TeaFrog

Let me set the scene. It is a gloomy rainy day. The house has fallen dark even with the occasional curtain open to allow what little light that may actually enter. I sit here quietly reading with my dear husband tinkering up the office and my 3 year old daughter taking a much needed nap all alone in the quit of my thoughts in my living room. All I can hear is the dull sound of rain passing through the video montior setup up in my daughters room. Then it dawns on me this is the perfect chance to have this tea. It smells of excitement, spice, and allure. Perhaps the perfect choice on a rainy day in Chicago. Here are my thoughts…

First, a strong sensation of “Red Hots” I was worried but then I take a sip it was a flavor explosion, this rooibos blend is not to be messed with. It is loud and in-charge. It is sophisticated. I had the urge to raise a pinky. Who am I kidding I raised my pinky. The “orange” is in my opinion the magic ingredient, simply brilliant. It keeps the cinnamon and cloves from fighting to the death and creates a controlled experience. It is like “Xanax” for teas. It let’s out just enough of it’s wild and bold character without being obnoxious and as a result a wonderful warm tea for gloomy days and cold days too.

Sipdown no. 36 of 2018 (no. 392 total).

Stuck the last of this into the fridge to make cold brew, much sooner than expected. The last cold brew mysteriously disappeared quite quickly.

No. 2 fessed up as the culprit.

Having now had quite a few more English Breakfast blends than I had had when I wrote my original note, I’m not as impressed upon revisiting this one so I’m bumping down the rating into the good category.

It’s not that the tea has changed, it’s that my tastes have, and I now have a clearer idea of what I like in a breakfast blend. I generally prefer at least some Yunnan in mine. If there’s any Yunnan in this, I can’t tell.

Another of the second set of TeaFrog samples. It’s taken me until the afternoon to be able to have a cup of decent caffeine as I had to run to the last T-ball game of the season this morning and then had to go grocery shopping. Oh, and I need to brag for a second. My kindergartener is now a first grader! Last day of school was last Thursday. He had a stellar report card. (I’m still a little weirded out by the fact that you’re expected to be able to read, write and do math in kindergarten these days.) They don’t get letter grades, but the highest is a + and he straight plusses in the “academic” subjects. Of course, then there were the behavior grades…

I am not able to get a strong smell from the dry leaves even if I stick my nose down in the sample packet. What I smell is a sort of fruitiness which I’m not sure is the tea. I actually think what I’m smelling is the plastic of the packet itself. But I don’t know for sure. Brewed, though, it does have a rich, somewhat sweet, somewhat biscuity aroma.

In taste, the word “stout” comes to mind. It isn’t the strongest breakfast blend I’ve had, but it is strong, and hearty. Though I’m drinking it alone, I do think it would be good with a big, meaty breakfast. Certainly with eggs. There’s something about the flavor and the body that feels like it would cut through bacon grease and neutralize the saltiness of cured meats. It’s got some astringency to it, and though there’s a suggestion of bitterness around the edges, it isn’t truly bitter. I’m thinking 3:30 though instead of 4 minutes steeping time.

Finishing off the last of my sample package of this delightful tea.

It smells delicious as it’s brewing – I can smell the toasty aroma of the genmaicha. YUMMY!

I will miss this tea now that it’s gone!

This is one of the teas that I selected in the sampler that was featured in the Steepster Select back in May.

I can taste the genmaicha right away. Since genmaicha is one of my favorite green varieties, that’s a good thing! It’s quite fruity, but there is a little bit of warmth to it too. I’m really liking this one a lot!

This is one that I’m definitely considering placing an order for a full-sized package!

The smell has me coming back for more. Creamy goodness and the brew in the cup is just as creamy. You know what I mean? Sometimes it smells good in the bag but after you brew it up, it falls flat! But, not this one, it stands up and waves back to me in its creamy goodness. The thing about EG, is the flowers, I don’t like’em, but in this blend, the flowers are not overpowering. A nice balance.

Update on this tasting note: The smell in the bag, CREAM. It is incredible. Could not wait until the 3 minute brewing time was over, took a deep smell…I know that smell…butter on toast…I’m not sure. Taste, good in fact yummy. Maybe I do like this EG, but alas, as I got closer to the end of the cup, the bitterness, astringency reared its ugly head and then it was there…the perfume, the flowers…ugh…I give up on the Earl. Sorry Jean-Luc Picard, I wanted to like it…I really did….I could not believe something that smelt so good in my cup was doomed to failure. So I tried this again..the bitterness and perfume was gone in this cup. I did like it and I do plan to taste more EG in the future. Thanks Jean-Luc for not letting me give on your staple tea:)

Smells good in the bag. Brewed it up and took a sip. SWEET IMO. I did not detect any chocolate notes which is what I wanted and expected. What is in here that makes this sweet? The crackle bits?

