The East Indies Tea Company

I know it’s no where near Hannukah (and I’m not even Jewish) but I had such a strong craving for this tea earlier in the week that I went and dug it out from the bottom of my black tea sample drawer. The taste was so good; that kind of sweet brown flavour that’s comforting and nostalgic matched with notes of toasted, gooey marshmallows. The mouthfeel was so waxy and scummy though. Easy to ignore when it was hot but the moment the tea started cooling noticeably all of that oil started congealing again and it was kinda gnarly…

Backlogged tasting note.

Back during advents, Marika was kind enough to invite me to celebrate Hanukkah with her and her family – I brought a couple teas for us to make pots of over the coarse of the evening, including this very on the nose blend.

Definitely pleasantly sweet and full bodied but not cloying. The flavour is supposed to be a caramel marshmallow and I think the blend really nails the taste of a toasted marshmallow but the caramel reads more as generic dark sweetness to me. It was definitely a very nice sipping tea though, and I like how full bodied and heavy the base was – it made the fluffy creaminess of the marshmallow pop all the more.

It does kill me a little inside that this is so clearly intended to be a Hanukkah blend but it’s not kosher though – for a couple reasons, but the main one being the gelatin in the marshmallows Thankfully the group I was with doesn’t keep strictly kosher, but I could see some unfortunate oopsies coming if someone bought this for someone who is more strict about that kind of thing…

Another from earlier in the database crash, so not great notes taking on my past. Kind of like a honey and lemon blend but much heavier on the honey. Very smooth, approachable and pretty light feeling despite the distinct honey taste.

Grabbing samples this morning to bring into the office I was actually looking for another mate blend, but I saw this one and decided it was more perfectly what I was in the mood for. So gentle and relaxing, with an incredible mix of sweet honey, graham cracker-y rooibos/honeybush, and simple lemon notes. I found it such a welcoming start to my day with such soothingly well balanced sweet flavours. Mmm! So much hug in a mug.

Very sweet and honey forward with a lot of honey, woody and peppery qualities from the rooibos and honeybush in the blend – I love how it’s sweet but not sugary, and ultimately it’s a surprisingly relaxing and fun cuppa! Reminds me a lot of DT’s Honey Bee, which was also a mate/rooibos mix – but this has a pretty distinct lemony undertone as well, which just helps balance all of those fresh, sweet honey flavours and the sweetness of the bases.

A sample from Keychange! I stored it badly, though, and it shows. There’s not much flavour left, but I know this used to be fairly tasty. The base is basically nonexistent, there’s just some spicing left. One cup to go; perhaps if I make a smaller cup the flavour will be stronger!

This is ok tea, especially considering Moroccan mint doesn’t actually exist. Moroccan (Maghrebi) mint tea is traditionally Chinese gunpowder green tea infused with spearmint leaves. It gets bitter very quickly, so use a timer. I add 1.5 tsp of sugar and organic peppermint to mine.

Assuming this is the record for Miss Figgy at Tea and Tins, see my full review on Sororitea Sisters: http://sororiteasisters.com/2016/12/01/miss-figgy-from-tea-tins/

Some people have complained about the tea tasting like lavender, so I was prepared for a fairly floral tea. However, upon making a cup, I actually found it was quite nice. Now, this is not overly flavored with fig, but you definitely get notes of the fruit in the tea. So those who are looking for a prominent taste of fig with just a little tea flavor, you may be disappointed. I think the issue with the lavender comment is that fig has a very similar flavor profile, but they are distinct enough to tell the difference between the two. I will buy this again.

Sipdown (146)

So I am at my sister’s loft which has a beach theme to the decor so this and the beach boys just seemed right. Unfortunately, being anywhere near my sister means wedding stuff all the time. Alas, no tea and music moment today. I did get the song playing and sipped for a little before it got shut off on me to look at food stations and noticed how both just bring you back to a fun summer moment in the sun and both just made me super happy. I’m sad I didn’t get to concentrate more but both are awesome and both went by too fast. Now I’m shopping for more of this bright creamy deliciousness…think a creamsicle…but better!

Thank you Roswell Strange!!

Here’s Hoping TTB

I had never heard of the East Indies Tea Company before, but this tea smelled so good that I just had to try it! Most chocolate-flavored teas are a letdown in the flavor department, but this one is rich and sweet and malty and smooth…it really does taste like a chocolate malt in tea form! Quite possible the best chocolate tea I’ve ever had.

