Adventures of a Tea Addict

The Subject: Glitter and Gold

The Components: Black tea, gold sugar balls, sugar crystals, lemon peel, cloves, and vanilla

TLDR:  (rounded up from 3.5)

Clever Creator: David's Tea

The long and hot of it: Just starting to boil for 7 min

How do you take it? Teaspoon of sugar

Reusability: Not recommended. Second cup made was very weak and more water than tea.

I want this too! $7.50/1.76oz either through the David's Tea website, or from one of their store locations (mine came in the Sweet Indulgence sample set but it seems they've cycled out the included flavors since then).

Comments: So lets get the obvious right out of the way. This is a really pretty tea! I mean just look at it! I had to take extra pictures so you could see the sparkles in it if you've never seen this tea in person before. Said sparkles come from the sugar balls and crystals dissolving in the hot water, and leaving what almost looks like glitter behind. I think I posted the last shot up there onto Instagram and commented that I had stars in my tea or something just as corny.

Once I got over my initial "SHINY!" reaction, I finally sat down to drink it, and it's pretty easy to see why it's a favorite of some of their customers. It's a sweet black tea because of the sugar crystals (I really probably didn't need as much sugar as I put in, if any at all), so I probably wouldn't recommended it to someone who likes their tea straight. The taste itself was a pretty basic black tea blend, but had this rather interesting cotton candy undertone to it, which mixed with the glitter just upped the "fun" factor. The taste was very light without being watery, something I find rather tricky to balance to my liking in black teas, but it seemed to work out well this time!

The Components: Gunpowder and peppermint

TLDR:  (3.5 rounded up)

Clever Creator: Mem Tea

The long and hot of it: Uncertain of temperature but was steeping for at least 10 minutes

How do you take it? 2 sugar packs

Reusability: Good for one decent, but much weaker, cup.

I want this too! Through the Mem Tea website for $15.07/8oz, or at a participating store/cafe (limited mostly to Massachusetts)

Comments: Lets kick off this blog's revival with something new!

I fail at getting ready for work at a reasonable time, so as a result I'm usually bolting out the door after a much condensed morning routine. As a result, I rarely bring a lunch with me and usualy resort to just skipping, or having to go and get takeout from somewhere in the area. This has lead to a couple of rather lovely discoveries, including Belmont Cafe, where I got to try this tea.

As I've been recommended Moroccan Mint before, I decided to give that one a try first, and even if it's not my favorite green/mint combo, I still enjoyed it. It was really refreshing without being overly minty (yes, even as a mint fan I feel like it's possible to have too much of a good thing...one of the reasons I prefer blends), which was balanced out from the bit of earthiness from the gunpowder.

I'd definitely avoid oversteeping this one if possible. As the tea was looseleaf and just left in a filter at the bottom of my rather large cup, I just left in in there as I drank. It was a pretty decently insulated paper cup, so it stayed warm for a long time, and as a result kept steeping. The last third of my cup wasn't ruined, but it definitely became more bleh as time went on.

Not dead! Technically on hiatus since life was starting to get pretty crazy for me, but I'm just now realizing I never actualy posted a hiatus message. 

Oops ">>

With the new year I'm hoping to get back on top of some things, this blog included. Updates won't resume quite just yet as I want to build up at least a little bit of a buffer before that starts, but I'm aiming for the end of this month at the latest.

The Subject: Heeeere's Conny!

The Components: White Monkey, Gunpowder, and Spearmint

TLDR:  (2.5 rounded up)

Clever Creator: Marisol G.

The long and hot of it: Just starting to boil for 5 minutes

How do you take it? One pack of sugar (I'd recommend less though)

Reusability: N/A

I want this too! Through Adagio, but out of stock as of writing this review

Comments: This one rather reminded me of a tea I've reviewed already, Vanilla Orchid, in that it's a very subtle, earthy taste, but this one has an addition of mint rather than vanilla. Even better, unlike the last of the AoT teas I reviewed from this set, the taste was mellow but present, rather than just simply lacking in taste. Overall it's not bad and I'd recommend it to those who prefer earthier teas, but it's not a favorite for me.

A little bit more on the mint: I've mentioned before that while I love peppermint tea, I'm not as bit of a fan of spearmint. I find the taste to be sharper and less pleasant than it's cousin. However, the spearmint used in this blend was just the perfect amount, and the white monkey and gunpowder combination was enough to help balance the sharpness out so you're left with just the flavor but  not the bite.

