Tea Revv

This definitely has maple in it, but it isn’t a gross or overwhelming maple – it’s just enough to give you that pancake feeling. I can find the jasmine in it if I try, but whether it was just my sample or no, I don’t find it strong at all. I don’t like this enough to buy more of it, but I wouldn’t be upset if I had more.

This one is heavy on the pepper and red rooibos. There are other spices in there but these two flavors are pretty overwhelming. I do appreciate a chai that’s supposed to be spicy, actually being spicy, but I don’t much care for this one. The balance is just too off.

Tea Revv Advent Calendar – Day 8

(originally written November 8th)

A little late writing about this one, though I made the pot this morning work has been rather hectic and I’m still sipping on it every so often.

It’s a decent enough Earl Grey cream blend. The bergamot here is a bit too strong in my opinion, as it goes rather bitter and perfumey. I can’t taste the base tea at all next to the bergamot.

While I do appreciate the vanilla and cream flavors, they need to be much stronger in my opinion.

I feel I’m always disappointed by Earl Grey cream blends. I really need to find a good one, because I love the concept!

This was nice enough. The flavor was rather like a presweetened, pre-milked black tea, so while it was nothing remarkable, it was nice and cozy. Not a tea to drink if you don’t like sweet.

This was a bit lighter than I think of as breakfast tea, but a nice simple black tea. I wouldn’t seek it out, but I’d drink whatever I had. (This was just an advent calendar sample, so I don’t own more, but I’d consider it as a basic tea addition if I ever order from them.) Not overwhelming, but nice enough in the basic cup of tea category.

This was just a bitter, harsh Earl Grey with a teensy tiny hint of creaminess in the finish. I admit I’m not the world’s biggest EG fan, but this was just gross and not well done. I drank about half the cup because I was stuck with it in my car and I have a sore throat so warm felt good – but once I got home, I dumped the rest.

Tea Revv Advent Calendar – Day 7

(originally written November 7th)

I haven’t had much tea today. I drank a couple of teas at work, but for some reason haven’t felt tea-ish since I got home. But I have to do my advent teas so having at least one pot this evening! :)

This is just a typical fruit tisane with hibiscus. It’s quite tart, and could use a bit more sweetness to balance it better. I do get both cranberry and apple, so that’s nice.

It’s not terribly sour, but it really would need some added sweetener to shine. Definitely nothing special.

The end of this Advent Calendar means I have officially finished classes for my first semester at Law School. Unfortunately that means exams (well, technically “midterms”) and a whole lot of studying. Why can’t it be December 22 already?!? That’s when exams are finally over and I can start enjoying my very short winter vacation.

Until then, I will enjoy tea. So will the other members of my small group since I had a bunch of teas in my swap box that I brought to them to go through and take what they like.

As for me, I am drinking this tea and trying SOOO hard to place what it reminds me of. Seriously, I am sitting on my couch with the tea on a table next to me and the tea smells so incredibly familiar…like spot on for another tea…but I just cannot place it for the life of me. I think maybe Glitter & Gold or Sugar & Spice by DAVIDsTEA but I am really not sure. It is sweet and cinnamony and mapley and as I write this, I realize it may be a combination of the tea and the vanilla maple syrup candle I am burning. Moving on…

So this tea screams cinnamon apple to me but is there apple in it? I don’t recall seeing that in the ingredients but that is what I am getting. Then that melds into the jasmine. Why is that here?!? TeaRevv has put some weird ingredients in their teas at time. Jasmine has no place here and the tea suffers for it because the cinnamon apple is nice enough. The Jasmine is a bit potpourri-ish though.

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The pepper and ginger is strong here. Like VERY strong. Like TOO STRONG. I know I also say I want a burn with my ginger but this basically burned my lips and throat and made for a bitter tea. The burn I am thinking of is the one that comes from the ginger crystals but something about the pepper and ginger here is just way too much. Not a fan at all!

Tea Revv Advent Calendar – Day 6

(originally written November 6th)

Ooh, double black advent tea day! This one isn’t on Tea Revv’s website at the moment, so I’m not entirely sure what it’s meant to be flavored like. I get that it’s a Christmas pudding with rum, but not being British I’m not sure what that entails exactly. I assume it’s something like a fruitcake, with dried fruit and spices and the like. One of you Steepsters from across the pond, set me straight! ;)

Well, this doesn’t taste like any of those things to me. I’m not sure I really even get rum, perhaps just a touch? But mostly I’m getting banana and maybe some cocoa? Perhaps a bit of dried fruit, like cherries or cranberries, so that follows the fruitcake thing a bit. The base tea is malty, a bit woody, and a bit brisk with a slightly astringent aftertaste.

It’s certainly not bad, I’m just not sure what it’s supposed to taste like so I can’t say whether it’s accurate or not.

This is a whole lot of pastry with marzipan. It’s more creamy and sweet than almost alcohol-like marzipan though. It’s what I think frangiapane would taste like but I have never actually had frangiapane so dont quote me on that.

Tea Revv Advent Calendar – Day 5

(originally written November 5th)

Meh, an herbal tea. Certainly not something that I get excited about. This one is a mixture of lemongrass, licorice, chamomile, lemon, and gynostemma, which I assume is some magical healthful herb that I have no interest in learning about. I steeped this in a disposable filter bag because of that rascally chamomile.

