TeBella

This was another sample from Kaylee. The dry leaf smelled so good! I got a big whiff of bananas as soon as I opened her swap package (and the scent even seems to have gotten into the Praline Horizon tea that was next to it). Sadly, as soon as the water hit it, the chamomile took over. I taste a little bit of creamy banana, but mostly chamomile. Glad I had a chance to try this, but I’ll have to keep hunting to find a replacement for my Butiki Banana Walnut Butterscotch!

Sipdown! The apple-y, chamomile flavor has become more dominant as the blend ages. The brew is still pleasantly creamy but the banana promise of the smell seems to have largely dissipated. This is a blend best enjoyed fresh. I’m glad to have had it but not sad to see it go.

I split 2 oz of this with my hostess when I went to Tampa a few months ago. It smells fabulously banana and creamy. It brews up a little weak, but overleafing + rice milk = creamy banana flavorful goodness. There’s just a hint of apple in the background coming from the chamomile. It works well with the banana. Overall, this is a nice evening dessert tea.

I had a cup of this at TeBella’s tea bar at the Oxford Exchange in Tampa. At $3.75, it was a little pricy for the area but you really pay for the atmosphere at OE. Lots of wood paneling and comfy couches, tasty-looking food and carefully curated elegance at every turn. I was tempted to get Afternoon Tea but it was $26/person for a traditional tea ($20 if you only want scones). So I opted for a single cup and taking some loose leaf home. The loose leaf is the Banana Creme. It’s tasty and I’ll review it eventually, but in retrospect I should have gotten the Key Lime Ginger instead.

The flavoring in this blend is just really spot on. I’m particularly impressed because I often can’t distinguish between “lime” and “key lime” flavor but here it’s very clearly key lime specifically. Tart and juicy. The ginger balances it beautifully. The rooibos kind of just chills out in the background playing a supporting role while key lime and ginger are the romantic leads in a performance where everything ends happily ever after. This is definitely a blend worth revisiting.

In a month, I’m going to Tampa basically for a hockey game then coming back. Actually we’ll have Saturday entirely down there, and so I did a Yelp search for tea, and TeBella came up. Bonus: it’s 2 miles from the hotel for that night! (They jacked up Friday rates so we’re staying in Clearwater then, darn I know.)

I then remembered that Autumn Hearth offered me this in a swap so I gladly took it as I love coconut. After looking at TeBella’s website, it looks like some of their teas are Art of Tea blends, like this one, but that’s totally okay by me because I won’t order directly from them again probably, though I like some of their teas.

I haven’t had this in awhile (I have it from Art of Tea and then maybe Persimmon Tree? Somewhere else w/it, that’s all I know) so I can’t really tell for sure by taste but I can by look.

It’s sweet, first and foremost. The coconut isn’t too strong in this cup as a coconut flavor, but it is definitely amplifying the creaminess of the tea. Definitely agree with everyone who says delicate but flavorful, that is a fact.

I’m glad I bought buttercream flavor oil for lip balm today. I was already thinking coconut chai and now coconut frosting is happening too. I’m just REALLY in a coconut mood and this tea is making it worse.

Special thanks to Rachel for this delicious coconut confection for day seven of the 12 days of Christmas! Rachel recommended pairing this with Thai curry or mango at the bottom of her note. No one has to tell me twice to eat Thai or Indian. This went amazing with my Thai spring rolls and saag paneer( both from the frozen food section). Perfection! It’s a more floral coconut white than a spice or fruit that I’m used to, but it was very smooth and creamy, I think the cornflower helped here.

Thank you Rachel for day #7 of the 12 days of Christmas! I hope it’s late enough that I’m not posting a spoiler ;)

I was pumped to make a pot of this and sip it all day, it’s so sweet and delicate but full of flavour at the same time. It’s so tasty, that I just received my giant order from Zen tea, but I’m not even touching it tonight ;)

http://www.daisychubb.com/on-the-seventh-day/

Thank you Rachel for a great idea surrounding 7 swans for our 12 days of christmas tea swap!

So i have to be honest…i don’t like coconut. It ruins everything lol especially shredded coconut. blech. HOWEVER…this tea is pretty good, considering my hatred of coconut :) I’m going to find a good home for the rest of my sample since i really think that this is a tea that a lot of people will love. It’s got a milky, creamy coconut thing going on that’s not overpowering…as daisychubb mentioned, it’s delicate and full of flavour all at once.

Holding off of rating this one since this is a total thing rather than the tea being bad. If i loved coconut i’d probably be putting this at an 85+.

Thank you so much for the share Rachel! I love trying new teas!

Sipdown! 174/365!

The coconut in this one was headed pretty downhill, so it was a good time for it to go. It was not as tasty as it once was because of that, but still alright all things considered.

Thanks to Sil for offloading this lovely coconutty tea on me, as she is not a coconut fan!

One look and one sniff of this tea and I’m about 99% certain that this is the exact same tea as The Persimmon Tree’s Coconut Creme. A sip, and I’m 99.9% sure that they’re identical. Lovely sweet coconut flavour with a soft white base… quite delicious! This one perhaps seems a tad more coconutty than I recall my last cup of Coconut Creme being, but that could easily be caused by proportions of ingredients in the infuser.

As I had a pretty limited amount of this tea left to begin with, I’m certainly glad to have more! Thanks, Sil!

First of all, thank you Rachel for this, your submission in the 12 Days of Christmas tea swap! YUM!

This is really good. It’s cooled off quite a bit as I’ve not been sitting here sipping (fixing dinner!) but it is REALLY good cold too. It is sweet and creamy and delicious.

Rachel – you picked a really good one for 7 Swans a Swimming!

Day 7 of the 12 days of Christmas

When I opened this I knew it was going to be delicious. It smelt caramel like, like dulce de leche. I didn;t really get any coconut in smell, until I steeped. I wasn’t expecting much in regards to coconut because I have been let down by so many coconute teas before.

But this…. OMG! This is devine. Sweet, coconut, caramel. Amazing. This is THE coconut tea I have been looking for. It is soooo good, even though it has been sitting all day.

pic
http://instagr.am/p/Telw00MGc3/

We received this tea from Rachel as part of the iced tea swap from DaisyChubb’s blog (daisychubb.com). So thanks to both of you!

The whole point of the swap was to get iced tea blend… but we’re being rebels and brewing it hot:).

This is a very fruity blend, and would probably be GREAT iced, so we may have to try that a little later. The most predominant fruit flavor that I taste is the orange peel, followed by the papaya, apple, and some tart that must be the cranberries. Add in some cinnamon to warm everything up, and it’s a pretty enjoyable brew.

The black tea itself is kind of lost in this whole mixture, I can’t really say that I taste it at all. This probably has something to do with the steeping parameter being 185 degrees, which took me a little by surprise (black tea and fruit, can’t I just boil it to death?).

A big thanks again to both Rachel and Daisy :)

This was made with a little bit sweetener and was very good. Very sweet and reminds me a lot of a Capri Sun (except without all the high fructose corn syrup). I’m wondering what this tastes without sweetener, but it’s definitely a good juice replacement.