De Send Message

I’m always a little worried by teas that are supposed to be good for lady-bit health. Most of the time they taste pretty awful and never fail to remind me of the Women and Women First bookshop sketches on Portlandia.

But holy crap on a cracker this was delicious. This is probably the best raspberry tea I have ever had. Raspberry is a difficult flavour to reproduce well in a tea, especially one which contains raspberry leaf. This tea was light and sweet – I wouldn’t sweeten it any further, but girlie likes her tea with two spoons of sugar and had to drop it down to one for this tea. There was a slightly grassy herbal base, but it was overwhelmingly the raspberry and stayed on the sweet side of tart. Definitely recommend. Can’t speak for the baby-making properties of it.

I had a busy tea day. And I haven’t even started in on the list of fifteen or so teas from the last week that I still have to log.

As a white-black-green blend, I had no idea how to brew this thing. Whites I like to brew for only about 30 seconds, greens a minute and a half, and blacks two minutes. This one I let go for between green and black time, and that was definitely too long. The underlying tea was so bitter that I couldn’t really get much flavour. When it comes to creaminess, I’ve definitely had better attempts. I will try this again with a shorter steep time and a lower temperature before I give it a rating, but I did not enjoy this cup.

I am not sick. I feel like that should be a disclaimer on all reviews of this – are you, or are you not currently ill. Because this is definitely one of those teas that will be ONE OF THE BEST THINGS EVER when I have the sniffles. It’s like the Cold 911 (which is also THE BEST THING EVER when I have the sniffles) but less medicinal and more sweet. But since I’m not sick at the moment, I couldn’t fully appreciate its soothing and cold-busting properties. Even though, I enjoyed this cuppa. It was lime-y and sweet and soothing and almost put me to sleep. Which was unhelpful before dinner, but would be great in about an hour or so.

I am always wary of chai blends. Mainly because I adore half the ingredients in a standard chai – the cardamom, the cloves, that kind of thing – and loathe two of them – cinnamon and licorice. If the chai blend is light on the latter and heavy on the former, I love it! Further note – I like actual cinnamon. The fake cinnamon flavour of Red Hots is what I don’t care for.

Vanilla Chai, unfortunately, is overwhelmingly the latter. The licorice flavour stuck to the back of my throat the whole way through, and fake cinnamon punched through right after. I didn’t get any vanilla at all – under the other two, I could barely even taste the tea. Too sweet. Too many licorice. Too very sad-making.

Starting to build up my stock of tea at work, and wasn’t feeling great the other day. Decided to make a cup of this and it was THE BEST DECISION I’VE EVER MADE. It was just SO GOOD. I’ve never had a chocolate mint tea as perfectly sweet and creamy and minty as Read My Lips.

I was lucky enough to get the third steep of this from my wife, who was sampling it for Teavivre. It was so good! I’m picky about my oolongs, but this one was just gorgeous. Buttery and fresh, and the strawberry flavour was mixed in well with it. Not too floral, a little bit sweet. Excellent.

Bought this ages ago to do some mixing and matching and never ended up getting there. So we’ve been graaaadually cold steeping this to sipdown. It’s a pretty decent cherry tea, a little tart from the hibiscus. Generally tastes like really water cherry koolaid. Mixes well with either vanilla liquor or ginger ale (I haven’t tried all three together but could also be tasty).

Had this iced today and it was delicious until the last gulp because I forgot to stir it so that last gulp was 90% pure agave. Gaaaah.

Anyway. This was a “winter” tea, I suppose because of the mint? But it is amazing iced. It’s already so creamy and coconuty it’s a bit like drinking coconut water, but then the mint just makes it incredibly refreshing without being overly tingly.

I only steeped this for 30 seconds, I could not believe how dark gold the tea got in such a short amount of time – and holy crapnuggets, the flavour! I don’t like floral teas – I especially don’t like rose teas. Most of the time it’s like drinking shampoo. BUT NOT THIS ONE. Which was my point. Really strong flavour, but really nice.

So my wife makes me a cup of this and my first response is “Wow that’s really green!”

Maybe because it’s a green and not black as I was, for some reason, expecting.

This was delicious! But if there was bergamot in it I could barely taste it. The mango was the dominant taste, but it didn’t completely drown the green. The green had a faintly toasted flavour to it, not too strong. Worked well together. Very calming cup for something caffeinated.