Totally agreed with Kittenna on this, no cherry but lots of cakiness! Noms. and yeah the sparkles dazzle. I did add a touch of sugar to see if any fruit notes would emerge but instead was rewarded with cake! I was really looking forward to cherry, as I loooooove cherries. But cake works too.
Thank you Keychange for sharing!

keychange was so nice to share some of her new teas with me! We opened this up at her place yesterday, and thought it smelled okay, lacking a bit on the banana, perhaps. That observation seems to have held true for the flavour as well. A nice enough flavoured black, but neither chocolatey nor banana-y enough to really achieve “Banana Split”. Just vaguely tasty.

Met up with some lovely Steepsterites today and had a wonderful time! Came away with too much tea, though, and sorely regret not hauling things out of my stash to bring and offload, too.

Anyhow, this tea came from the huge order that keychange made from East Indies recently, and is one she was not fond of, in part because it didn’t taste like cherries. Well, it didn’t taste like cherries to me either! However, it had the cakey sweetness of other teas like Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and Blueberry Crumble, and therefore I found it delicious. Also, sparkles. I didn’t really write down anything more about it, so should probably re-review later, but it was tasty.

Thanks for sharing, keychange!

This was a giant cup of no this morning. Too sweet, too flat, and just not enough of whatever it is i was hoping to get. It’s so hard to describe why you don’t like something, because it wasn’t horrible; it just wasn’t that good. And like, do I waste a tasting note and your time by telling you: I just didn’t like this tea? I guess so, LOL.

You know when you wake up feeling hormonal and fragile, and then you brew up a tea you’ve never had before, and suddenly so much is resting on how it turns out? When I opened this bag, my nose was pleasantly assaulted with a blast of straight up cinnamon bun. I smelled the frosting that hints at cream cheese, I smelled the cinnamon bun itself, the thick, sweet bread, and for heaven’s sake, it even almost managed to smell warm. So despite myself, my expectations were kind of set.

I brewed this for five minutes, added in some cream and rock sugar, and got to sniffing. The brew retained much of the smell of the dry leaf, which is both promising and dangerous. But the first sip cemented it all: it was hot, it tasted thick (thanks to the cream which, dare I say, I might even be able to back off of), it tasted sticky and gooey and cinnamony, and I felt so cozy and happy as I drank it with my hashbrown breakfast and read “the dust that falls from dreams”. I think I’ll love this tea even more in the winter. I’m just imagining it in a timolino or carry mug (actually, it’s the new curve travel mug I am lusting after so hard). I’m imagining opening the lid after coming in from the cold, and burying my nose in cinnamon-bun-scented steam. Omg. Tea, I am back.

I know I know, same tea different morning. But I’m still trying to iron out some kinks in my tea-drinking experience.

This tea, again, was quite good. but there was still something wrong with the t. It tasted flat, or perhaps even as if the base tea had changed, although I have a theory. For the longest time, I was using my keurig to dispense water into my tea mug, and I was filling the keurig’s water reservoir with tap water. Then, we got one of those culligan water coolers for our house, and I began using the Culligan water to fill up the keurig. This was when I was drinking coffee, for which it is just fine. but any time I used the hot water tap on the Culligan cooler to make myself tea, the teal would always, without any exceptions, come out tasting weird. It’s strange, because cold, the Culligan water is delicious, although it’s a “thicker” water if that makes sense. It is not like spring water, which has a much thinner mouth feel. And I know I sound ridiculous, but the kind of water I use to make my tea seems to absolutely make a difference. So next up, I’m going to experiment with tap water tea and see what happens, although I’ll have to wait for the Keurig to run through the water it already has first in order to get there.

So let’s keep our fingers crossed that I’m right!

Do you guys notice a difference in the taste of your tea depending on what water you use also? I keep trying to tell myself it’s all in my head, but it kind of isn’t.

Ok guys, this is much, much better.

For those of you who don’t yet know, east indies is dellaterra’s supplier, and given that dt has sort of been a bit on again off again regarding how open for business they are, I figured I’d go straight to the source (thanks to marzipan, who alerted us). I kind of, um, bought 117 dollars worth of tea from them, so to say I went a bit overboard isn’t an exaggeration. But the customer service there was fantastic, although if you live in Canada, please insist that they don’t ship to you via UPS because I got slammed with a hefty border tax at my door. Not fun at all. It kind of made me have unreasonably high expectations for the tea because hello, if I’m paying a million dollars, this tea had better make me fly.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that this tea is as delicious as I remember it being. unfortunately, I was a little too heavy-handed with the cream, so the flavours were kind of muted, and I suspected my water could have been a smigeon hotter than it was, but this cup was verily bursting with potential. I have always preferred this tea to davids tea’s pumpkin chai, because I find this tea to have more flavor overall, and I can also taste the black base more. And so, even though this tea has not yet reached its maximum potential, I can taste it there, lingering underneath my brewing mistakes. Pretty exciting stuff, guys. Pretty exciting stuff.

