Teavana

I enjoyed a cup of Orange Rooibos tonight while watching The Return to Cranford on PBS Masterpiece Classics. I am finding it a bit more lacking than Cranford, not sure why. I had seared scallops on grits with a sweet fennel broth at The Glass Onion for dinner. The Orange Rooibos with a bit of milk was my dessert. I was also really cold and couldn’t get warmed up.

2nd steep: 7 min. No milk. Not as strong. Still plenty of flavor.

Today has been a drink-lots-of-tea day for me, tired and worn out. So I started off early this morning with a cup of Orange Rooibos because I knew I wanted a nap and didn’t want any caffeine in my tea. I’ve been enjoying the Orange Rooibos for awhile now, this is just my first Tealog of it. Now that it’s cold out, my tea consumption should increase. On the whole, I love rooiboses and prefer red rooiboses to green ones. The Orange Rooibos tastes smooth and red-Earthy/twiggy like a red rooibos and the orange is noticeable with a nice hint of bitter.

I had a second brewing before I had lunch, which was leftovers from dinner last night – salt&pepper-crusted roast salmon, winter squash with nutmeg and brown sugar, and asparagus with pecorino and lemon. It was just as strong and good as the first.

Deep blue pottery mug. 1.5 tsp.
2nd brewing: 6 min.

This is the best Lychee tea I have ever had. There is definitely less emphasis on the Goji berries though, since the tea itself is mostly comprised of dried Lychee.

This tea is quite tasty.It’s been one of my favorites for a while. It blends well with about anything fruity. I’ve had the best luck with blending in some Ginseng Vitality as well as Youthberry.

Mostly oolong tasting with a little peach…I’m afraid this one is dieing from old age in my cabinet eventho I have it in a cool, dark place with the tightest of tight tins that I am storing it in! It happens…oh well…

Tasted like bark and peach…lol…

Really good cold too…

Where have YOU been hiding, I ask the Peach Oolong…In the back of your drawer says the tea…well, we can’t have that says the tea freak…come-here…

Yeah…SO forgot about this one! LOL. I doubt they have sold it for quite some time. Regardless it was packaged tight and it’s still good and tasty! Very smooth.

Delightfully smooth with an almost intoxicating aroma. Mmm!

This chai is a staple of my morning routine. I combine it with Samurai Chai Mate, and together I like them better…alone, this chai can sometimes gain that bitter black tea edge, especially if you miscalculate on the water-simmering portion and the leaves have had enough before you’re through heating the milk that you add (if, like me, you find chai lattes the only way to go). The smell is heavenly, velvety-smoke and cinnamon, and the moment I open the bag my entire kitchen smells like the holidays. The aroma it releases when it’s on the stove and heating is almost as much a part of having chai as drinking it is.

Really, that’s what chai has become for me — a morning ritual. It’s certainly not the most slimming of my morning rituals, but I don’t care. Boston is cold right now…bitterly and suddenly, after such a temperate early season. Getting out from under my down comforter is always such a crisis of cold feet and lack of interest in being awake, but if I make it to the kitchen, then I’m good. I can start to simmer the chai blend, turn on a few lamps, and sit and smell the spices while I wait for the gunmetal grey blur outside of my window to turn silver and sharpen up into a proper world. Sometimes the sun throws in a few other colors gratis, too (but not often, because this is Boston and if there’s one thing Boston does well, it’s the color grey).

It’s true that there are probably better ways to wake up than this one, but probably not many.

This is the strangest tasting tea. Someone described it to me as being similar to Cola, and I can almost see the comparison. Somehow it becomes so much more than the sum of its parts. I can’t really describe it but it’s not at all unpleasant, and the spice is noticeable without being overly strong. Unusual.

Beautiful white tea. Soft, smooth, a little vegetal, and absolutely delicious. Very delicate and wonderful when added to other teas.

Honestly, this tastes a bit like pizza to me. I have no idea why but even my friend described it the same way. Somehow, it tastes like basil and tomato. Not my thing, at all!!

As an oolong fan, I actually found this tea very disappointing. It’s just too soft. Not enough flavour for me, though it smells delicious.

This is much smokier than I expected and actually put me off it entirely. It’s just too much for my palate.

This is a very delicate tea that is simply delicious. Beautiful when bloomed, the taste is soft and true; no synthetic peach flavour here. It tastes as good as it smells.

I am not a jasmine fan but I love this tea! The soft jasmine blended with the oolong and the smooth white tea makes for a delicious, soothing cup. Good for anytime of the day, although I am partial to this in the mornings when I need to wake up gently.

What a good idea; blending spearmint with strawberry! This is a seriously delicious tea. It is fragrant and tastes as good as it smells. It brews a very dark red/pink cup and has a much stronger taste than I expected, though this is not a bad thing. Very fruity, dark, and with that great true spearmint undertone. Lovely!

Good iced when blended with Fruta Bomba. On its own? Eh, nothing that special.

Absolutely amazing when blended with Strawberry Lemonade. The soft jasmine taste with all that fruit is just beautiful. Lovely!

This is a good, standard flavoured black. It doesn’t taste artificial, and is naturally sweet. Not something I drink often but it really hits the spot on days where I need something a little uplifting.

This tea is not what I expected. It’s very soft with a subtle smoky aftertaste. It really has some snap to it despite how smooth a cup it brews up. It’s nice but not one of my favourites.

I cannot make this tea work. I think it’s the chamomile in it that makes it seem so bitter to me, which is a shame because it smells absolutely amazing.

This is disappointing on its own but absolutely mind-blowing when combined with Peachberry Jasmine Sutra! I love that blend iced with a ton of sugar. Mmm!