Teaopia

Probably redundant to write a review for a tea that you can no longer buy, but I thought I’d do it anyway! Bought this tin at 75% off during their closing sale, rather happy that I did. My parents back to school present to me was that both of them had contagious colds. So, I am basing the rating of this tea on two things: how did it taste and did it actually prevent me from getting sick.

So far so good on the second criteria :) Being sick would be the last thing that I would want for frosh week/ career week! So it gets super bonus marks for managing to get me this far without some nasty cold!

On the first criteria, taste, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought that since it was first and foremost and immunity booster, it might not taste very good, but I was wrong. It has a very pleasant and smooth peppermint flavour. You don’t really taste all of the other ingredients!

So I can totally understand why people love this tea. that being said, it’s not my favorite I mostly wanted to try this before I end up ordering the s’mores tea from Della Terra for comparisons sake evenif I can’t ever get this tea again haha. It’s not a bad tea..it’s just a bit weird for my taste. It might have sometig to do with the fact that I ate all of the mini marshmallows out of my sample before I brewed the tea grin anyway there’s chocolate in here, and hints of the sticky marshmallowy goo but I’m not quite getting the graham cracker taste. Any interesting tea to say the least :)

Not bad for a chocolate tea. I mostly enjoy the smell of this one, finding that once I brew up an cup and drink it, it doesn’t quite match my expectations.

I briefly forgot about this tea and it had sat steeping for at least 15 minutes (oops)… The one of the good things about black tea is that they don’t really go bitter!

This has an interesting taste… kind of spicy with a noticeable mint flavor. It is not nearly as “chocolate minty” as it smells (which is GREAT because I was initially afraid that the taste would be overpowering).

Overall, this is a pretty great tea (if you ignore the oily-look on the top of the tea from the melted chocolate chips) and great in the afternoon to prevent an afternoon crash!

I must say I was rather disappointed in this tea… and most oolongs in general… As I have heard so many good things, I thought I would try (multiple times) to like it… So far not so much… I can’t decide whether or not I like the smell and the taste is… strange… I’m not even sure what to call it… Maybe nutty is just not my kind of flavor… If anyone has any suggestions, I am more than willing to try more ways to make this tea! I followed the steeping recommendations exactly and even tried it with milk on a separate occassion and that was just terrible…

I love this tea so much! I don’t even know what it is. It only needs a little bit of honey and it is the perfect tea to read a book to and eventually start to nod off. Generally I don’t like to sweeten teas, but with this, it didn’t take away from the taste, and it was absolutely beautiful.

Even the smell started relaxing me!

The first time I had this tea, I made the mistake of putting the leaves in a cup loosely and drinking with a bombilla. This got bitter rather quickly and it was not a good experience. THIS time, I steeped for long enough for me to return to my desk and look up how long I am supposed to steep yerba mate (approximately 3 minutes)… It was fantastic. No bitterness, just the plain earthy taste. I try not to sweeten tea if I can help it but use honey when I do. I find that this tea reminds me somewhat of plain green teas and even a bit of genmaicha (just a plain, tea taste). I set the steeper aside to see how it will do with a second infusion and will post about that when I get to it.

For anyone experiencing bitterness, try reducing your steep time and/or water temperature (so the leaves don’t burn). When I first started drinking tea, I definitely had a time figuring out that not every kind of tea works well with boiling water. Now when the kettle whistles, I wait a while before it goes in a cup with most of my teas!

Bouuuught some. Still teh epic. Made a pot of this for the Roommate and I to enjoy.

I purchased a sample of this one from Teaopia in Metrotown for $1. Unfortunately my local Teaopia doesn’t carry these little sample packs because it’s perfect to just try things before you buy them!

It tastes a little like cotton candy, which was an unexpected but not unwelcome flavor.

I tried this in a $1 sample pack I purchased in Metrotown Mall.

Surprisingly this tea tasted more like grapefruit than tea to me, or maybe a little bit like jelly beans. It was quite nice, but unfortunately not a replacement for the Kalahari that I so love.

This one is yummy delicious, I got some in a swap and I hate to admit that I forgot who it was that sent it to me, THANK YOU MUCHLY YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!!

http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/

Makes a delicious, life changing latte when mixed with frothy soymilk. Tastes like banana bread fresh out of the oven. I make a very light version with unsweetened soymilk and twin sugar “brown sugar flavour”, and it rocks, 1/2 soymilk, 1/2 tea. It’s just magical.

Rooibos is always great iced especially Ice age it gives hints on fruity and citrus perfectly refreshing for the scorching summer heat !