Sipdown no. 65 of 2018 (no. 421 total).

I tried it cold, too. It was ok, but the cold brew didn’t bring out its best.

Much better as a hot tea, which is how I finished up the last bit today.

From the second set of TeaFrog samples. It has cornflowers! Two in a row with the cornflowers and caffeine today.

This smells very creamy in the packet. I can also smell the bergamot. Just for curiosity’s sake, I smelled this one next to the Upton Earl Grey Creme Vanilla. There is a difference, and it’s pretty much consistent with the names. The Teafrog’s cream smell is sweeter and creamier. The Upton’s is creamy, but it also has a vanilla contribution to the fragrance separate from the cream. It’s got a concentrated, beany vanilla note to it. Which is interesting because looking back on my note on that one, I found it creamier than the other vanilla flavored teas I’d had recently. So by comparison to vanilla, it was creamy. And the TeaFrog, by comparison to vanilla cream, is still creamier. If you’re still getting my drift, you need to go have a cocktail right now.

The tea’s aroma is also very creamy. It’s not a cream soda or ice cream creamy so much as, I’d say, almost a whipped cream creamy. There’s a small amount of citrus sniffable in the cup.

Flavor wise, it’s very similar to how it smells. It’s strong on the cream, not strong on the tea, not strong on the bergamot, though both the tea and the bergamot are present. The not strong on the bergamot is exactly how it describes itself.

Points for being a self-aware tea.

I prefer the more vanilla-y cream of the Upton, but this would be a tasty alternative if I find myself just needing the comfort of cream. It’s fitting that one of my other TeaFrog favorites so far is the Chocolate and Cream.

I happen to be out of the bread pudding I made this week, but! I did get a delicious new dessert tea to console me. This came out a bit weak, so I need to watch how much water I dump into the ingenuitea. It’s so easy to just fill it – I have a giant coffee mug so I know I won’t make too much.

The last bit of my sample – I gobbled that sucker right up. Unfortunately, in my gobbling I consumed almost all of the cream caramel bits in the packet prior to this last cup. So now it taste like a very lightly caramel flavored rooibos rather than lightly rooibos flavored caramel candy. Shame that.

Still, I suppose the problem here was between teacup and chair, so I’m going to go ahead and cut it some slack…and be more careful when I inevitably order more of this :D

When I went to smell this tea, I was dubious! It seemed like the Hawaiian thingy had completely overpowered its smell and I couldn’t get anything. But then I looked into the bag and I was like dayum! they just stone cold put caramel chunks into this stuff. That is pretty neat, so I was once again optimistic about the tea.

The smell is VERY nice. Exactly like a caramel candy. And the taste is pretty much exactly the same. It is sooooo good! I just kept drinking it and remarking to my increasingly jealous friends with whom I was chatting on Skype how good it was.

This is by far my favorite of the rooiboses I’ve tried so far. I mean, I also really like the love, but this…it’s just SO GOOD. I basically feel like I’m drinking candy. I also totally forgot about it and oversteeped it but it turned out fine which is always a point in a tea’s favor in my book.

Now, I chose this for my extra free sample – it narrowly edged out the chocolate mint rooibos. I decided on this one because of my experiences with the Art of Tea dessert sampler. The chocolate-minty Velvet tea didn’t really do much for me, while the caramelized pear came out as the best of the bunch. This has basically left me suspicious about chocolate and rooibos (which also helped me resist the ultimate chocolate rooibos during 52teas memorial day sale) Now I feel all vindicated since this stuff turned out so good. Yay for me!

So at this point, I think I just have the Hawaiian thingy left of my samples. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been putting it off after reading someone’s review about it being far too tart. Given that it’s the source of the overpowering smell in my sample set…this is not hard to believe…that’s why I’m gonna leave it to tomorrow…or maybe the day after :P

The last of this batch. My mother took it upon herself to bring me a bunch of Polish stress relief stuff (a lot of which just straight up has Valerian root in it so…) so I won’t be in a position to need more of something like this in a hurry, still if I ever run out, I will probably get more, since I’ve found this stuff to be quite effective.

So as my trip to Japan approaches I start to feel more and more stressed. Still have a bunch of stuff to do beforehand, not to mention there’s the whole “imminent long trip to Japan” aspect to be worried about. I get really freaked out about traveling, making my plane and that sort of thing – and the fact that I’m leaving from hell LAX isn’t really helping. (hate that airport) Thank god it’s a nonstop flight though.

