The Rabbit Hole Organic Tea Bar

I only had a small sample pack of this tea, and the first couple of pots I brewed with it, I was not a fan, at all. It seemed too orangey. So it sat there on my shelf at work for a while unused. The other day though, I was craving oolong, and had run out of toffee apple (also by this brand), so I brewed up my last scoop and strangely, I loved it! and now I wish I had more…

I got a small sample packet of this tea this morning. This tea smells amazing! You are just hit in the face with an amazing fruity smell. But when its brewed, its a lot more subtle and you don’t really get that super fruity flavour. The fruitiness is more of an after taste. I am quite enjoying this tea, and the more I sip it, the more I like it.

So I went for round two with this this morning at home. A much better result. A lovely soft black with berry tones in the back of my mouth. Quite enjoyable. Going to use the last of my sample to make an iced glass to see how the berries perform cold.

Despite being in the process of narrowing my tea cupboard, I went and ordered more RHTB samples. Damn you RH peeps, your teas are just too tasty, I couldn’t stay away!

I opened this this morning when I was madly finishing making lunch to brew for travel in my Timolino. Holey moley this smells like a berry farm! No, more than that. More like the smell on your hands after spending a day in the sun picking fruit. Intense, lush and authentic. Smells just as amazing when brewing. In fact, after I’d discarded my leaves from the steeper, the other half asked if he could lick out the sink becasue it smells so good. Yes, he’s a bit odd, but THIS TEA SMELLS RIDICULOUSLY AMAZING!!!!!

And now for my morning disappointment – I uncapped my timolino just as a meeting started next to my desk (my desk sits in the middle of my workplace next to a meeting space, there’s no office for it), and someone came in from outside who was wearing strong, floral perfume. Bitchface. Seriously ruining my tea experience. But underneath, the black base is nice and hasn’t gone bitter, and the berries hit the back of my mouth. Just so disappointed my first cup of this got intereferred with. Will rate when I have a more accuracte sample.

I can’t believe I haven’t logged this tea before. I am such a slacker. I made my final pot of this tea today (sob) to christen my new teapot (yay!). I have had a rather itinerant lifestyle for the last few months and it has wreaked havoc on my ceramic with several breakages. I am trying a stainless steel pot until things settle out plus it has the biggest infusion basket I have ever seen.

So back to the tea. It has large pieces of cinnamon, whole start anise, cardamom pods, cloves and black pepper. It smells like a heavenly combination of all those spices dry. I brewed for 5 min with boiling water. The wet leaves smell similar to the dry. The tea smells similar. The tea has a very good base. I don’t really taste bubblegum but I do have a nice mix of cinnamon, anise and clove. Adding milk and honey makes it more smooth & sweet but I think it is just as good without.

Sandy brought this home from Australia for our tea tasting marathons as we try to cath up on what we have each tried while she was away!

I didn’t look at the ingredients before preparing, but when it was steeping I knew there was ginger in it! I had a bad experience with ginger once, before I knew that candied ginger is sweet for a minute and then it gets really REALLY hot. Well, this tisane redeems ginger if you have had anything like that happen to you. We are drinking it because it is late and we didn’t want to take in more caffeine, but I can tell that this would be a veritable life saver if you have a sore, scratchy throat. I am drinking it plain, but I bet it would be fabulous with honey.

Edited to add: The more I drink this the more the ginger is coming out to play!

The kids said, “This smells like Christmas!”. And it does!

Sandy brought lots of tea back from Australia and New Zealand and we are sipping our way through all these teas we reserved to try with each other.

This is a nicely spiced chai and not too peppery for me. I had some authentic chai made from the personal recipe of a friend from India and really didn’t like it, then someone else from India who had a recipe more like this one and found the other one horrifying.

At first I thought it was very similar to Harney and Sons Indian Spice, so we decided to do a side by side comparison. These are VERY different. Rabbit Hole Chai is organic, a giant plus. There are whole cardamom pods, whole cloves, and large pieces of cinnamon bark, as well as chunks of ginger and star anise. I agree with Bliss, there is something sweet and good in the base that does remind you of bubblegum, but in the best way possible, perhaps like the old fashioned gum you can hardly find anymore like Teaberry, Blackjack, and Clove. It is probably the anise and clove!

While spices, this isn’t a tea that burns, it is just warming and bracing. This is a very good chai! Another home run by Rabbit Hole!

It is hard to say enough about how good this tea is. I didn’t have my glasses on and couldn’t even see it, so I didn’t know it was a oolong. Even though I used nearly boiling water and steeped four and a half minutes it is perfect. As soon as I lifted the lid on the tea pot to take out the basket, I saw the huge, full leaves and knew it was oolong tea. And the taste is that of some of the very best dark oolong tea I have tasted. It is smooth and the added flavors are natural and subdued, adding just what they should and nothing more. They are a lovely complement to the tea but they don’t attract attention to themselves.

