The Tea Grotto

thank you for this sample KallieBoo!
i am a dried fruit fanatic i will admit. like prunes and mangoes and currants and dates. all of it.
not so much a fan of lavender to be honest, but it works nicely in this blend. much better than it smells dry to my nose. once brewed it adds a whimsical or slight poetic quality to the scent but it isn’t a big deal in the flavor itself. it makes it breezy!
very fun and interesting cup. i drank my first brewed 12oz very fast. i even surprised myself!

09/23/2013
i just felt like saying good bye to this cute tea. it has a bold yet feminine way about it that i really like. smooches little tea!

I felt sad when I crushed my dried orange with this inside. But I reeaalllllyyyyy wanted a cup. It’s earthy and sweet with mellow orange and citrus notes. There is a very, very slight bitter note from the orange peel but it fits. For some reason it tastes like someone dipped their orange creamsicle in my pot. I enjoy this one quite a bit.

Sipdown! 810. Yum! This is better than the first time I had it – I’m tasting the toastiness of the rice in with the delicious candy strawberry, and it’s a real treat. Very enjoyable!

Thanks to KallieBoo! and Sil for this one.

While I am enjoying this, and it certainly tastes like creamy strawberry Campino candies, it’s not quiiiiiiiite what I was hoping for. I’m not sure why… maybe I’m just not in the mood for it. However, there’s plenty of flavour, and no astringency, so it’s definitely worth trying for those who like strawberry cream teas!

SIPDOWN! Man i really need to make sure i’m doing my one a day, so here’s to hopefully 1 of 2 or 3 tonight to make up for earlier this week :) not to mention the tea that arrived from cavo that bumped my numbers up.

I have enjoyed this one a bunch because it not only has a fun fruity flavour, but you can still taste the tea base underneath it all. I very much hate it when you might as well be drinking juice for all that the flavours hide the tea…especially with pu-erh. Thank you again kallieboo! for this one!

thank you kallieboo! for this sample in our swap :) This is an interesting puerh. There’s an earthiness to this but there’s also a bit of a sweetness here that makes this a really nice tea.

oh man! Thank you Kallieboo! Holy crap this is a tasty green tea. I’ve sort of gotten used to all strawberry greens tasting the same and this one is for sure not like all others. I ended up drinking this one down super fast and found myself surprised when i hit the end of the cup without realising it! I’ll have to do a cold brew with the other bit of my sample, but this just might have to go on my list of teas to pick up later. it’s a creamy strawberry yummy tea! And the rice is an interesting take :)

Tonight I returned to the Tea Grotto to have pot of this tea since it smelled so amazing last time I was in there. It smells so sweet and nutty! I don’t often associate walnut with a type of nut I really go for (my faves are almond and pistachio), but this one smelled very good. I decided to get a pot and hang out because I wasn’t really a fan of the takeout situation.

They actually brewed the tea for me and brought the pot out once it was done so I have no idea about the steeping parameters here. It turned out quite nice! I don’t know that I could pick this out as walnut rather than general nuttiness, but it is nice and tasty. There is a bit of a nut oil slick on the top of this one and after drinking a whole pot my mouth is kind of dry, but the tea is not too grassy or vegetal. It could be more buttery or nutty which would make this tea even more awesome, but I really enjoyed my cup as it is. At the very end of the pot a large amount of tea powder came pouring out, so I’m not sure if the infusers they use are just kind of big or what. Thankfully it didn’t keep steeping and get bitter or anything.

Now that I am in Salt Lake City I took a trip to this tea shop. I have tried one of their teas before thanks to a swap (the pomegranate black tea) and I liked it, so I wanted to check them out. They have all their teas pre-pouched in 50g bags, but also loose in tins behind the counter to sniff and you can order a pot of tea to stay or a cup of tea to go. I sniffed a lot of teas but was very indecisive; a lot of them smelled good but I also am skittish about buying 50g of a tea I haven’t tried.

I ended up getting this tea to go. It is a green tea with coconut and florals, although I don’t remember what kind of florals at this point. The girl working there explained that they use less leaf so it doesn’t get bitter because they have these new filter lids; basically a coffee lid with a little filter over the hole. It’s basically drinking it enforced grandpa style (throw leaves in the cup, drink water while not drinking the leaves but never taking the leaves out, fill up with more water for future steeps). This is not my favorite way to drink tea because I tend to be a little fussy about steeping times. I sipped it while it was still pretty hot and it kind of burnt my mouth, and I got mainly coconut and light green tea.

So then I stopped to get some takeout phò, and I left the cup in the car. I didn’t know how it would be when I got back out after maybe 10 minutes, but it wasn’t bitter at all. But I never got more than coconut and a light green tea flavor; no florals to speak of. Of course, again I was not a fan of the brewing method because I don’t like drinking tea through a lid… smelling the tea as you sip it and inhaling the aroma with the sip is all part of the flavor, and you can’t get that through a lid.

Anyway, from my tasting of this I wouldn’t pick it up because it didn’t impress me as more than just a green coconut tea, although the coconut flavor was definitely nice. Wish I could taste more fo them as samples.

Slightly floraly mainly figgish tea. Uhm. I like lavender teas but the fig throws me off. Unique? But im Not a fan. Sample from kallieboo!

Sipdown, 197. Finally getting back into sipping-down-via-cold-steeps, now that I have a nice glass water bottle so I can carry iced tea into work.

This one was really good cold steeped. It performed very well and retained a lot of pomegranate flavor, so much so that the aroma occasionally reminded me of drinking pomegranate juice. I rarely want to stock up on single-fruit flavored black teas, but when you find a really authentic one it is tempting! I am very impressed with this tea and it would be good to have around during the summer.

