Being one that always shies away from lavender in teas, I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this tea. Secret Garden has a mix of lavender, jasmine green tea, dried roses, and rosehips. I loved all of the other components so I went ahead and gave the brew a try.
Rich gorgeous floral notes comforted me as I sipped this tea down, cup after cup. Subtle romantic tones really give this tea that soothing comforting feel. The lavender is present but not overwhelming. You more or less get that familiar lavender after taste. As you drink the tea, you are enveloped with the jasmine green tea perfection with the sweetness of the dried roses.
All in all, a well balanced floral tea that I will want more of soon. The perfect tea to grab a blanket, a book, and snuggle up for a cozy afternoon!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Pinch of Geek
Description
The Secret Garden tea is named after the classic English children’s book about a young girl in a magical English garden. This tea is a strong floral bouquet meant to inspire dreams of walking in the English countryside. It is a jasmine green tea with rose and lavender. This tea does have medium caffeine levels. This tea blend has no artificial flavorings or added oils. There are no added sugars or flavorings.
Because this tea requires some preciseness to balance the flavors, I only offer this tea in sachets. You can order the bagged tea in 10 or 20 sachets. Steeping time is a little different: steep until the jasmine pearls open into leaves. You will be able to see through the sachet to remove promptly when leaf unfurl (3-4 mins). The jasmine tea tends to get bitter and “perfumey” tasting if over steeped.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Death Eater from Grimoire Tea
CuppaGeek’s Review:
Death Eater from Grimoire Tea is a fandom tea for the Harry Potter Verse. I just love fandom teas.
There is just something that gives you the warm fuzzies when you drink a tea dedicated to your favorite fandom. But I have to admit, I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan. . .I know. . .shame on me. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate what this tea is going for. After all, I’m one that likes those darker villains in movies. . .and The Death Eaters are right up there in the evil category!
Death Eater fits the name perfectly. The blend is a mix of black tea, spearmint, and peppermint. A wonderful combination for the villains this tea is portraying. Dark and brooding with notes of vibrancy and a cooling factor. . . .
Brewed hot:
Brewed up with fresh boiled water and steeped for about 4 minutes, the first sip resulted in a lovely malty note with a kick of minty freshness. Simple, yet very satisfying. Found myself devouring my first cuppa and reaching for more water before I knew it.
I know a spearmint and peppermint combo in a blend can be intimidating and for this blend it serves a purpose. I loved the refreshing notes that came after that familiar malty black tea base that I adore. Once this tea started to cool, I was afraid of an astringency factor coming to play but that was never the case. Even while cooling, I enjoyed this delicious minty malty beverage.
Cold Brewed:
I wanted to try this as a cold brew so I scooped a few heap fulls into my infuser, ice, and cold water. Allowed the steepter for an hour and took a sip. Fresh brisk minty notes, the kind you want to find on hot summer days or just for a refreshing cuppa.
This tea is nothing but good tea loving even tho it is dedicated to bad guys.
I’m excited to see what other fandom teas Grimoire Teas offers to add to my collection!
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Grimoire Tea
Tea Description:
They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty.
Ingredients:
Black Tea
Spearmint
PeppermintEach Grimoire Tea bottle can create 10-15 cups of tea, depending on your desired strength and brew style. Store your bottles out of direct sunlight, and in a cool dark place. For best taste, use tea within one year of purchase date.
Learn even more about this tea here.
White Cherry from Tea and Absinthe
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Tea and Absinthe
Tea Description:
Ingredients: white tea China Pai Mu Tan, green tea Darjeeling, green tea China -Fog Tea, -Lung Ching, -Jasmine Jade Pearls, cherries, coconut chips (coconut, coconut fat, sugar), flavor, rose buds
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
A couple weekends ago, my hubby and I had an amazing experience at St Louis’s Wizard World. My hubby had bought me a Doctor Who VIP package where I had my picture take with and met David Tennant and Billie Piper. I was crazy excited since they are two of my favorite Doctor Who characters and arguable the most iconic. While wondering around the convention, I stumbled upon a tea shop. I couldn’t believe it. Not going to lie, I think I squealed a little. It was a pretty neat set up and I couldn’t wait to check all of the teas out. I picked up a few and have started to finally dive into them.