Anyway, so I REALLY need to de-stress, good thing I have stress relief tea! Unfortunately it has gone too far and made me sleepy again. Find a middle ground stress relief tea! Also, I forgot about it for too long again and didn’t get that nice light lemony taste…I am gonna ding it a few points for being finicky :P

So here’s a thought. Should I take tea with me to Japan? (for comfort mostly) Just some blacks and rooiboses since those aren’t that easy to find in Japan – at least not the nifty flavored ones I like :D. I’ll be living in a “weekly mansion” which is basically a long stay hotel. It’ll have a microwave, hotplate and fridge, and I could take my little clampy tea ball thing…I’ll DEFINITELY need something for mornings. (ugh mornings)

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAN HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP

BEAN HIP!

I was really tempted to just leave this review at that, but I guess I’ll say more. I am, by nature, prone to stressing out about things. The month before I first went to Japan I developed a rash out of stress. While IN Japan and applying for graduate school, I developed ulcers. This past year, in anticipation of my first conference paper, I actually had bouts of unexplained nausea starting FOUR MONTHS before. So yeah, a good stress reliever tea would be…helpful.

Today, I tested the Stress Reliever tea by drinking it while having a phone conversation with my mum who was describing her heart attack like symptoms to me but categorically refusing to go get checked out. I am not sure if the tea helped, but I AM feeling very sleepy right at the moment so it may be…TOO GOOD. Or I may just be sleepy. I DID feel remarkably calm about the whole heart attack thing so…let’s go with it working!

The taste of the tea is your pretty standard herby set up in terms of both smell and taste, although thankfully without anise which seems to be in a lot of these homeopathic type teas and which I am just not that big a fan of. Interestingly, I do feel like I can taste some sort of beanness about it.

Reading the other reviews I begin to wonder if I didn’t steep it for too long, I wasn’t getting much out of the lemongrass at all. Second try is clearly called for!

Second steep: Oh my! What a lovely light lemony taste! There’s a slight herby undertone still, but the lemon is definitely dominating this time. I really must have oversteeped on the first go around. THIS tisane really stands out among tisanes I’ve drunk. I could definitely see getting more of it for destressing in the afternoon.

Decided at some point that perhaps my shivering isn’t from chilliness but from caffeine overdose (seems unlikely unless my hand shook while scooping matcha into my smoothie, but better safe than sorry!) so I’m switching over to decaf for a bit. Have a surprising amount of rooibos samples left over from my teafrog order from the beginning of the summer, so may as well make some headway there.

I like love, but I like caramel cream more. Maybe it’s the orange, perhaps I do not like the combination of orange and rooibos as much as I thought I did.

Here we are again with the orange-flavored rooibos.
I was kind of scared that I would be unable to distinguish between it and the Gingerbread Orange when I first smelled it just because the orange flavoring came through soooo strong. On steeping, the orangeness just got stronger and yes, the color is quite dark, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say blood (of any kind) is evoked. For one thing, blood is just not that transparent. (Blood is thicker than tea, ahahahahahaha ahem)

Fortunately, I can definitely taste a difference. his is VERY floral tea, but the rooibos still manages to be quietly present in the form of a nutty undertaste which I think goes quite well. Basically, it leaves me with the feeling that flowers should sprout up whenever I breathe out.

So far this is definitely edging out the other teafrog rooiboses I have tried.

Aside time! I forgot to mention this when my order first came in, but I had a total huh moment when the package came in and I saw that the recommended temperature for the teas was 100/80/etc degrees and then I remembered. You Canadians and your crazy measuring systems that make actual sense! (I suppose that should be You rest of the world and your crazy measuring systems that make actual sense)

When I see names like “Masala Chai II” I always wonder what happened to Masala Chai I. Masala Chai is dead, long live Masala Chai? Just to be sure I double checked the TeaFrog site and couldn’t find Masala Chai I.

TeaFrog gives nice big samples. This one is big enough to make a couple of cups worth on the stovetop. Using TeaFrog Assam Banaspaty as the extra black tea since the mix contains Assam to begin with.

In the packet I smell mostly cinnamon, and then coriander, and then an anise/fennel licorice scent. In addition to cinnamon, cardamom and pepper, this has some pretty interesting ingredients that haven’t been in other chais I’ve tried. I also noticed that ginger isn’t listed, and I think it’s been in all the other chais I’ve had thus far.

True to its description, this is a mellow chai. The cardamom, cinnamon and coriander seem to me to be acting as an ensemble rather than calling attention to themselves individually, which is, I think, a good thing. There’s an interesting, cooling feeling on the tongue after sipping. I’m wondering if this is the anise or fennel? Other than that effect, the anise and fennel is detectable but extremely gentle. There’s no strong licorice flavor, which in my view is a good thing. I’m not tasting the pepper. There’s no kick at the end.