I have brewed this one a couple times now. I have really enjoyed. it. It has an oolong base and you can definitely taste the smoothness of it after the leading edge of pineapple and coconut. I find the orange a little mure subtle in this tea. It smells like a mixture of tropical fruit. I haven’t tried it iced yet. Maybe I’ll ice what’s left of this pot if I can stop myself from drinking it.

Another virtual tea party with Ashmanra. I am trying this oolonh for this first time. The dry leaves smell faintly floral to me. It has nice full leaves when brewed and the wet leaves smell a little floral and a little like butternut squash to me. The tea has a mouth filling creaminess that gets more hints of floral notes as it cools.

I did a second steep for 7 minutes with about the same temp water. The leaves are now even bigger & more vegetal smelling. The tea itself still smells lightly floral, like jasmine. It isn’t as creamy and has more vegetal notes. But still more creamy than vegetal.

Backlog from a couple days ago…I just got this tea and was recovering from a cold. So I thought Organic Lemon Aid would be just the thing for my poor scratchy throat. It is a tisane of lemon grass, ginger and some lemony herbs. The dry leaves look mostly like lemon grass and ginger and smell of lemon and ginger. It brews up to a well balanced lemony gingery goodness that I would love even if I wasn’t nursing a sore throat. It was great plain with it’s own sweetness but when I added a bit of manuka honey it was heaven. If Mary Poppins were to lone me her special magic tonic/medicine bottle this is exactly the flavor it would give me. I can’t wait to try it iced.

Backlog:

Yum! sweet, creamy chocolate with raspberry … and the white tea is creamy and slightly earthy and complements the white chocolate very well. The coconut adds more to the overall “creaminess” of the cup rather than adding a really distinct coconut flavor.

Delicate – as most white teas are. But even with it’s delicate overall quality, there is a lot of flavor to enjoy here.

A really good tea. Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/03/29/organic-white-delight-from-the-rabbit-hole/

Backlog:

A very pleasant Lemon Herbal. I like the overall subdued approach to this tea. The ginger is not overdone, nor are the lemony herbs. A lovely, sweet lemony taste that reminds me vaguely of lemon curd. Not a pucker-y citrus note. The ginger has some peppery notes but again … it’s the softer side of ginger.

Comforting when served hot, and refreshing when served iced!

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/02/24/lemon-aid-herbal-tisane-from-the-rabbit-hole/

Azzrian, thanks for a sample of this one! I was worried I was going to burn this one, so I may have let the water cool a bit too much! I steeped for a minute thirty. I thought white teas were not my favorite (meaning: least favorite) but WOW I like this one! It has a very sweet flavor. It’s surprising! The flavor is almost like a less fruity cantaloupe. It has a very full flavor for a white tea and I didn’t even steep it that long. The second steep tastes the same. I should really stop typing that out every time, since it is usually the case for most teas, but I know others don’t steep more than once. Sometimes the second steep is BETTER. This is probably my favorite white tea, even though I might have been avoiding them in the past, so I haven’t had many of them.

Ok…so…ICED and with shorter infusion times…this isn’t too bad. It’s still really fruity and tart but the coconut helps and it just seems to make more sense iced.

BUT…now…I’m cold…lol…rating based on ICED attempt.

Thanks Liberteas
Based on her notes I decided to WAY underinfuse this one!

Between that and the coconut it saved it a bit.
I only took a few sips and it’s ok but certainly NOT my fave from them.
I’m going to ice this one instead so stay tuned for those notes soon…then I will rate it.

Simply wonderful! Taste like its name sake yet a lovely light oolong comes through perfectly!
Full review on http://sororiteasisters.com/ soon.

Oh my….

It’s been a while since I’ve had this hot, it got a bit of an iced run over summer. But it’s just as good hot! Sipping the last of it now. Hmmm…..

Just lovely, as always.

The other half and I both had a glass of this today. Iced of course, because who is having hot herbals in 32oC heat? Especially in my house. North facing up the river. Lotsa sun. Anywho, this lovely, naturally sweet, and so refreshing iced. My supply is from my Christmas tea bauble bag.

Made a cup of this straight and hot to have with dinner. Yummo!

Have I logged this yet? Can’t remember…

Anywho, I added a little honey to the steeper while this was brewing, just to further bring out the appleness a bit more than my first cup, and HOLEY TEANESS! This is amazing iced with that bit of honey. Will definitely be a re-order for summer. Yummo!!