Let’s start off with saying this tea is gorgeous to look at. Huge roses, cherries, gorgeous tea leaves. . .everything you would want to see in a tea, this has it. The dry leaf mixture has a lovely sweet floral smell. One that I couldn’t want to steep up.
While steeping this tea, I could definitely still smell the same sweet smell with a hint of an almost kool aid smell as well. Not offensive at all. Almost made this tea a bit more appealing. I was in the mood for a sweeter fruity tea.
I brewed this up per the package instructions, and about 4 minutes later, I was pouring the tea into my Doctor Who mug. The smell of the tea had a lovely almost bakery smell to it with a fruity sweetness. This is one of those smells that actually makes you hungry!
I allowed the tea to cool for a few and took my first sip. In the words of Doctor Who “Hello Sweetie”! This tea is incredible and a taste profile/experience I can’t say I’ve ever had before. And that is pretty crazy to say. I drink a crazy variety of teas each and every day and am always looking for something new. I can’t believe I have never came across a tea like this before.
Each flavor comes thru. You can pick up the flora white notes, the distinct Darjeeling touches, a rich buttery green tea base, with a lovely jasmine hint here and there. Throw in the sweet robust cherry (almost Kool-Aid like) flavor with hints of coconut all surrounding by again another sweet floral touch and you have yourself one amazingly complex tea. The tea isn’t so sweet that it is overpowering. I think the green tea and Darjeeling go a long way to tame the crazy sweet flavors down and bring a bit more vegetal feel to the tea. In just about every other sip you get a nice tart almost wine like flavor.
I am insanely impressed with this tea and can not wait to see how many infusions this tea will provide. I’m also excited to try this as a lovely cold brew tea. Especially for the summertime. I bet this tea will make a marvelous iced tea!
Really well done! If you haven’t checked out this tea company before, I encourage you too. So far I have had two of the 5 blends that I picked up from them and I’m impressed with both.
Hello Sweet-Tea A Doctor Who Fandom Tea from Fandom Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Fandom Teas
Tea Description:
Spoilers!
Our Hello Sweet-tea blend is a ginger peach black tea with notes of spearmint, hibiscus, and cinnamon. It can be enjoyed hot or iced and it’s perfect as a little afternoon pick me up, or at any other time of the day. This blend is inspired by River Song from Doctor Who!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I will admit this and probably sound like a poser but I do not watch Doctor Who. I have nothing against the show and do have an interest in one day watching it, but really it comes down to time. With our schedule being so hectic, I’m going to bed basically as soon as my 10 year old is to catch up on a few games I play on my Kindle and to read. My TV watching really happens more on the weekends or when I’m yelling at the screen during America Ninja Warrior. I’m kinda obsessed with that show right now. (Ryan Stratis- I’m looking at you to win this year!).
Ok, that is out of the way I have to say I’m very intrigued with the combinations in this black flavored tea. Peach, ginger, cinnamon, spearmint, and hibiscus. And you can smell each ingredient as the tea steeps. The color is a beautiful amber and so far I’m enjoying just sitting here indulging in the fragrance this tea is emitting.
Now it is time for the taste test. I brewed this tea up like a black tea and made an effort not to allowing this tea to oversteep and become bitter. So how does it taste?
Unique. Very unique. The flavor that hits you first is the combination of spearmint, peach, and cinnamon. Very different. Not bad, just different. As the taste starts to end you come away with the hibiscus aftertaste. In the very next sip I came away with peach and ginger notes with malty hints. It seems like each sip you are presented with a different flavor combination. As the tea cools, I am definitely getting that astringency but it really isn’t adding anything to the tea. I’m wishing that the tea was either more of a peach, sweet cinnamon, black tea without the ginger but I could see where some tea drinkers may want that hint of spice in the tea to give it a kick.
Being not much of a ginger tea fan, I can see where this one isn’t right up my alley. I do enjoy how different the tea is and if a tea is part of a fandom, I’m all over it being the geeky gal I am. I’m just not sure if this particular tea is for me. But they have several more fandoms I’m excited to try including a Game of Thrones tea and a Walking Dead tea.
Sipdown #34!