I can’t comment on the authenticity having never been to India. This is a tasty chai, but I think I prefer a little more spice, even in my mellower chais. Though I didn’t taste them back to back, this seems to me less spicy than the TeaGschwendner Indian Chai which was pretty far down on the spicy continuum already.

Cue Rabs: You can’t a have-a the Mango. slap (There, I did it for you this time. ;-))

This is my first taste of a more recent TeaFrog sample purchase (which accompanied a full order of the Chocolate and Cream and the Assam Banaspaty… yum!)

I was expecting to smell mango when I opened the sample packet but I smelled something that was more like chocolate, or maybe vanilla. You know how those notes can actually be reminiscent of each other depending on concentration. At first I thought I’d picked up the wrong packet by mistake, then it dawned on me that was the yogurt I was smelling. Duh.

Now that I think about it I’m not even really sure what moved me to get this one as I am not a yogurt fan in the least. It has that sour milk, baby puke thing going on for me. Curiosity, I guess.

Having just come off of another fruit tisane experience where I didn’t use enough fruit the first time, I’m using the whole sample packet in my steep. It’s a chunky fruit mix in a palette of browns, burgundies, tans. My second of the evening.

I think I probably was right to use the full packet because the liquor is that deep red color you get from hibiscus in blends, but only if you use enough of the mix. It smells fruity and creamy. I can smell the hibiscus, too.

And it tastes pretty much as it smells, with one small modification. There is more fruit and less cream in the flavor than in the aroma. I’m not tasting mango so much as a generic fruit flavor that seems to have a lot of apple and a lot of strawberry to it. There’s a slight tartness, which I am guessing is from the rose hips.

I don’t know for sure, but I think increasing the yogurt/cream aspect so that it is more of the balance could really make a positive difference in how I perceive this tisane. I wanted it to taste more like it smelled. I can taste the yogurt (as cream and sweet, not sour milk) particularly in the aftertaste and it’s a good combination of flavors, but the fruit and herbs overpower it to some extent and relegate it to showing up primarily in the aftertaste. The idea of a creamy, fruit tisane is very appealing to me, but this one doesn’t lean far enough toward the cream for me. I wonder whether if the mango taste had been more prevalent the cream would have tasted as though it was more present as well. It seems to me it might have, as I got the sense the yogurt was spending most of its creaminess taming the tarter aspects of the flavor.

This reminds me of the discontinued Plum Harvest from Teavana with one exception, this TeaFrog blend is spot on with the sweetness. Not too sweet, Just right IMO.
If you are looking for a caffeine free herbal blend with berries, your search is over.
A nice Red brew in my cup, enjoyable to the last drop:)

Another go at this. Still does not taste like gingerbread. I am going to be certain this time! No waffling about whether I actually know what gingerbread tastes like, nosiree!

Rooibos for the daaaaaay AND my last TeaFrog sample…no trying other rooiboses on the sly, me! I’ve got my eye on you. me. whatever. I chose this tea as one of my samples because the combination sounded interesting and, seeing no reviews up here, decided to find out what it was like for myself.

The actual tea smells overridingly of orange and maybe a little of almond, so my hopes are not too high to start out with. I’m not sure what gives gingerbread it’s distinctive taste, is it coriander? Because there’s some in here. Isn’t coriander dried cilantro? Cilantro is super tasty in like, salsa and stuff. You would think it would be ginger, what with the name and all. But maybe that refers to color?

Tea itself is…interesting. In a positive sense! The orange is still the dominant flavor, and the rooibos is not, I think, particularly noticeable. It’s weird because I feel like I get cardamon and almond individually but they don’t seem to blend that well together. I have no idea what coriander tastes like, I am assuming not cilantro because that would be weird. There’s a kind of creamy taste to it, almost giving it creamsicle properties until the other spices catch up.

But, the question is, is it gingerbread? The answer is…um. Does anyone else get the thing where they drink a flavored tea and they are like “this does not taste like the thing it says it does” and then they stop and are like “wait do I remember what the thing in question actually tastes like?” and then are full of doubt and confusion? Because I am trying to think of what gingerbread tastes like and it is just not coming to me. On the other hand, perhaps I am overthinking this and if the tea DID taste like gingerbread I would know immediately. I’m gonna leave this to cool for a bit and see if it doesn’t pull a thing like the Tiramisu did and all of a sudden start tasting like gingerbread when it’s cool.

Regardless of whether or not it tastes like gingerbread though, the important thing is, is it tasty? Yes, yes it is, but I think at the moment I prefer the Tiramisu. I place it in the: I will finish the sample with enjoyment but am unlikely to order more unless something crazy happens when it cools category.