The steeped tea smells pleasantly lemony, which is a good sign. Wow, this is not at all what I expected… I guess there must have been way more dried lemon than I realized, because it actually tastes somewhat tart. This is actually quite pleasant. The strongest flavor is the lemon and lemongrass combo, and it has a light but somewhat refreshing tartness to it. I can also taste the chamomile, which has its usual musty-floral-oat-honey thing goin’ on. The licorice is fairly well done – I can taste a bit of anise flavor and there’s a slight sweet aftertaste that I attribute to licorice root. I have no idea what gynostemma would taste like, so I can say if that’s contributing any flavor.

Overall, I am very happy to have been surprised by this one. I was expecting a lemongrass and licorice mess and what I got was actually quite well-balanced. I would actually consider keeping some of this around as a sleepytime sort of tea.

Touché, Tea Revv…

Once again, I’m liking a non-tea from Tea Revv. This is a constant for the most part so far. There is nicely balanced cranberry and apple in here. There’s that puckery scent and flavor that is quintessential cranberry, but just a nice hint of it and it doesn’t overpower. I get a hint of some sweeter berry which I’ll assume is the elderberry, but since I don’t know how that specifically tastes, I can’t swear to that. (I just listed it as “berry” in the tastes, since I’m not 100% sure.) Something weird I am noticing is that I’m also eating some pretzels (yes, weird combo, I admit) and after that saltiness, the tea tastes rather dusty somehow.

There was nothing special about this “special blend.” It was a fine middle-of-the-day, medium bodied black tea that went well with sugar, but I didn’t really get any flavor other than basic tea from it. It did brew to a really pretty deep red brown color.

ETA the scoring rubric sometimes really annoys me here. I am the first one to give it a rating, and I give it a 70, so the rubric gives it an overall of 75? I’m not truly griping as such, I just don’t understand at all.

This is an interesting one. It almost tastes like it has bergamot in it. At the same time, I get a lot of the more herbal flavors. It is not bad per se but not really for me either. Fun to try though.

Almost but not quite. The spice blend is nice but just not quite enough oomph, and the tea is a little bitter. As usual with Tea Revv, the fragrance seems to promise something that the brew doesn’t quite deliver. It’s good, but not great.

Tea Revv Advent Calendar – Day 4

(originally written November 4th)

Okay, let’s just get this one over with. I always find pumpkin spice teas to be highly underwhelming, so I’m not expecting much. The packet is decorated with a cute geometric pine tree design.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I expected. It’s a mild, unexceptional black tea base with some light spicing and no pumpkin to be found. There’s a bit of cinnamon and clove mostly, and some artificiality. Perhaps some ginger as well, my tongue does feel a little tingly.

Meh. Just meh. But that’s okay, pumpkin spice teas are almost always “meh” to me.

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Blech! Anise. Nope!

Tea Revv Advent Calendar – Day 3

(originally written November 3rd)

I love the cute, modern artwork on these Tea Revv advent packets. This one has a polar bear on it! ❤

I accidentally used more water than I meant to for this tea. Since I’m doing this advent and the Simpson & Vail version at the same time (and they have different amounts of tea in them), I forgot that I was only steeping 12 ounces of tea with these packets. Oh well!

It didn’t come out terribly weak, which is good. I would say this is a fairly good spiced apple tea. There’s a bit more spice than apple, and it’s quite sweet overall. Definitely a good dusting of cinnamon along with a bit of apple. It also does taste a bit pastry-ish, maybe with some almond? The base tea mostly tastes of dried leaves and is a tad astringent. Definitely not a quality green tea.

It’s almost good, but not quite there with the light apple flavoring and less-than-flavorful base.

Tea Revv Advent Calendar – Day 2

(originally written November 2nd)

Aww, a red rooibos blend… Red rooibos and I are not often friends, though there have been some blends I’ve quite enjoyed lately. Bird & Blend’s Rhubarb + Custard, for example. So I’m trying to give it more of a chance, even though in the past I’d largely written it off.

Hmm… Well the cardamom in this is quite strong, which is not what I expected. The beginning and middle of the sip are almost all cardamom with a little bit of woodiness. I do get the amaretto flavor near the end, and then it finishes off with a stronger medicinal woody flavor and end up tasting a bit like root beer in the aftertaste.

I mean, it’s not terrible. I just didn’t expect it to taste so strongly of cardamom when the name doesn’t even mention spice… And the medicinal notes plus the cherry-like amaretto kind of makes it taste like cherry cough syrup.

It tasted strongest of rooibos with some licorice. The amaretto was detectable in the scent. It was overall a gentle rooibos tea. Less sweet than the Republic of Tea African Rooibos.
Recommends adding a dash of milk or mix with hot frothed milk for a lattea. Tried 12.2018

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Yesterday I was trying to study but I did take a study break and made a whole lot of eggnog snickerdoodles. Not the best cookies I ever made tbh but I have over a litre of eggnog and it is going bad Tuesday so I wanted to use it. I can only drink so many eggnog lattes though.

Anyways, what better tea than an eggnog tea to go with my eggnog snickerdoodles. This has a whole lotta nutmeg which is nice. It is also creamy but there is an astringency here that I am not loving. This tea has potential but it falls short for me.

This was nice. Very apple-y, sweet cinnamon (not the bitter astringent kind you sometimes have, nor cinnamon candy), and a light green tea background to keep it from being too sweet. Simple but nice, and I enjoyed this one. It would probably be good iced but would need to be made much, much stronger.

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So there is a lot of maple here and I can get behind that. What I can’t get behind is the jasmine. I find it hits you in the back of the throat and just seems out of place in this otherwise pancakey tea. It’s a brisk breakfast tea and it captures its namesake but why the jasmine?