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Uh… hi.

So, I haven’t logged in for SEVEN YEARS.

Whaaat.

Anyway, I am back. Life got crazy. I got diagnosed with ADHD, which is partly why I just dropped off for so long. I started grad school and coffee took over, but then turns out I have a severe sensitivity to caffeine!

So now it’s been all decaf for a while.

Uh, what else… I’m engaged, I’m in a PhD program now. I still love tea! I just haven’t drank as much of it until recently.

But, my return has been spurred on by signing up for a Sipsby subscription box, and receiving my first box.

It’s cold here, so I opted for the Gingerbread by Teeccino.

My initial thoughts:

Scent dry in the bag is gingery and a bit nutty. Slightly buttery and toasted, too, but not as much.

Scent while steeping and then once steeped, a very muted ginger scent. Very toasted.

As far as taste: it doesn’t scream ginger or gingerbread to me. It has a very buttery mouthfeel and aftertaste, which I love, and it takes cream really well. Cream brings out that buttery flavor.

But, there’s very little of the gingerbread taste. However, it DOES give like… toasted marshmallow? Like a toasted sweetness? Especially once you add a bit of sweetener.

So overall, it’s a flavor I enjoy, even if it wasn’t the flavor I was expecting. I also didn’t time my steep, and got distracted (ADHD, remember?) and so I am going to do a take 2 later with timed steeping, to see if that makes a difference.

Still a decent cup, but I want more noticeable ginger flavor, for sure.

So I have been very busy and I have had a lot going on! I am sorry I haven’t been logging my tea! But I have, to be sure, been drinking it!

I babysat for my cousin and she gave me some tea along with my pay, because she’s awesome. (And because four days with two excitable boys is a little crazy.)

She gave me two—this stuff, and Stash Peppermint tea. I’ll get to that later.

This stuff though—I was SO EXCITED for. I LOVE berries, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE sage. I’ve had a really good High Mountain Atlas Sage at a little place in Charlottesville, and the Sage was SO LOVELY.

I thought this tea would be so great!

And, well, it was but… hmm.. I guess I feel like I was lacking on the flavours.

There is a light, smooth berry flavour, which I like a lot. It doesn’t need a lot of sugar, and I like that. But it wasn’t an immediate taste, either, and one thing that really (I mean really) disappointed me was that I could hardly taste any sage at all. Some sips it seemed like there was no sage. None. And to me, that’s false advertising, to label a tea as one flavour or combination, and then not deliver.

However, I do like this tea. It’s not bad, it’s smooth and has enough taste to be good, and it gives a nice boost in energy without giving the jitters.

And I love Republic of Teas round teabags!

Question though: what’s a really good sage tea, with a pretty obvious sage flavour? I need some!!

Sometimes (not often) I feel bad for constantly drinking JUST Teavivre’s teas, and not giving other companies a chance.

But then I make a cup of tea and that thought goes away.

This is a tea I’ve never had before, so I was excited to try this. There was something appealing about the name of “Iron Goddess.” My feminist sensibilities thought I should give this one a chance.

Floral notes are deep in this tea, but they are soft and are more undertones than overtones or highlights. There is a vegetal, slightly astringent (mildly so) after-taste. I also taste something smoky—but this is an extremely slight taste, it’s barely there. The mouthfeel is smooth, and the flavours of the tea only come out more as the tea gets colder. I do not know how I’d like it iced, but I don’t mind it lukewarm for sure.

If you like Oolong, and you like floral teas, you’ll appreciate this one!

MY LAST LEAVES!!! NOOO!

sniff I don’t have any more of this. Ah well.

I wanted Earl Grey too, so what I did this time is steep the JAM, and then I steeped a bag of TAZO Earl Grey.

This tea had lost most of the blackberry, but the vanilla mixed well with the undertone of the Bergamot.

Not much else to report, as I didn’t have a lot of leaves to steep so the flavour wasn’t strong. Wasn’t a bad tea, and I love this tea a lot anyhow. (If you look at earlier reviews.)

I’ve had two snow days from school, so I’m trying to clean out my tea chest. And then— BUY MORE TEA. Hopefully. Broke college student and tea buying doesn’t mix well.

It’s been several months since I’ve been on here, and it is now the New Year so HAPPY NEW YEAR! Sorry I’ve been away—college got very busy, very quickly. I’m taking graduate courses early, while I’m still in my undergrad, so my classes were a lot harder than usual. That being said, I didn’t have time for a lot of tea drinking, sadly, and/or I didn’t have time for reviewing.

This new year, and also this cold, cold weather we’re experiencing in my area (hello, winter!) will be cause for me to finally clean out the remainder of my tea (my stash is getting low! HELP! SEND ME TEA!) and do some more reviewing.

