Herbal Infusions Tea Co.

My first cup of this was pretty delicious. My second cup, I accidentally left in my car for 8 hours, so I didn’t have it at its best, but it was still decent. I certainly wouldn’t call this chai, but there was definitely something desserty in there that wasn’t bad at all. Now it’s gone forever unfortunately.

Ha, I didn’t realize this was a plain rooibos and just assumed it was super lightly flavored. Well, it was nice and juicy and sweet. Quite a decent cold cup of tea. I would totally drink this again. It looks like this company has shut down, so I hope I don’t enjoy any of their teas too much!

I hadn’t been planning to open this tea yet, but my cat bit a hole in the bag for some reason, so I emptied it into a tin. The flavor doesn’t remind me of red velvet in any way. I taste mostly rooibos and some murkiness. It’s not bad, but I love red velvet, so it’s disappointing. My subsequent cups tasted mostly like strawberry and rooibos. Strange.

My god. This is, quite possibly, the most amazing “herbal” tea that I’ve ever had. Sweet, chocolate-y (like, hot chocolate kind of chocolate-y), and really fricken good. It isn’t super thick but man, if you brew it with a generous heaping it gives off just a nice decadent flavor.

Served this up at my tea book club last night and ate some girl scout cookies with it (our daughter recently joined the scouts so we are loaded) and it was just really really tasty. I WILL be buying more of this.

I’ve been whittling away at my samples the last few days, and today’s afternoon chopping block features Red Velvet by Herbal Infusions.

This wasn’t my favorite. A woody, malty, thick rooibos hits you first. Then there’s a cloying syrup/molasses sweetness with a hint of chocolate and a bit of rhubarb-ish tartness. Hibiscus, I guessed?

I just checked the listing. Turns out there’s some raspberry (the tart) and vanilla (the sweetness) in this mix. My palate, though not as bad as it once was, still isn’t perfect.

Although I wasn’t particularly moved by this blend, the girl I share an office with is besotted. She took one sip and whispered “wow.”

So I gave her the rest of my sample. She’s taking difficult classes this semester, and deserves some nice tea.

A tasty tea with a kickass name. STRAWBERRY. JUSTICE.

Movie proposal:

Strawberry Shortcake grows up and moves to some grungy post-apocalyptic city (Baltimore?). She sees tragedy befall the good people around her, and has to transform herself. She has to become something better. FOR THE GOOD OF THE WORLD.

So Strawberry Justice is born. She trades in her whisk for tranq darts and handcuffs. Her Mary Janes become combat boots. She blends into the shadows at night and runs a soup kitchen with delicious desserts during the day.

If they can make a Tetris movie, they can make this movie.

Oh, and the tea’s wonderful.

I had this yesterday and I found it delicious. I may have hit the “sweet spot” steep wise because it was so very lovely. Deep caramel and burnt sugar flavours. It had the spicy flair of chai too and those flavours did compliment one another well. I think I have enough for perhaps one more cuppa, but I like it so much that I wish I had more. I may be hoarding my remaining leaf of this for a bit. :)

I got this from the terribly overpriced Cha subscription box. It’s actually an ESP Emporium blend, I think. Anyway, I’m surprised I didn’t write a review back when I tried it the first time but, I remember thinking “Hey, not bad! I bet it’d be great iced.” So, finally got around to cold steeping the rest of the sample and yeah, it’s pretty tasty – fruity and refreshing. Now to find somewhere to buy it that isn’t Herbal Infusions…

Caveat Emptor! This company does not have their act together. My order was either never sent or lost in the mail, it took anywhere from a few hours to two weeks for them to answer emails, and when I finally got my order after six weeks, one of the items was missing.

Most of Herbal Infusions teas seem to be pretty weak. I tried this one with one teaspoon/8 oz, and could barely taste it. I tried it again with two teaspoons/8 oz. and it was much better. It’s still a very light tea, but I could taste caramel and black tea. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I wish I could have tasted the spices, but I really enjoyed this regardless.

Caveat Emptor! This company does not have their act together. My order was either never sent or lost in the mail, it took anywhere from a few hours to two weeks for them to answer emails, and when I finally got my order after six weeks, one of the items was missing.

This was pretty decent, but the flavor was a little weak for my tastes. I’m sure there are versions out there that I would enjoy more.

Caveat Emptor! This company does not have their act together. My order was either never sent or lost in the mail, it took anywhere from a few hours to two weeks for them to answer emails, and when I finally got my order after six weeks, one of the items was missing.

This was a miss for me. It definitely smelled like watermelon, but when I brewed it, it tasted lightly of watermelon, but I think I could also taste the carrot which I didn’t particularly care for. I’ll pass it on to someone who might enjoy it more.

Caveat Emptor! This company does not have their act together. My order was either never sent or lost in the mail, it took anywhere from a few hours to two weeks for them to answer emails, and when I finally got my order after six weeks, one of the items was missing.

Another thing I don’t like about this company is that they don’t provide brewing instructions. I used a slightly rounded teaspoon/8 oz. for this. It’s a new and interesting flavor. Very fruity, combined with something that reminds me of mint but isn’t quite the same. If I had to guess, I would say that this probably tastes like Dragonfruit and Eucalyptus, but I’m not especially familiar with those flavors so I could be wrong. It’s an interesting taste, anyway, but not one I’m likely to miss once it’s gone.

Another one that I’ve had a couple times now over e course of my time here in ottawa. I actually liked this one better than I thought I would, given my usual dislike of a lot of the herbal infusions blends. I think part of the reason this one went over better for me, was that it’s a herbal and doesn’t have that black base in it. The mint isn’t overpowering in this, and the fruit adds a nice sweetness to it. Not too shabby! Glad raritea, Kittenna and I got to share and try this one!

