Vanilla Latte Tea from Plum Deluxe. . ..

by Sophia

There was a while there during my tea journey that I was terrified of cardamom. Sometimes it has this overwhelming flavor that can get really old, really fast. When I saw this vanilla latte tea, which was previously named Cardamom Vanilla Creme, I was a little intimidated by the cardamom. I wasn’t sure how it was going to pan out, but i’m definitely glad that I gave it a chance.

The main component here is definitely the vanilla. It smells fluffy and creamy and tastes even more so. The second component is a mixture of the cardamom and black tea. The black tea is strong but smooth. If you’ve never tried cardamom before, the best way to describe it is an herbal-y/citrus-y spice. Its not “hot” or “spicy” per se. To me it is more so herbal/grassy tasting, but it can sometimes make cinnamon and nutmeg taste spicy and it can be overwhelming depending on what it is mixed with. In the case of Vanilla Latte Tea, however, it is spot on!

There is something about vanilla and cardamom together that truly makes me wonder why there aren’t more teas that utilize this brilliant combination. The vanilla is sweet and creamy, and the cardamom is herbal with a slight hint of citrus. It doesn’t need anything else and I love how the blender let the vanilla and cardamom shine on top of the black tea and honeybush. This blend is truly dreamy and is highly recommended by yours truly.

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Black Tea/Honeybush
Where to Buy: Plum Deluxe
Description

Vanilla tea lattes are the comfort food of tea lovers. It’s one of our personal favorites, so we’ve created a tea that is a delightful balance of sweet and spice, perfect for latte time. The base is a fresh black Ceylon tea paired with our favorite nutty honeybush tea, and topped with the lightest touch of creamy, dreamy vanilla extract.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Sophia

Hi, my name is Sophia. I am a first time mother to a beautiful little girl who will be 1 in July 2017. I spend my days at home with her and when I get a minute to myself, I usually spend that time making, drinking, or researching tea! My love for loose leaf tea is relatively new. When I was pregnant with my daughter, my mother (a tea addict herself) brought me to DAVIDsTEA. I enjoyed a cup of their Coconut Cream Pie Oolong and was instantly hooked! Since then, my addiction has grown to fill entire cabinets, and shows no sign of stopping. I am the creator of the Facebook group CommuniTEA where we have one big tea discussion. It is a great group for those new to the tea-world. I feel strongly about spreading the joy of loose leaf tea. I like making instructional videos and helping those that are new to the art of tea-making so that they, too, can share in the happiness that tea brings. I am excited to see where this hobby takes me and I will continue to spread the joy!

This post was posted in Black Tea, Honeybush, Plum Deluxe

Pina Colada Honeybush from 52Teas. . . .

by Sophia

When I was a kid I had an obsession with pina coladas. As an adult, I still do. I actually have a funny story about them. I was at a restaurant with my parents and I was probably 6 years old. I ordered a pina colada. My parents used to always try it first, just in case the bartender put alcohol in it by accident. Well, that one particular time they didn’t taste it because we actually knew the owner of the restaurant and I guess they trusted that his bartenders were competent. Well, I was drinking my pina colada and I told my parents that it tasted yucky. Low and behold, there was alcohol in it! Go figure. As a 6 year old I was very freaked out and upset. Anyways, I got a new pina colada and all was forgiven!

Back to tea- I have never had a pina colada tea blend and was excited to try this one. I’ve said it before, but I really enjoy honeybush much more than rooibos. It is definitely a tea I gravitate towards when I am looking for caffeine free. Upon smelling the steeped liquid I could detect the honeybush and pineapple. I couldn’t really smell the coconut. Upon tasting this cup I could sort of detect pina colada flavor, but it was really light. I’m not sure if I would have screamed “pina colada” if you didn’t tell me the name of this tea. But when I think about it and try to detect it, I can.

Unfortunately, I did not get something that screamed creamy pina coladas from this blend. It was very light and I could mostly taste the honeybush. That said, it was still enjoyable. I think if someone is new to flavored teas and wants something light but yummy, this would be the tea for them!

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type:  Honeybush
Where to Buy:  52Teas
Description

This tea is no longer available but below are the teas that are.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Sophia

Hi, my name is Sophia. I am a first time mother to a beautiful little girl who will be 1 in July 2017. I spend my days at home with her and when I get a minute to myself, I usually spend that time making, drinking, or researching tea! My love for loose leaf tea is relatively new. When I was pregnant with my daughter, my mother (a tea addict herself) brought me to DAVIDsTEA. I enjoyed a cup of their Coconut Cream Pie Oolong and was instantly hooked! Since then, my addiction has grown to fill entire cabinets, and shows no sign of stopping. I am the creator of the Facebook group CommuniTEA where we have one big tea discussion. It is a great group for those new to the tea-world. I feel strongly about spreading the joy of loose leaf tea. I like making instructional videos and helping those that are new to the art of tea-making so that they, too, can share in the happiness that tea brings. I am excited to see where this hobby takes me and I will continue to spread the joy!

This post was posted in 52Teas, Honeybush

Molasses Spice Cookie Honeybush fromm 52Teas. . .

by SuperStarling

I used this tea as an experimental “guinea pig” in an attempt to figure out if this article was true.

For those of you who are busy today, the upshot of the article was that the “scientific” best way to make tea is to microwave it.

I made this tea a few weeks ago (traditionally), and forgot to review it. But I have a pretty good memory of how it was. So I decided to drop the tea into my gravity steeper and zap the whole shebang for a minute and a half.

The result: weak tea that wasn’t even hot.

I put the tea in there for another minute and a half. Then I left the tea in the steeper for anther 5 minutes. The result was the same basic tea that I’d made the old-fashioned way. But with more work.