Ok, so now it’s off to Costco with a good friend, and then tonight we’re making fajitas!

Ok so I’m not really going to beat around the bush here, because I had this tea yesterday and so I’ve had enough time to really think about it. Not that I even needed time.

I do not like this tea. It does not smell of lilacs, nor does it taste of them. At all. Like not even a little bit. It tastes just like black tea, and it was easily overwhelmed by my milk and sugar, although you would not have guessed that by the strong, virging on tanic smell of the leaves as it brewed. I’m a little hartbroken. Because I have like two oz left. I’m meeting a bunch of fellow steepsterites next Saturday, and I intend on bringing this tea to see if the problem is me, the tea, the description, or all three. Don’t get me wrong—it isn’t hideous or anything like that. it’s just not even close to being a lilac-flavoured tea. And I know, I know. Try brewing it this way. That way. More water. Less water. More leaf. Try brewing it further above sea level. But like, it isn’t even close, not even in the neighborhood of what I was hoping for, so I’m kind of tea-devastated.

Sipdown (130)!

So, this is definitely one of those cases where my first impression of a tea was pretty far off. Honestly, I hated this the first time I had it. In fact, I rated it a measly “14” and I was so hesitant to revisit it that I swapped or gave away all of the remaining 50g I originally started with except for a single cup’s worth – which I just drank.

While I still don’t think this is a particularly good tea I did find it to be a lot better than I initially gave it credit for. A good deal of that was due to a lack of lavender flavour in the cup; in fact, this barely tasted like lavender at all. Sure, it was a little floral but in a rather muted and generic way. I also was actually able to taste some fruity sweetness though I wouldn’t pinpoint it as specifically “fig”. But it was soft, and pleasantly sweet.

Overall I’d describe the flavour as very muddled – but that’s a step forward from my first impression, and definitely worthy of a somewhat increased rating. And at least I was able to finsih this cup worth! That also counts for a lot.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_WtPJW3Sd4&index=4&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ

No deeper meaning here; it’s just what I was listening to when I drank this and I found it worked well in regard to creating a good tea drinking atmosphere/mood.

Despite being pretty much over my ‘sprinkles in tea’ phase, this tea drew me in with the combination of pig sprinkles in the blend and the fun, whimsical name and the promise of fig flavour. In my humble opinion, there aren’t nearly enough fig blends and any chance I have to try a new one is one I’m going to take!

However, when I cracked open my sealed 2 oz. package of this blend I was hit with something I hadn’t been prepared for; the strong, piercing aroma of lavender! The lack of comprehensive ingredients lists on East Indie’s website it definitely a valid criticism; while a super generic blurb has worked out in my favor in the past in this case I feel like I was failed – I cannot stand lavender, and had I known this blend had so much of it I’m sure I would’ve been persuaded against this tea despite wanting to try ‘all the fig’.

Regardless, I cold brewed myself up a mason jar worth of tea because you never really know how a tea is going to taste for sure until you try it, so despite major reservations there was still a chance this could be alright. Sadly, I just couldn’t get over that concentrated lavender flavour. It was floral in a soapy, artificial way that made me feel like I’d licked all of the counters and shelves in a Bath & Body Works store. Any fig that was in this blend, and I know there was because I could see the dried out pieces in the leaf along with the adorable pig sprinkles, was completely masked. I was not impressed.

My overall opinion is that personally I found this blend as irksome as the puppet it’s playfully named for – and if you’re looking for fig look elsewhere. However, if you’re a fan of lavender and want to try a strong lavender blend over a black base you’re in luck.

I don’t have very much of this tea at all so I’m a little more precious about when I decide to make it, but I was really craving it this week so I decided to treat myself a little. Those persimmon notes I love with their honeyed orange/red kind of floral fruity notes were popping off. Hard to describe them as anything other than persimmon – it’s a very accurate flavour. I also got a tiny touch of creamy yogurt and of course a lot of the smooth, slightly nutty base.

I love this tea.

It’s been a while since I last had it, but my word does it taste beautifully like sweet creamy persimmons! Like… mandarin orange, honey, and sweet tomatoes kind of all rolled into one but with a hint of creamy yogurt/white chocolate flavour and the nice honeyed graham notes of the base. It’s so good!