The only way I would like this tea is if it is steep for about a minute. I found it really bitter and couldn’t find any traces of caramel just wasn’t the most pleasant cup of green tea. On a more positive note I liked the taste as it cooled down and i added agave to take away the bitterness and it was much better !

A simple green tea with a little floral pick me up very nice aroma great hot or iced.

Summer Breeze from Teaopia is defiantly my go to Icetea !It’s too bad soon I wont be able to get a hold of this tea but because Teaopia is having their 75% off sales every chance I get I rush over to buy some teas for an amazing price ! its almost too good to be true.. so I am stocking up on this tea I absolutely love it there are just no bad things to say about this beautiful green rooibos blend

Thank HEAVEN, this goddamn awful tea is finally de-cupboarded. God, I thought I’d never drink it all.

I swear that I tried damn near everything to save this tea. Drank it hot, drank it cold, cold-steeped it, really short steeps…all around, it tasted gross. I finally used this up by making a vanilla green tea latte with it (using vanilla flavoured agave). Oh hey, THE VERY LAST CUP WAS DRINKABLE. Yeah, that was money well-spent! At least it’s done now…

Also, a Teavana update for anyone who was curious (stop reading now if you’re not!): Had three shifts now. Things seem to be going quite well…maybe.

My sales last weekday shift were a bit under 100/hr, which is around what my managers told me they aim for, so I think that’s good. That’s without having the faintest idea what’s on the wall, so I think when I know the product better 100/hr will be simple to aim for most days. I haven’t reviewed all the teas I’ve tried in the store – I prefer to only review things I’ve taken home and made a few times under conditions I can totally control – but I’ve liked most of what I’ve tried and so now have things to recommend to people.

I had the scale almost entirely figured out my second shift, so that’s not a problem anymore. Also, I finally got a glimpse of the training manual, which is hilariously stupid in a really corporate way which is hard to explain to someone unless they’ve seen it for themselves… But I can laugh that off, as I’m used to corporate stupidity. (Oh, the stories I could tell you about the other job I have!) Other than the cast iron (which I’ve never been disposed to really like that much anyway, although I kinda like the hobnail and the elephant ones from a design perspective), I like a lot of the merch in the store, and I now have a neat little milk frother which helps me make awesome lattes at home (including the one I’m having right now).

I’ve worked with one other new guy who seems very personable but is otherwise hopeless so far, which is somewhat funny because we had the same training shift. Just a slow learner? He seemed to defer to me as though I was his superior, which was odd and funny.

The only thing which still feels really awkward is sampling. But I think that’s because it’s just a plainly awkward thing to do. It’s a lot like the pushy “greeter” position at my other job, which has never stopped feeling awkward in the two years I’ve worked there…although my managers tell me I’m fantastic at it. I guess I shouldn’t hope for sampling to become less awkward; it’s just something you have to suck up and do.

Overall, I just like Teavana so much better than my other job right now. I was originally going to work three days there and three days at Teavana with one day off…the plan being that way because of all the horror stories I’ve heard about Teavana. I was planning to see if Teavana was a company I’d need to bail on before my probation was up, see. But I am so tired and depressed and frustrated with the other job, and so much happier talking to people about tea all day. So I asked my manager what she could give me in terms of hours if I could give her 6-7 day availability. Her response was, “You’re awesome. You can have whatever you want! Want to move up to full time? I’d love to have you on full time.” Great! Well, Teavana pays even crappier than my other job…but I haven’t gotten much more than 20hrs a week over there in 9 months with no sign of that changing any time soon, so it’s a moot point. More hours on shitty pay still works out better than practically no hours on slightly-less-shitty pay, and it also looks like I might have a better chance of climbing the ladder at Teavana…something I always keep an eye out for.

So I gave my notice at my other mall job on Sunday. I then went downstairs to deliver the news at Teavana, only to find out some disturbing news about staff change-overs. The kind of thing that inevitably makes you wonder if you’ve made a terrible mistake.

Dark cloud? Just a blip? Time will tell.

Other Job will probably beg me to stay at least one day a week (they’d be idiots not to), and if they do, I think I will suck up continuing to work there on one weekday. Just in case.

I was really disappointed with this tea, it might have been stored wrong, but it just tasted like virtually nothing! Bland, watery taste, even after a longer steep and extra leaves added. The marshmallows ended up being annoying in my mesh strainer and the different flower petals were pretty much useless :( Too bad this tea will never surface again, I would have enjoyed a fresh cup….I think?

13 down – 487 to go!

Total miss :(

It’s bitter, lacks any flavour even remotely resembling s’mores. Smells burnt when I sniff the tin. Adding milk/sweeteners/ice cream/whipped cream didn’t help.

Really disappointed that I don’t like it after reading all the hype about it, and then waiting to finally have it in stock so I could try it.