Fava Tea Company

This is a good basic, well-balanced Earl Grey. Too sharp and bitter to drink straight, but very pleasant with milk. It doesn’t beat out my favorite (Piccadilly from Letterbox Tea, if you’re wondering) but I’m enjoying it!

The flavor on this one seems more lemon than lime and I don’t really get anything that screams “pie”. That being said, it’s a nice natural citrus flavor (it doesn’t remind me of cleaning fluid like some artificial lemon teas do!) and balances well with the base. Nothing amazing, but I’d drink it again!

I recently placed a curbside pickup order with Fava to support them during this difficult time and tried a bunch of new-to-me teas. I enjoyed most of them, but this one is definitely my favorite of the bunch! I use 2-3 “pearls” for a 12oz mug of tea and get a rich, reddish-brown brew with delicious notes of chocolate and caramel that sips down super-smooth. I can get at least 2 more equally delightful steepings out of the same leaves! Though it’s a bit pricier than some of Fava’s other options, I will definitely be re-purchasing this one next time I want a special treat!

Despite the name, this tea isn’t super “golden” in appearance. There is a random scattering of gold tips, but it’s mostly curly, tightly twisted black leaves. That being said, the flavor is exactly what I was hoping for! Sweet, smooth, malty deliciousness that hangs on for multiple re-steepings. At such a great price and supporting a local tea shop, this one may become a staple in my cupboard!

This is one of my favorite blends from Fava! Add a splash of milk and you basically have a melted Almond Joy bar in a cup.

I dunno how y’all found pumpkin flavor in this. It just tastes like syrup with the ghost of cinnamon.

From the TTB
Yum, this tastes like a bit of banana bread with chocolate as an aftertaste. It smells like banana, and I get some creamy butter in there too. Thanks Inkling for including this in the TTB! I loved Butiki’s banana walnut butterscotch, and this tea reminds me of that one. I like that this tea has different layers, though I’m not getting much walnut. It’s buttered banana bread to start and dusted cocoa to finish.

Finishing this up from the advent that Inkling made for me. I really enjoyed this one, and I was particularly craving a coconut tea the other day. Very nice, authentic coconut flavor. No bitterness at all, but a very dry mouthfeel. Had sweetened and hot, but I’d imagine it would be excellent either with the addition of cream, or iced as well.

Another SipsBy offering for the month of January. I was surprised to see another pistachio tea from Fava in my box so soon, but I love pistachio, so can’t complain. This tea has loads of ingredients that I love (marzipan drops and almonds in particular), but there was just something off about this blend. It’s not nearly as bad as the other Fava pistachio blend that I tried, but I’m still not loving it. It’s missing that marzipan favor, and is instead reading as a bag of mixed nuts.

What I smell: marzipan (strong)

What I taste: pistachio butter

Notes: This tea reminds me of the almond-paste-filled Danish Kringle pastry that’s occasionally available at Trader Joe’s. Fairly light, but in a pleasant way. Might try steeping a minute longer next time. Found via Sips by subscription box.

Advent day 10! I always love trying new variations of tropical blends. Green bases work especially well with tropical flavors for me. This one I wasn’t a huge fan of, though. The fruit notes were a bit too muted for my liking, with the base being a bit too vegetal for the mild flavors.

Day 2 of my advent calendar from Inkling, and this is another winner! I’m constantly on the hunt for good banana teas, and this is definitely one of the best I’ve tried. It truly tastes like a slice of banana nut bread. Especially delicious with a splash of oat milk. This is one I will certainly be purchasing.

I’ve been wanting to try this blend for awhile, and was so happy to see it arrive in my SipsBy box. Boy, was I disappointed. I opened the bag and it just smelled like salted nuts. I was still hopeful. Maybe the flavors would really shine once brewed? Nope. Tastes like hot buttered popcorn. Just awful. Couldn’t finish the cup.

