Zoomdweebie's Tea Bar

A sample from Ricky—I have had some trouble with cranberry-flavored tea as being too artificial in aroma and taste. This dry leaves, however, have a lovely fruity, cocoa-y aroma which I hoped carried over to the infusion. Although the fruity aroma continues (though more blackberry than cranberry), the tea itself has a strange flavor like—caraway seed. Maybe serve with some corned beef and swiss ?!?

By far my favorite tea that zoomdweebies/52teas makes. The hint of cinnamon makes this tea very smooth.

Made this for my mom even though she isn’t a fan of black teas. She thought it was pretty good.

My ground hog order finally came the other day and based on all the cran-this and cran-that I was pleasantly surprised to find this! I’ve never had a watermelon tea before so quite honestly I’m not sure what to expect…

2.25g/6oz water just below boiling.

The raw leaf kinda smells like watermelon bubble gum… but not… there’s something else… strawberry? The liquor is a dark brown w/ reddish tones and the aroma is that of the raw leaf.

I was hoping that tasting it would clarify my confusion, but it doesn’t. It still tastes like a strawberrry or strawberry watermelon black tea… Hmmm…

I wanted a breakfast tea with a hint of sweetness, and this did the trick! A short steeping and some sugar (no milk) kept it light.

big morning mug with sugar and cream

with one packet Sugar in the Raw and 1 teaspoon heavy cream

Added milk and sugar to make a creamy, fruity breakfast tea. Nice with my orange scone.

NOTE: this was a free 2oz pkg that came with 52teas order for Groundhog Day. I believe it is a closeout and is no longer available/not going to be produced in future.

I am pleasantly surprised by this tea. I didn’t expect to like it, simply because I’m not a big fan of berry flavors. I also assumed the flavor/smell would be on the strong side. They dry tea had a hint of scent, but the wet leaves had none. The liquor, however, had a juicy raspberry up front with a hint of cranberry tartness on the finish. Neither berry overpowers, it’s really just a strong hint of flavor. I like that. Sugar definitely helps bring out the juiciness. I also tried adding a bit of milk, which muted the flavor but did make it feel more dessert-like (a touch of full cream would have been better I’m sure). Overall I think this is a very nicely balanced tea, and prefer it with a touch of sugar only. I can’t wait to try it as a sweet tea!

I also think this blend (or raspberry or cranberry alone) would be good with chocolate and amped up berry flavor as a dessert tea. I’ll have to check zoomdweebies site to see if they have any chocolate/berry blends…

Looks like they have chocolate cherry, chocolate orange, and chocolate strawberry. Based on this blend, I would try any one of those. They also had a chocolate sampler with those 3 listed above, and 7 more chocolate blends. 10 samples for under $10! But it’s out of stock. :-(

Plain and delicious.
Did I mention plain?

This is a well done standard green. The name chunmee sounds Chinese to me and they do not list in the tea description but this tea can be found on the Chinese category through the main menu… so I’m pretty sure I’m right. Which leads to the point of me pointing out that the name sounds Chinese… Picture if you will a Chinese Dragonwell type tea that mated with a Japanese Sencha and you can imagine the results I’m getting from the leaves.

The ‘green’ vegie flavor is totally there but it is not strong. That is amazingly pleasant cause the grassy teas are not my favorite. What is mellowing the flavor out is more of the toasty green tea flavor than the sweet end so you end up with a nutty follow up to the grassy and a present sweetness that kinda lasts through the whole flavor experience. (I need to turn that into an amusement park ride…)

The only thing that I need to clarify about the flavor is that the toasty has a smokey tinge to it… sometimes. Nope I can’t explain why…. and trust me I’ve fooled around with it a bunch and I will explain to you exactly what I mean.

I have gone through about 2 oz of this tea. The smell through the first half of the bag seemed smokier to me than the tea in the last half of the bag. The first couple of cups tasted smokier toasty… shifting into just normal toasty with the occasional hint of smoke. And the last weird thing is that the last scoop in the bag has an almost acidic (not bad like a lemon smells… and not like a orange… and not like the tea has gone bad but like ripe tomato/orange pepper kinda acidic) tinge to it. The best way I can succinctly describe it is ripe veggie and the last half of the bag has seemed more vegital to me.

I THINK this means one of two possibilities:
1. This tea is way more sensitive than normal to storing conditions… meaning in the cool dry closet… in the original bag placed in a tin by itself… where the tea has only been used on plain green teas IS NOT ENOUGH PROTECTION. And really that would be ridiculous as I have never ever even heard of a tea going bad or stale in 3 weeks anyways. Beyond me being anal with teas I’m trying. You get the point…. ridiculous.

2. This tea has a lot of nuance and character and you will discover more layers as you drink more of it and experience this tea.

I like the idea of number two and hope someone someday can discus this tea with me and compare notes.

I made a 2 quart pitcher of this tea…iced of course. I have been drinking it through the day and it is quite refreshing. Slight hints of cherry and not too sweet. I steeped it for only 4 minutes and it is not bitter.

This smells so good! Made it to work and decided that this would be the tea to start the day off in the office. My cube smells like pumpkin pie and even plain this tea is delightful. I usually enjoy it hot, with a little honey. If you add a splash of cream you end up with pumpkin pie with fresh creme!