I’m super glad that this was another tea that wasn’t for me given HI’s notoriously awful customer service. Kittenna share this one with me and while i DO like the flavour blending of this one, i cannot get past the tea base that HI uses. It’s like a lot of 52 tea black tea bases – just doesn’t add much to the tea and the undernotes in the tea just don’t work. Thanks so much for the share though Kittenna! always appreciate trying new teas!

Simple sample sip down. It’s tastily berryish and easy to drink, but I probably wouldn’t buy more since it would be too much of a hassle to get.

This tea is tart and fruit-ay. Bright red liquor, like Red Zinger, as my mom says. But it tastes better than that stuff. I get mostly berries and what reminds me of tulsi.

End of story.

Uhhh, I can’t seem to recall who sent me the sample of this tea. I’m sorry.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was pretty good! (For a chai).

I did find it tasted a lot like a creme brûlée with major big time chai. Super spicy chai. This is probably exactly how spicy chai normally is, but the last few chai-ish teas I’ve had were Adagio fandom versions of chai, not as spicy.

It was a neat dessert tea to try, I enjoyed drinking it, though I wouldn’t buy it because of the strong slickness.

Thanks to whoever sent it, sorry I didn’t have the foresight to write your name on the bag when I got it in the mail!

Backlog 1/67

What clever name do we have here for “Try all the backlogged teas you have received samples of!”? I have received an immense amount of tea lately and as much lovely as that is, I need to start catching up. I counted earlier, and I have 67 teas that I currently “need to try”, whether I’ve never had them before or if I just need to try them a second time to give them another chance or what have you.
I probably have 20 or so more teas than that total in my cupboard… Including all the samples I know I like and want more of and the teas I have an actual long-term amount of.

That said, today I’m trying Vanilla Bean Cacao because it’s been sitting on my kitchen table with the others I received from Cameron B., Mandy and Cheri and my sister said it smells delicious and demanded we try it next. I added Stephen Hockman’s enormous pile of tea to the “need to try” today. My goodness, Stephen! Thank you for all the tea. Yours is on the way!

I can’t wait to try all these. Everything sounds delicious. I especially can’t wait to try the mystery tea with the Chinese letters. :D

SO! Vanilla Bean Cacao. Wow… no one has reviewed this before? Weird.
Okay. So it looks weird! IT looks like… flaked bark or crushed acorns or crushed dry leaves. Really weird looking tea. :D IT smells strange, good? Like Vanilla, chocolate and something else… a sweet woody scent I can’t name. Maybe I’m just inventing that because of how it looks. It’s a very SUPER sweet smell tho. Almost too sweet.

It was a herbal so I usually go about 8 minutes, but I went 6 because the tea had all settled to the bottom of my gravity steeper by then so I figured it was about right. I can say the smell once it gets wet is weird. SUPER weird. More Woody than before and maybe more …. I dunno, like raw cacao rather than chocolate. Maybe?

The first sip is sweet (I sweetened it with regular sugar) with a nice rich vanilla and chocolate flavor. It is a nice full flavor, very sweet all the way around. A bigger drink makes me feel that it would be better with a touch of milk.

I may go add milk to this.

Okay, added milk and had to add a bit more sugar to avoid the milk overpowering the flavor. Somehow, another tsp of sugar plus a bit of milk = now I can taste the flavors of this tea better than I could before. I don’t know. It just brought the flavors out.

This is very tasty. It’s almost too sweet for my tastes. (I know I added more sugar, but it really needed it. Before that, the flavor VANISHED into the milk and I didn’t even add much milk.)

I like it. I don’t think I’d go seek it out specifically because it’s entirely too sweet when you get it to the point where the flavor appears, but I do think I’d drink it again if offered a cup. It’s nice. Just maybe not quite my cuppa tea.

I will be totally honest and say I can’t remember which person this one came from (apologies!) but whoever sent it, thank you for the experience! This is not a bad tea!

This tea has a very nice ripe to over ripe strawberry taste, with a touch of cream. Simple and well balanced flavouring. As others have noted it could use a different base. After 3 minutes at about 93°C the base is a little bitter, and vegetal. It has a slight astringency to it. It could be corrected with a touch of sugar but I dislike adding sugar to my teas. As it stands, the tannins and mild astringency in the base subtract from the cream in the flavouring. A sweeter fruitier base might have complimented the delicious flavouring more.

As it cools the strawberry scent and taste intensify. I like it because in this tea the strawberry flavour is allowed to shine instead of being drowned in sweet vanilla cream notes as is often done in this style of tea. With some tweaks this tea could really shine!

Thanks for the example Dexter I’ve enjoyed them all so far!

Finally I got a decent mug. I steeped 3 tsp at 190F for 1 minute. FINALLY it is not bitter or overly astringent, yet the strawberry flavour has come through.

But I won’t be buying this again.

I have a St. Dalfour Strawberry tea (in tea bags) that’s easier and more reliable, so I’ll just stick with that one for now.

SIGH. This is the strawberry tea I’ve been looking for.

Only it’s not. Because no black tea should require 185F water and a less than 2 minute steep to be drinkable.

So. Amazing flavour, terrible base. I guess I’ll keep looking.

Used up the last of this sample from the GCTTB2 as a cold brew. It is definitely delicious as a cold brew. I only brewed for about 9 hours and am happy because it is just on the verge of getting too tart. Definitely a juicy watermelon candy flavour. I may have to put this on my shopping list…