I bought this tea after trying it in-store. The sample was smooth and bright with a distinct pina colada-type flavor. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to recapture that flavor at home. I may have to keep messing around with my brewing parameters, but after preparing it as I do most green tea blends (1 tsp for 3 minutes at 175 degrees), I got a watery, artificial banana flavor with hints of coconut. Quite disappointing! I think I’ll try more leaf next time and see if that makes a difference.

I love a good banana-flavored tea. Butiki’s Hello Sweetie is one of the many reasons I’m devastated that company shut down and A Quarter to Tea’s Banana Nut Pancakes is another standout favorite. I think this one may round out my top three! I wasn’t sure about the green tea base, but it actually works beautifully, giving a lighter twist to a heavy flavor. There’s a nice butteriness to this one along with the banana and walnut flavors that definitely gives me the vibes of a piece of warm, buttered banana bread. What a treat!

I have LOVED this tea since I got it a couple of years ago at Fava in Appleton, WI. It was one of the “teas on tap” that day, teas prepared in large airpots for sampling, otherwise it would probably not have occurred to me to buy any as I haven’t been a massive cinnamon fan in the past, but I’m really glad it was there to taste that day!

What this tea is, is a cinnamon delivery system. Cinnamon on its own (in three varieties, as the website says, though it doesn’t specify what those varieties are) is weirdly sweet in a non-sugary way. It reminds me a little of how your tongue perceives everything as sweet after you eat artichokes. (Artichokes, in a similar fashion to this tea, are a butter delivery system for me!) It makes a strong FLASH of sweetness in your mouth that disappears quickly.

And that’s what is so appealing about this tea. Everything else in it (green tea, orange peel, cloves) fades to the background in the face of this unbelieveable cinnamon sweetness. And I find I don’t care!

The tea smells lovely in the leaf, and brews up into a somewhat nondescript medium brown liquid with a tinge of green. You can see cinnamon cloudiness in the brew, and it appears to collect in the bottom of the mug; I did an IngenuiTea brew, so I wonder if this would be a different drink if I had used a paper filter, leaving the cinnamon powder behind? No idea. I can’t think it’s a bad thing to include rather than exclude the cinnamon powder, so I’m not going to try it in paper.

Fava has other cinnamon teas on their website: a rooibos blend, two black ones identical to this one (regular and decaf), and then others riffing on the cinnamon theme like a black cinnamon roll tea, a cinnamon plum herbal, etc., plus several that have cinnamon among the ingredients. I remember trying the rooibos version also (it must have been Cinnamon Week!) and thinking that the green version just had more going on—but they both had that cinnamon sweet FLASH. It’s spicy hot and amazing! I would venture to suggest that artificial (or even natural) cinnamon flavoring just can’t duplicate the effect, though I see that this has both. Really I have no idea what factor(s) makes this the ideal cinnamon tea, the flavorings or any of the three varieties of cinnamon.

All I know is that it’s good!

Very enjoyable. Lightly sweet with notes of fruit. I wouldn’t know there was pineapple in it, the touch is subtle. Slight hint of vanilla

Hands down my favorite tea. Smells like marzipan. Light and a tiny bit sweet. Doesn’t need milk or sugar, but holds either nicely.
Enjoyable any time of day

When you open the bag it smells really nice like banana and while drinking it I also could taste banana and a hint of chocolate.

I’m not a big mint fan but I thought I would give this a try. It’s a good quality tea but for me it’s too minty but after putting some sweetener in it was better.

This is another great tea from the Fava Tea company. I bought five different rooibos teas from them and they all got packaged in a nice black resealable pouch. It even had a hand written note with it to thank me for the order and a ton of flyers about tea and the benefits of it. Great packaging and fast shipping. Also there was a little sampler package for tea with it, the Sunny Disposition they sell :) The mango tea I ordered has a very pleasant and mild taste, not to Mango-ie. I was doubtful because I’m not a big mango fan but I couldn’t drink it fast enough when I was drinking it. Great tea!

Very good calming tea. It has a lot of flavor. I used 1 tsp. on 8 oz. of boiling water and steeped for 12 minutes.