Enough experimenting. Let’s get to the review.

This is a great chai slammed together with sweet honeybush. The creator of the tea was worried there wasn’t enough cinnamon, but I think that the lesser amount of cinnamon allows the other flavors a moment in the spotlight.

The honeybush is very sweet and creamy. It’s a great contrast against the chai. The result is kind of a gingerbread/snickerdoodle vibe. I see where the author was going with that. It’s not my favorite kind of cookie, so I don’t have a strong point of reference, but I have eaten chunks of gingerbread houses*, and I think it’s close.

* It’s a Christmas tradition. I start devouring scraps. Sometimes off people’s works-in-progress.

Happy sipping, Internet!

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type:  Honeybush
Where to Buy:  52Teas
Description

This tea is no longer available but click below for teas that are.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

SuperStarling

"Hey, everybody! I'm Leah, a graphic designer from Pennsylvania, United States. I live with my husband and rescue mutt in a house with colorful walls. I love fonts, colors, animals, flowers, novels, illustration, geeking out, and -- obviously! -- tea. I've only been heavily into tea for about a year, but I've found I tend to prefer loose blended black dessert teas. I normally drink them hot western style without anything added; if I add in some vanilla almond milk or honey, I promise I'll mention it! When I'm not blogging here, I'm blogging at leahlucci.com/starling or posting to Instagram (super_starling), so come say hi!"

This post was posted in 52Teas, Honeybush

Sweet Dreams from BlendBee. . . .

by Mary

You know when you find a tea company that you just love SO MUCH that you want to order their entire tea catalog? I have a small but mighty list– and just added one more. Blend Bee, will you be my tea-bff?

I recently ordered a design-your-own blend from Blend Bee (more on that to come), and the awesome owner, Jamah, told me she thought I’d be a fan of her Sweet Dreams tea, a lemony, custardy honeybush. And she was so right!

One of the reasons I love Blend Bee so much (besides the awesome aforementioned customer service) is that each tea isn’t just a great, flavorful brew, but comes packed with beneficial herbs with great health-supporting properties. Besides the incredible flavor in this brew (light, pillowy vanilla and sweet lemon), I’m also getting anti-inflammatory immune system support, digestive encouragement and more. Have I totally flaunted my tea-crush enough yet? Because it’s real, you guys. Blend Bee, let’s be bff-4-eva.

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type:  Honeybush
Where to Buy:  BlendBee
Description

This comforting and delicious Honeybush blend is perfect to help you wind down and relax. Rich and creamy, this blend helps with late night sweet cravings. Also, designed to help you detox while you sleep. Sweet Dreams!

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Mary

Hi there! I'm Mary, a 27-year-old mental health professional living with my fiancé and our quirky kitten in the Midwest! I've loved tea for as long as I can remember-- in fact, I have vivid memory of being four or five in a tea shop and being mesmerized by all the tea flavors and proclaiming that I "was going to be kind of adult who drank tea, not coffee." A stint living (and tea-drinking my way through) London and twenty-some years later, I'm still channeling that sassy four-year-old and loving my tea habit. When I'm not sipping a cuppa, you'll find me reading, doing yoga, traveling, exploring my own city, planning our wedding and experimenting with different healthful and healing foods in my kitchen.

This post was posted in BlendBee, Honeybush

A Honeybush Cookie Dessert Tea. . . #52Teas

by Sophia

Being honest, i’m scared of molasses. I use it when i’m baking gingerbread, but I just refuse to eat it on its own. I don’t know how some people just pour it over their pancakes, I feel like it smells salty and weird and it really just freaks me out. So when I saw the name of this blend I totally held off on trying it. Although, the blend did smell like spice cookies….so I decided to give it a try anyways.

I could really smell the honeybush once this tea was steeped. I absolutely love honeybush and I actually tend to favor it over rooibos. I feel like it is so much sweeter and less woodsy tasting. Its a bit hard to describe but once you’ve tried it a few times, you’ll be able to point it out without even knowing that its in the tea. The sweet/honey/nutty flavor of the honeybush really blended well with the spices and cookie flavor in this tea. I can’t really speak on how accurate the molasses flavor in here is because I’ve never actually tasted molasses on its own, only in cookies or gingerbread.

I do know, however, that the flavor of honeybush was very strong here, and the spices and cookie/vanilla flavor (and the molasses) was very much in the background. That’s not to say that this wasn’t still enjoyable, because it was. I just think that the honeybush was the most dominant flavor here. I added a little agave, and then a little more, and I definitely think that that helped bring out the cookie flavor and spices flavor a bit.

Either way, if you like honeybush I think that you would find it difficult to not enjoy this blend. I do wish the spice cookie flavor was a little stronger but this was still a yummy blend.

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy:  52Teas
Description

This blend is no longer available but click below for blends that are.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Sophia

Hi, my name is Sophia. I am a first time mother to a beautiful little girl who will be 1 in July 2017. I spend my days at home with her and when I get a minute to myself, I usually spend that time making, drinking, or researching tea! My love for loose leaf tea is relatively new. When I was pregnant with my daughter, my mother (a tea addict herself) brought me to DAVIDsTEA. I enjoyed a cup of their Coconut Cream Pie Oolong and was instantly hooked! Since then, my addiction has grown to fill entire cabinets, and shows no sign of stopping. I am the creator of the Facebook group CommuniTEA where we have one big tea discussion. It is a great group for those new to the tea-world. I feel strongly about spreading the joy of loose leaf tea. I like making instructional videos and helping those that are new to the art of tea-making so that they, too, can share in the happiness that tea brings. I am excited to see where this hobby takes me and I will continue to spread the joy!

This post was posted in 52Teas, Honeybush