside down cake” flavored tea and he really liked it. If I had said pineapple he would have declined…that’s his typical take on fruit, unless your talking about orange soda. :(

I’ve been away much of the warm season drinking my homemade iced tea and experimenting a bit with cold brewed teas… a work in progress. Can’t believe I slipped away as long as I did.. love checking what is going on here when I have the time.

I wanted something hot a few days ago and picked this one up because it was one that I had enjoyed just before the summer started. This was the bottom of the bag with all the crumbs and chaos and just wasn’t a good cuppa. :( I will disregard making note on it because I know I had a better cup than this one was. I didn’t even drink much of it. Felt good to have the warm cup back in my hands though :) Also good to be checking back in here too!

I’ve had a couple of cups of this one recently, both cold & hot steeped and I think my first impression still stands. A nice blend that is pretty predictable and not finicky… I like that when I’m in a hurry.

I’ve enjoyed the chocolate covered strawberry in a cup idea as it felt like it could go with summertime treats… Hubby on the other hand isn’t so fond of the flavor combo. He would rather have the chocolate or the strawberry, but not together… yet he likes Butiki’s Three Friends…. fruit and chocolate, and he hates marshmallow.. go figure!

I ordered this a few weeks ago when I stumbled on the site and found they had Pineapple Upside Down Cake on a 50% off sale.. & I’m a sucker for a sale. I just had to try it because I love Della Terra’s version and had to see how someone else did it. Anyway, this note isn’t for that.. so I’ll move on.

This tea was also on sale so I thought I would give it a try. I thought it might be fun as an iced blend, although I wasn’t sure how the chocolate would come through in a cold brew. Hubby likes fruit teas, wasn’t sure how he’d feel about the addition of chocolate, but thought it might work for him too.

Dry leaf smells mainly of rich chocolate with a hint of strawberry. The first attempt was at a cold steep. I wish I could tell you how long it steeped but I forgot to keep track.. :( I was surprised when I tried it how refreshing it was. The chocolate came through well and the strawberry and base was present also, although the strawberry was maybe a touch artificial. I’m guessing it is hard to do strawberry combined with rich chocolate w/o losing the strawberry.

Today I tried it as a hot cuppa to see how it turned out. My kitchen is chilly today and I felt like a hot cup would be a treat. I was surprised to find that the strawberry came out more pronounced and genuine in the hot cup when I had expected the chocolate to take center stage ( the chocolate is in the form of what looks like little chocolate chips which I assumed would melt). I’m wondering if I should hot steep this one and let it cool for an even better iced tea version of this than the cold steep.

I’ve enjoyed this more than I thought I might since I don’t often reach for fruit teas like my Hubby.. Maybe the chocolate helped? Or, maybe because I bought it primarily w/iced tea intentions. I will be sad if I go looking for this again and it’s not on sale… count me a frugal sale shopper. I guess that would give me an excuse to try something else instead. :)

thank you so much, DigniTea! Samples samples everywhere, but that is how I love my tea collection. This one smells divine – like a fresh baked blueberry sugary dessert. It is VERY similar to Della Terra’s Blueberry Crumble, if not the same blend, but I thought Della Terra blends their own teas (maybe just some of them? I really wish I knew the details of tea companies better – it doesn’t matter if a tea company doesn’t blend their own teas – good tea is good tea… I just prefer to know details about those sorts of things.) Anyway, the flavor is very dessert like! Sugary (since there is actually sugar in the blend) and bakey… almost like cake batter, or better yet, blueberry muffin batter! Hints of candied blueberries on a lovely green tea base. The dry leaves almost look like black tea, but it doesn’t steep like black tea. Very nice!
Both steeps // 25 min after boiling // 2-3 min steep

I as feeling “chamo-milly” tonight. Catching up on Orphan Black, 24 and Night Shift.

This is a very pleasant nighty night tea. Calming and soothing.

Tonight I am watching “The Truce” on Netflix. It is about the liberation of Auschwitz.

This is a pleasant, if unremarkable night time blend. Probably will not order again but I am fine finishing off what I have. I get more chamomile than anything. Very little mint. A little lemon.

Yay sparkle pony tea!

Of all of the teas I ordered from Tea for all Reasons, this was my favorite, and I will definitely reorder it. It’s a strong black tea (which I love), and it has an intoxicating berry scent and aftertaste, which I found natural and not fake tasting at all. I made it for my 17-year-old daughter and she loved it too. She kept taking drinks and saying over and over again how good it was.

It’s also pretty to look at, which I like. Yellow stars, shiny blue sprinkles, and shiny gold balls of sugar. I don’t think that adds much to the final tea result but it makes it more fun visually during the brew. It’s part of their Dr. Who collection, but since I don’t watch the show I can’t really draw any parallel there.

I haven’t had this one in a while, and I’m happy to say that I still like it. I hope I never get over being happy because of sparkly things. It’s the little girl inside me.

I have been re-drinking a lot of things lately and not posting reviews, I’m sorry! What usually happens is I go upstairs to make tea and I just have my iPad with me, and I hate typing long things on the iPad. Our house is a bit unusual in that the kitchen, dining room, bedrooms and two bathrooms are on the ground floor, then the great room, offices, laundry, storage and another bathroom are underground. So now I’m at my desk, with my computer, but on a different floor than my kitchen. The next house won’t have stairs, I have vowed.

So anyway, tea, reviews, stairs, iPad, blah blah. A lot has happened in the past week. We adopted a cat: http://imgur.com/D7s6Moy HIs name is Prince Pudding. It was really sort of sweet, we wanted a Ragdoll specifically, and I found one that was listed at the shelter one town over. So we went there, and when we got there he was in one of the “get acquainted” rooms with an older lady and we were SO SAD.

Then she motioned for us to come in, and she was the previous owner! She is going into assisted living and since she took him to the shelter, she has been going back every day to see if he was out for showing and to meet people to help find a good family for him. It was really heart warming. We spent about 45 minutes with her and with him, and it’s just the absolute right fit. You know she loved him a lot if she didn’t just drop him off and leave him. He had been at the shelter since the 2nd but the first day they put him out was the 8th, and we adopted him on the 9th. So there you go!