Holy crap snow! I mean, they said it could snow today but this is a little more than I was expecting. I really didn’t expect it to stick to the ground.

Anyway, after that last tea I wanted one that was not so incredibly floral, so I decided to go fruity. This sample comes to me from Tea Sipper (and apparently through a few others as well!), thanks for sending it!

This has got to be the most authenticly pomegranate-smelling tea I’ve ever had. When I opened the package, it definitely smelled like I was sniffing pomegranate juice. Pomegranate can be a hard flavor to pull off in tea, and it often just comes off tasting like generic berries, so this is promising. It still smells pomegranatey in the brewed tea, too, although perhaps less so when you sniff up really close; I think it is missing the high tart notes that I was smelling in the dry leaf.

Wow, this is quite stellar! Definitely authentic pomegranate flavor, both sweet and tart. The black tea base is smooth and not super present in the flavor, but somehow I don’t find it boring either. It just works for me. I am really glad I decided to try this one now since I will be taking a trip to Salt Lake City soon (where Tea Grotto is located) so I will be sure to stop by and check out their other teas too.

Never thought Cherry Rose Sencha’s would be so popular.. This stuff was kind of meh until I added sugar (sugar added to green tea? ya, fail!) but it was then quite flavorful. Thanks KallieBoo!

There sure are a lot of cherry senchas out there! I’m sipping this from KallieBoo! and I blanked on the company name, and I don’t feel like walking to the kitchen this late at night to look it up so I thought “how hard could it be to find?” 83 results, it took a bit of digging until one of the company names popped out at me!

I try not to compare cherry senchas to Den’s Sakura Sencha, the god of sakura flavored teas. But this one isn’t pretending to be sakura, it’s just cherry and rose… which I suppose when combined are close enough to sakura, a little fruity and floral. But not quite—like if you combine grapefruit and lemon it would almost be yuzu, but not as good as the real thing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like a good cherry green tea, especially iced (which is how I am having this one).

This is good, perhaps not as flavorful as other similar blends I’ve tried but the rose is a nice touch. It’s a really subdued cherry flavor, like just a little whiff of it at the end of the sip. And that’s after a 12 hour cold brew! The rose is also pretty soft, I’d say this is a very mildly flavored blend… which is better than overly flavored, at any rate! It’s a nice tea, maybe not anything special but I do love floral blends so I really enjoyed it.

Thank you KallieBoo for sending me a sample of this tea.
As a former coffee addict hazelnut coffee was my FAVORITE.

This tea has a delightful hazlenut aroma. As soon as I opened the bag I realized it was my familiar favorite!

The black tea base is somewhat hidden under the flavor — however, the flavor is SO GREAT that it is okay!

I must admit, I still do cheat on tea with a coffee every now and again…

Wow! Yum, this is delicious, thanks Kallieboo! The flavor here is spot on, so nutty and delicious. Perfect for a cold morning when you don’t want to get out of bed.

Thanks for this one KallieBoo!

I totally agree that this was a lovely surprise! This is really fantastic! I can taste the gentle yet buttery green tea flavor with a nice even amount of Walnut but there is more going on here, too! The there hints of coconut, something like pineapple and/or papaya, and even notes of sweet, floral, and cookie…YAY! A pure delight!

Thanks TeaEqualsBliss for including this one in our swap! I tried this one yesterday. The description says it’s a “China black tea” which tastes perfect with the perfect amount of pomegranate flavor! Not too sweet or too sour. The tea was never astringent, even while drinking it at the bottom after it was cold. I think I’ve reviewed at least one new tea a day for months now! Sheesh. It can’t possibly keep going though, can it? I love it though. And I’m amazed that anyone reads my tasting notes, as they are really just for reminding myself about these teas, really. Like I just looked up my notes on the ESP Emporium almond to see how much I thought it was like Joy’s Teaspoon almond. That sort of thing!

Kallieboo! sent me this one! Thanks! This was pleasant enough but not overly flavorful, really. It’s a nice green base semi-sweet and not bitter or grassy but it’s lacking that Cherry-Punch I have tasted in others before. The rose was a nice touch, however…just enough.

Pleasant – regardless! Thanks again!

KallieBoo! sent me some of this and the aroma is intense but true!

It has a medium to medium-strong black tea base with a great deal of roasted hazelnut goodness meshed in. This is probably one of the best Hazelnut Flavored Black Teas I have tried. I can totally understand the Company’s Product Description saying it would be a good coffee substitute!

KallieBoo! Thank YOU!

I always LOVE to find different and unique/creative flavor combo’s. When I saw this one in the envelop KallieBoo! sent me – I knew I had to try it first :)

I’m glad I did! This is a neat flavor – all ’it’s own’.

It infuses to a light-medium brown. It has a mellower and not very distinct aroma but it’s pleasant enough.

The flavor makes my taste buds VERY happy! The Fig Flavor is nicely done…sweet and ‘newton-like’. The lavender is in the background – pretty but not over powerful which is appreciated. There is a hint of licorice – as KallieBoo! mentioned, I do agree.

I really like this! Nice flavor! Smooth and Creamy, too! YUM!

Sipdown tea #5!
Well I thought I’d get through more teas today but I just didn’t. Over steeped a bit but still enjoyable. Catching hints of brown sugar. It’s quite lovely :]

I thought this would be a different tea to try and boy was I right. It’s slightly floral with (what to tastes to me) hints of licorice and fig. It took a few sips to get used to but I think I like it. It’s different.

I was cautions when I bought this tea. Cherry teas can either love me or hate me. This one… Slightly dislikes me. I want to say it’s kind of a fake cherry taste, like cough syrup… But in a strange way I kind of like it. It’s mellow though. There is a hint of rose.. but maybe it’s not my favorite… Mm no.. maybe play around with the steeping times?