Teaopia

My first time buying/using/drinking from Teaopia. Also bought their “Tea Master” – very cool. I love chocolate, love mint, love rooibos. This is minty (yay!), but not getting much of the chocolate (pieces that melt in the hot water), and not much of the rooibos. Added some coconut milk to creamy it up, and some coconut sugar to sweeten. Pretty good, though I’m still searching for an amazing chocolate tea – if such thing exists.

Thank you IndigoBloom for this tasty tea sample!

Happy First Day of Summer!
(Anyone reading this in the Winter will growl and offer a curse on me…well you’d better NOT!)

I had a small packet of tea left from IndigoBloom which was labled “Masala…don’t know from who” and today…the mystery of “who” was solved when she did a review mentioning her Masala from Teopia. Ha! Gotcha!
I read a caution not to brew the Chai too strong “it has a punch”…so I obeyed! I played it smart at 3 minutes, sweetened my cup and added cream. Turned on some smooth Sinatra (oh yes, croon on Frankie) and
took a drink throwing my head back like a lady with a cocktail at the end of a hard day.

Ahhhh,yessss…the perfect strength. Not too strong, not too spicy. Smooth. Just right!

I tasted some apple first, no standout spice… but I could feel the cinnamon heat. All of the spices were blended together in harmony. There was a bit of a honey-malt sweetness from the underlying Black Tea.
(Soooo glad the Tea was not completely covered up with a blanket of spice!)
I believe this is one of the mildest Chai’s I’ve ever enjoyed. Quite good and better than I thought it was going to be! (Ya’ll tricked me with your warnings!)

Next time, maybe I’ll take the steeping a little longer, although why should or would I? This tastes really good as is!

Summer, Swimming!
I have a pool…come on over! http://youtu.be/bTcmCxqOE_s Sinatra

Backlogging

Cold brewed of course!

This was a nice light sweet mango tea. The flavour was good but I wish that it would have been a little bit stronger. I will certainly enjoy the rest of this!

I think this has been discontinued. I don’t mind that.

Steeped for seven minutes (not the “proper” way to do Pu-erh, but it’s the way I personally like all the other ones I’ve tried. Maybe I’ll give it another try and steep for far less time.

None of the conspicuous fishiness that some have, but none of the complexity either. Tastes like soil and campfire ashes. A bit of sweetness in the smell and a smaller bit in the taste. Decent but nothing special.

Yum. I am a sucker for sweet black teas (Love Tea #7 being my favourite). This one didn’t disappoint! I was looking for a sweet and mild black blend to add to my morning repertoire and I found it! The caramel comes through nicely but doesn’t overwhelm, its like a seductive tease at the end of the sip. I will definitely have to stock up on this once all of the Teaopia teas start going on clearance sale!

I am not usually an earl grey fan, and this tea did nothing to change my opinion. Whatever they used to make the creamy flavour tasted very artificial. I finished the cup and will probably drink the rest from my tea tower, but definitely not a go-to and was just alright overall.

So BEST part about this whole Teavana buying Teaopia thing is that everything in store is cheap!!! Got a black tea tower for half price, who’s excited- me!!!
Anyway, this was good. Not fabulous, but a very solid black tea that I quite enjoyed. The black tea itself was mild and I found the spice bend to be subtle and pleasing. The cinnamon was the strongest flavour, so I only recommend this if you like cinnamon! Overall, considering what I paid for it, I was very very pleased!

Cold brewed as usual. This was pretty underwhelming. It tastes like pear but I am mostly getting an astringent grassy taste. Too bad, because I find pears very refreshing for the summer.
As much as I don’t like to, I might have to add sweetener to this.

WOW 200th tasting note!!
Cold brewed as usual.
I am definitely getting the bubblegum note that others mentioned here.
As far as fruit goes, I am mostly tasting the pineapple, passion fruit and pear. It is fairly sweet.
I like this but it certainly won’t be a favourite.

Just had this iced — amazing! Some sugar is needed when it’s cold, though.

Probably one of the best teas I’ve ever tasted. This has a lovely spicy cinnamon undertone and is literally like drinking gingerbread. It’s sweet and has a full flavour. Adding milk and sugar to this can’t hurt, but it is great without as well.

I love white tea, but it’s so darn finickey. Of course I steeped it a bit too long so it had a slight bitter/dry taste to it. The dry notes are light & wonderful. It’s not too over bearing but smells amazing. Once steeped the tea lost some of it’s flavour, I was mostly getting notes of cinnamon.