Anyways, onto the review…

It’s strange to say this about such a simple, bagged Earl Grey but this particular cup was the best cuppa Grey I’ve had in a long while. I think what made it special is that I had no cream, and I added a LOT of honey to it, so there was this wonderful honeyed-Bergamot flavour to it. It was very sweet, with a soft mouthfeel. It was very pleasant and gentle tasting—it had the classic Earl Grey flavour but it didn’t overpower the tastebuds—sometimes that happens.

I think this tea is a classic, so there is no exact “right way” to drink it. It goes best with either milk and sugar, or a little lemon, or lemon and honey, but any of those options make Earl Grey good.

I will say, as I’ve matured in my tea drinking, that any tea, ESPECIALLY Earl Grey, should be steeped in water that is LESS than boiling, so 190 Farhenheit has always been my go to “hot” temperature, or even 200. I feel like a rolling boil damages most teas, so it’s just best to avoid dumping that much hot water on tea. (Also, let’s be honest, boiling water isn’t safe for people, and it takes longer for the tea to be a good drinking temperature, unless you…like burning your tongue?)

This cup was a pleasant afternoon drink and I’m very satisfied with it. :)

So this is a Keurig K CUP version of this tea. This is one of the first Chai teas that I ever had when I first started drinking tea (the bagged kind) and so I have a respect for this tea, and the tea company.

The thing is, it just doesn’t have a ton of spice or flavour to me, and it always tastes a little watered down? I don’t mind the tea, at all, and it’s not BAD, but it’s not my favourite Chai. I did mix it with an iced Chai drink that had soy in it, and so it gave it a milky, extra spicy taste. That made it 10x better.

Not a bad tea, but not my favourite.

Fruit teas are hard for me to review. They aren’t bad, but they often all have a very similar tart taste, as most use hibiscus or some other tart ingredient like that. This tea has that tart taste, but it also has a blueberry taste in it, and there is a touch of vanilla in it.

However, this tea doesn’t have as much of the flavours in it that I would like. The tartness is a little overpowering, and I don’t taste enough vanilla to consider it a vanilla tea in any way. It wasn’t bad at all, of course, it just wasn’t as flavourful as I’d like it, and it wasn’t my favourite tea.

I do think it may taste different cold though, so I am going to let it cool and then keep it in the fridge for a while. I’ll report back when I drink it cold.

BLACK TEA, YES.

I have not had a good, truly deep, dark, black tea in a loooooooooooong time. I have definitely had black tea recently (not logged since it was all bagged and out of town away from computer access) but not what I really consider black tea, and not THIS good.

The smell steeping was a grainy, malty smell.

The taste?

I am drinking a cup of chocolate, caramel, wheat….goodness. That’s exactly what I taste. Sugar and milk definitely brought the chocolate to the forefront, that’s the first taste that hits you right away. The wheat taste is a sweet, middle tone, that develops in the middle. The caramel is an underlying flavour, tasted throughout, and strongest at the end of the sip.

Usually, I do not taste three flavours as distinctly and powerfully in teas as I do in this tea, and they usually don’t taste as delicious. I mean, I have had flavoured teas recently that taste delicious—just look at my reviews—but that’s usually ONE flavour, not three. Teas with more than one flavour can be hard to pin down. I think that is why I love this tea so much—it is SO complex and so rich and dark and I LOVE it.

Man, and this was only a free sample from Angel at Teavivre that came with a purchase. :( IT’S GONE, NOOO.

I miss having a great black tea in my cupboard. I urge you all to go drink this—sweetened to taste and with milk or cream. It’s divine!

This tea is SO GOOD. Is it possible for Teavivre to make a bad tea?? I mean, is it possible? I’m sure that there is someone out there that has drunk certain teas and hated them, but…………they are weird, so I don’t care about that.

I opened the bag and was greeted with a lovely whiff of strawberry. The Oolong was also present, but not overpowering—very, very light.

Steeping I made enough for two large cups (always) and the strawberry scent decreased only slightly, and was tantalising.

I was expecting a darker liquor on this one, but the colour was a golden colour, as are most, if not all, of the Teavivire Oolongs I’ve drank. That is no problem, of course—I do prefer lighter coloured teas, since they usually taste lighter, and are often flavoured. It’s just interesting since a friend of mine who likes Oolong, has only ever had “dark, deep” Oolong tea. I don’t know if I’ve ever had that, so I wonder what the difference is. It’s probably amazing, either way.

The taste is loaded with strawberry. It’s a full, very obvious strawberry flavour, with a sweet aftertaste, and an almost fuzzy mouthfeel. It’s smooth, and the flavour is just incredible. I didn’t take this one with cream, but I am wondering if it’ll do well. I’ll try it and see, for sure.

Now off to make another cup, unless someone got to it before me…

P.S: Got any other good strawberry teas that you love? Or how about Strawberries and Cream? Comment, I need some recommendations! :)

P.S.S: Teavivire also has great service—I get emails every so often asking if my packages have arrived, to check if they are in good condition and if I am satisfied. I like that they want to know, and take care to make sure I get what I want. It’s a great way to keep customers coming back. Thanks, Teavivire!