Tea Largo

This tea is from my local tea shop. I haven’t been impressed with everything I’ve tried from there, but love the place – so cute and cozy. They are moving right now to a bigger location.

This pumpkin rooibos has pumkin seeds and flecks of all kinds of goodies. This is the first Roobios I have tried – I was hesitant to try it because the smell of Roobios kind of repels me. I am surprised – it’s very good. And actually is very sweet without any flavorings having to be added.

For this one, the taste is more of a pumpkin spice out of a can rather than the fruit pumpkin or anything like pumpkin pie. Have the cinnamon dabbled in there for sure, can taste it richer the more I sip. I can almost picture a dab of whipped cream on top.
It works – and works well. There’s something else it reminds me of, but I just can’t place it.

Thankfully I have more of this left. I also have their carrot cake roobios to try.

New tasting is still unimpressive. For some reason this tea reminds me of twigs. It’s very earthy tasting, but I don’t sense spice or orange. It’s a weak black tea I wouldn’t recommend.

Honestly pretty bland and not much on the orange “spice” part. A staple black tea but there’s better out there. I wouldn’t buy again. Wasn’t horrible but lackluster.

This surprised me with its rich flavour. It was actually quite yummy and would be perfect sitting down to breakfast with french toast or something else sweet with syrup. Maple and then the syrup touch ring through very clear. The color is deep and red. The timing shows as 3 minutes. I typically steep for five and did with this one. It can be oversteeped! It’s pretty strong so can do bitter notes if go to five and that’s not needed. It’s also pretty yicky as it cools. Hot and fresh and steeped right, it’s an unusual and fun tea that’s warming, rich, fragrant, and highly flavored. I add a little sugar to mine as it enhances the other notes well. It’s sweet enough on its own if you don’t like sugar.

I’m not the biggest fan of fruit teas and I don’t like the cream ones I’ve tried, but I loved this one. It doesn’t seem like a cream tea at all to me, so not sure if the blend is now different from the title or not. Mine just says Pirate’s Blend Black Tea. It does have the same ingredient list.

My son and I drank a cup and loved it, I steeped one Tbsp five minutes, and that was more than strong enough. I would think two tablespoons may be overpowering. Very dark and flavorful, reminded me of a tropical island with a nice breeze while lounging on the sand, sucking on the remains of some hard candy. Has coconut but I didn’t taste it, which may be a good thing.

So this was another impulse buy on my Florida Vacation, and I am still trying to curb the tea purchasing and opening new ones while others live on my shelf unfinished. I am happy to say, that today I was able to finish off other teas and open this one!

The smell of the dried leaves is overwhelming. It smells creamy, strawberry, coconut, a hint of hibiscus and rose, some lavender. The leaves are beautiful: little black curls mixed with red pieces, small slivers of coconut, and purple-blue leaves.

I took two heaping spoonfuls and added them to my pot, hot water, no additives. I originally intended to infuse for the full five minutes, however as it was infusing the lavender/hibiscus/rose scent liberated and I got concerned of bitterness, so I cut my infusion to three minutes.

The liquor is a dark color, somewhat like spiced rum, guess that was intentional. The odor is still the lavender and hibiscus with the powdery rose note and unfortunately, I am having a lot of trouble getting passed that smell. The flavor seems to not really be anything, a bit of strawberry, a hint of coconut, and then the familiar bitterness of lavender/hibiscus and a smack of black tea.

I do not like rose, I do not seek out hibiscus on it’s own either, and to be perfectly honest, I cannot stand lavender. I wouldn’t say this tea is bad, because it’s not, it’s just not my cup of tea (pun intended) – I would not typically drink/enjoy this regardless of the name because it is just too floral for me.

Oh well…

Sorry there is no picture on the website for this, I wish there was, it is so pretty. There is the small rooibos splinters and granulated cinnamon and ginger pieces that look like glitter sprinkled throughout the tea. There is something else in there, something that clumps up a bit, but immediately breaks down when touched with my spoon.

The tea smells like a gingersnap cookie, sweet and spicy at the same time with a light rooibos fragrance. Since it did not smell incredibly strong, I was not concerned about it being too strong. Infused hot, 5 minutes, no additives.

The liquor is red, gingersnap cookie, duh, the fragrance actually manages to smell more and more like a gingersnap cookie. It is warm and spiced, yet sweet and almost a little buttery. The flavor mirrors this very well. There is the spice ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg flavor, there is a little extra cinnamon for a chemical as well as physical heat, and something that makes this natural sweet without having added anything. There is a slight buttery flavor, not creamy but a slightly salty, caramel flavor.

This tea was good, and good on its own without any additives. :) So far, Tea Largo has done a fantastic job with these blends.

So I just brewed up some of this to make up for my poor experience this morning. Unfortunately, I got pulled into a meeting and it over-infused by like 20 minutes. sigh I will drink it, though now it is a bit too bitter. Added some sugar, downed it and onto the second (much shorter) infusion.

This time, I will add my sugar and milk and it should be perfect.

Long have I sought for the tea that will conquer the constant craving for carrot cake. I have tried a few (will be posting soon enough) and this is one of them.

The blended tea smells fantastic, just like carrot cake should smell. You can smell carrot and spice: cinnamon and nutmeg perhaps, along with big pieces of walnut.

Infused hot, five minutes, no additives, the tea is a little blander than I would have liked plain and alone like this. It is definitely carrot cake colored, yet you are really only smelling spice, the flavor is definitely carrots with spice and walnut, but something is missing. The creamy sweetness of cream cheese frosting? Most likely.

So I tried it again, same sampling of the tea, hot, a pinch of rock sugar, infused 4 minutes. This was closer, the added sweetness from the sugar brought out a flavor that was not there before. Interesting. I am liking this one a lot better. Might as well try it with milk.

One last time, same sample of tea, got a decent amount of infuses out of this, hot, infused 4 minutes, a pinch of rock sugar and a splash of half and half. (Sorry about the “technical” terms pinch and splash, they are not a full tablespoon for my full 8 ounce serving of tea, they are like a teaspoon of sugar, and two teaspoons of milk). This is pretty dead on flavor wise. It has a creaminess (from the milk) a sweetness (from the sugar) and then the spiced carroty goodness of carrot cake. The rooibos did not bring too much to the party, I am pretty sure it helped impart color on the liquor, but not much more, it was not overpowering and it let the additional ingredients really do their own thing in the tea.

Overall, this was pretty good. I did prefer it with milk and sugar though.