I have been using my kids iced tea tumbler from DAVIDs lately (well, since I got it Monday), taking it to work with me with stuff from home and just filling it with water when it’s out, but today I decided to get more iced tea, and I went to Teaopia with it (no DAVIDs in the mall I work at). I knew that I was going for an iced tea (I don’t think the tumblers do hot, do they??) which means that my palate changes a little. I’m a little more open to herbals and fruit teas and teas with hibiscus as I can handle a little tart iced, just not hot. Though not super tart. And some of my favourite hot teas don’t necessarily work out well iced. Of course some are great both ways.

Anyhow, I told Danielle (I think that’s her name) that I wanted an iced tea, and I had been thinking of maybe Coconut Cream or Love Spell, but she brought over Strawberry Fields, and a few others, but Strawberry Fields won, hands down. So even though it has some hibiscus, it’s not terribly dominant, and I thought it was ok if it was iced.

And it was. AND, yet again, I took this one unsweetened! What is happening to me?! :P Probably for the better I’m taking more of my teas unsweetened, though I’m sure I will still be having some sweetened. Might it be better with a touch of agave/honey/sugar, etc? Probably. But I’m cool with it as is for now I think. The only thing I will say is that it was not terribly strong, and as the ice melted, it watered down pretty fast, and tasted like a slightly sweet and fruity water, like a spa water or something.

This is something I’ll definitely look into getting for the summer.

This was a very tasty sample from Indigobloom that she sent along with the uber-nice order of Sweet Temptation that she put together. Much kudos for her on that one.

This is a really good white tea. I think this is the subtlety of white tea that is intended, as opposed to the subtlety of white tea that really means ‘weak’.

This tea is a little sweet, with a very peachy flavor, and just a hint of buttery vegetable at the end. Strangely, it’s lacking the peppery taste at the end that I’ve come to expect from white teas (so there’s not a hay flavor either, which tends to go with the pepper). This is quite lovely.

Thanks again for the sample! Too bad Teaopia is on their way out, I could see wanting to keep this around. Whoa, just looked at the price. Holy moly, Indigo, that was a nice sample you sent us for a tea that spendy!

This is a generous sample from Indigobloom. Thanks!

Today is stormy and cool, a perfect day for trying out new teas. Since Steepster is upgraded and I can log in, it’s a good time for trying out new things.

I thought this had nutty qualities much like the last green tea I tried from Teavivre. It’s pretty smooth in texture and taste, like butter. I was pleasantly surprised by the peach flavor in here. Awesome tea. Thanks again Indigo!

This was the last of my iced tea pack, and I was consciously saving it for last as I had assumed that it would be my favourite (I seriously love sangria). I am however rather disappointed.
I cold steeped for about 18 hours, probably longer than necessary but that tends to be what I average for cold brewing so nothing out of the ordinary. The colour and smell are gorgeous, a deep ruby red and a wonderfully fruity smell. The hibiscus took over however, and the predominant taste is like sour cherries and makes me pucker a little bit…
I will still drink it and it is still fruity and refreshing, but it has been the worst of my cold brewing experiments, and an overall let down…

Thanks to Indigobloom for sending me a surprise envelope full of samples! We had talked about swapping a while ago but I didn’t know one was coming. Very sweet.

This is a nice white tea full of curly leaves. My first impression when I smelled the leaves was that of a sweet honeydew melon with a few very light vegetal notes.

The tea liquor is a light yellow. I tend to steep my whites at a lower temp than some people, which I find helps to preserve a delicate flavor. The flavor of the cup is melon-y, but there is also a nuttiness present that’s really nice and a bit like a dragonwell. This isn’t as sweet as some white teas I’ve had but I don’t believe I’ve ever had this particular type of tea before. Not my favorite white tea ever but definitely light and elegant. I need to try drinking more white teas in the afternoon since they’re lower in caffeine.

Thanks for much to IB for the sample! It’s always fun trying new teas. :D

I cold brewed this.
I get a little bit of the pomegranate taste but it is a little bit lacking for me. I had to add stevia to perk it up enough. It was ok, but I will not be stocking up on this one.
DAVIDsTEA pom power is way better in my opinion.

I made this iced. I am not sure what goji berries taste like, but this is an alright tea.
I am liking the berry taste but I find it a little bland. I think this would need sweetener to perk it up. I don’t like additions in my tea, but maybe I will try some stevia next time.

I really like the look of this tea, the cute little marshmallows and everything looks so neat together, the black, oolong, and white.
This tastes really good. I mostly get the graham cracker like others have mentioned. After that, I get lighter notes of the marshmallow and chocolate.
At first I was really disappointed with the chocolate, I was hoping it would be more chocolatey. But by the end of the cup, I was really enjoying it!
Glad I got this tea.