Teavana
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Well, this tea had a somewhat smokey taste…
I kid, I kid.
It was alright. I got it at Teavana, because they were selling the tea, and the tin it was in, at 30% off. It was a tempting combination of price reduction, my lack of Lapsang Souchong back in my dorm, and the fact that I always have room for another tin. Always.
Lapsang is always a good tea for the day-to-day, and a nice (and inexpensive) trick for inexperienced tea guests, to whom you can play the resident alchemist. Despite its characteristic scent, it’s not really much of a “special” tea in my book of tastes. Very distinct, yes, and probably the easiest black tea you could ever distinguish by scent, but the taste isn’t absolutely enthralling.
Evading classes today, mostly because I didn’t redraft my essay or annotate an article for English. Also, I need to catch up on sleep, because I failed to do that on my usual friday afternoon through monday break. So, I made a pot of this for myself and my roommate, who’s working on his second essay, something about relating a book to the philosophy of Nietzsche and some other guy, for class today.
Tea’s a little sour this morning. No fault of Teavana’s, just my own – I think the water was a bit under temp. What I will call teavana out on, is calling this “superior grade.” I’ve tasted some fine black teas in my time, and this is no SFTGFOP1, my friends. Not that I trust much of what Teavana says, anyway…
Fortunately for me, my roommate’s only tea experience really comes from me, so he won’t notice the poor brew. On that same note, the tea holds nothing enticing for him – he has no sense of smell. This time, I don’t kid.
In any case, this tea generally isn’t anything too exciting, once you get past the smell (which I, personally, like). I like the color, and the taste is pretty smooth for me. A good any-time tea, and Teavana can’t mess this one up TOO bad. One of the few teas I don’t have too many qualms with buying from them. On the other hand, maybe someday I’ll taste some absolutely astounding Lapsang, and have another reason to look down on this company.
In any case, I guess I didn’t talk much about the tea here. Oh well. Ignorant sippings away!
Every few weeks I’ll spot this in my tea cupboard and think, “That was rather expensive, I’d better give it a go and see if I can prepare it better this time.”
It never works. It’s always a bitter tea, no matter how carefully I watch the clock and fuss with the temperature. I tried following the instructions suggested by johnquix, two minutes @ 175 degree, and still bitter. Ugh. I really ought to swap this one away.
Preparation
Man, I always manage to oversteep this, so it always has this bitter aftertaste. Otherwise, the flavor is very mild, sort of a light neutral fruity flavor.
It’s a good blending tea, I think, if you want to try to punch up another drink with some antioxidant goodness, but it’s too fussy and easy to screw up when brewing, and even if you manage preparation times properly you end up with a rather weak tea.
A great diet tea! Good iced and hot. I prefer blending it iced with Six Summits Oolong (Teavana). Smells and tastes like Poprocks :)
Not what I was expecting. You can smell the peach blossom in the aroma, a little, but there’s something odd and unexpected happening with the flavour. This does not taste like a white tea. I’ve been sitting here, trying to work out how to describe it, and the best that I can come up with is that this tastes like a very mild, lightly steeped black tea.
I’ve just added a little milk to the last of it, even though that’s something that I’d never normally consider with a white tea and… it sort of works. It isn’t totally awful, anyway, and it does give a bit more balance to it. I’m thinking that maybe a touch of sugar might be worth trying, too. Weird, weird, weird.
This is a very nice rooibos tea both iced and hot. Mixes well with Zingiber Ginger Coconut Rooibos (Teavana). During the winter I mix it with Apple Lemon Pomegranate (Teavana) and brew it iced. Then I add some Silk Soy Eggnog :D It sound totally weird, but it is delicious!
A very nice Japanese green tea with a lightly sweet and vegetal taste. Works well iced and hot. Especially good when you make an Ice Steeped Gyokuro! add 2 and a half teaspoons of the tea to a 16 oz. tea-maker and fill up the rest of the tea-maker with ice. Pour water (175 degrees F.) over the ice so that some of it melts and there is a little room left in the tea-maker. Add as much more ice to the tea-maker as you can. Let it steep for 15 minutes. You can leave it in the fridge while it’s steeping :D All the ice keeps the tea from burning or going bitter
The more tea companies I try, the less and less enthused I’m able to get about these guys. They remind me of Starbucks – fun and almost overwhelmingly exciting when you’re new to the game, but now…eh. And the employees tend to be hit or miss, too.
Very true. They were my first “real” teashop, after I got started at Peet’s Coffee and Tea, and they were pretty much magic. I was enthralled, and I seriously spent hours in that store. Even got some free drinks.
Then I discovered Lupicia in the same mall… and Adagio… and a really authentic tea shop in a nearby city… and then the Teavana dream fell apart.
I still go in from time to time, when I’m home (there are NO teashops where I go to school) because they hire pretty girls…