Unfortunately I went a little overboard with additions. I knew I was going to need some sugar in it, but I definately didn't need the whole packet and after doing so I rather prefered it plain over how it tasted afterwards. I'd definately recomend drinking this straight or add in sugar slowly to get the right amount (or try honey...I have a feeling it would taste lovely with honey but I didn't have any on hand).

The Subject: French Vanilla

The Components: Vanilla flavored black tea

TLDR: (2.5 rounded up)

Clever Creator: Disney

The long and hot of it: Rolling boil for 4 minutes

How do you take it? Half a teaspoon of sugar

Reusability: N/A, unlikely to be a good candidate.

I want this too! This one's going to be a bit trickier to find compared to others I review on this blog, as it seems like it can only be found in Disney Theme Parks (though I have found some placed online that will sell it but nothing official). Prices will vary as you can purchase the teas individually, or in ranging sized sets. Plus I felt weird about looking up prices of a gift ">>

Comments: During my senior year of undergrad, my parents decided that we were going to go on a trip during winter break because "who knows where you'll be when you graduate and your brother will be gone shortly after too." We ended up going to Disney World and I won't bore you with the details of that whole trip as they aren't relevant, but I had to pick up souvenirs for my friends and I ended up getting my nifty little three-flavor set of Alice in Wonderland teas for my friend and (at the time) roommate. I was still a tea hater at that point so I haven't really thought much of them since then.

Fastforward 3ish years later.

An entirely different friend of mine went off to Disney and Universal for about two weeks and is apparently into buying survivors for people as much as I am and came back with a set of the same "Official Unbirthday Tea" that I'd bought for someone earlier. Except she didn't come back with a little gift set. She came back with that ginormous thing you see in the picture up there!

1 set 12 types of tea 8 tea bags per flavor 96 tea bags total!

Yes, thank you so much jolie2569 for getting revenge on me for being a tea enabler to you so often XP I was doing so well on not expanding my stash recently!*

So, the day after getting it I had a hankering for a sweet black tea, so the French Vanilla flavor gets the inaugural tasting.

And I think I've been spoiled by loose-leaf tea ">> The taste isn't all that strong, so I'd highly advise steeping it for longer than the 2-3 the packaging suggests. The smell of the tea bags is stronger than the taste of the brewed tea as well, which pretty much just throws the fact that this is generic black tea with added flavor in your face.

I'd also avoid drinking this with milk/cream/etc. When I was about halfway done with the cup I decided to throw in a bit of milk as I personally think adding some can help amplify teas' flavors in some circumstances. It is NOT the case with this one as the taste of the milk totally overpowered the little bit of vanilla I was getting and I found myself wishing that I'd just finished it as is. This most certainly is not going on my list of "teas that would make a good latte."

It's definitely far from the "oh god what is this?" revulsion I had when having Lipton Iced Tea for the first time, but there's nothing particularly unexpected or quirky going for it either. I have some higher hopes for the herbal and unflavored black teas in this set, but for now it's off to a weak start.

The Subject: Jeezum Christa Take the Wheel 

The Components: Lemon grass x2, citrus mate, lemon balm and lemon verbena

TLDR: 

Clever Creator: Marisol G. via Adagio

The long and hot of it: Just short of boiling for about 15 min

How do you take it? One sugar packet

Reusability: Not tested, but I don't see it working terribly well

I want this too! Through Adagio: $10 for 3oz, $19 for 5oz, $20 minimum for promo kit

Comments: I'm starting to question if lemon tea is right for me. I mean I love lemon flavored stuff so I pretty much assumed that if I was going to like a fruity flavored tea, lemon was going to be pretty high up there. 

But so far all the predominately lemon tea blends I've tried so far haven't gotten much more than a "meh" reaction out of me, including this super lemony tea.

I used more tea leaves than usual, but I might not have hit the right steeping temperature (I went in thinking "white" rather than "herbal" tea and I've noticed the later can take more heat) as the tea seemed rather bland.

Because it was so weak I left the tea filter in, which is not my normal way of doing things at work because I'd prefer to avoid the tea getting overly bitter. Now surprisingly enough, when I took a sip of it a good 4 hours later, I was surprised to find out that the taste had gotten MUCH stronger and I drank the remainder much faster even though it was cold by this point. The taste is pretty much pure lemon, and reminded me of a less sour lemonade.

Interesting spin on the character too. It's the most mellow out of Marisol's Attack on Titan teas that I've tried so far, which makes sense as Christa is by far the less insane out of the group.

The Subject: Sweet Tea

The Components: Black tea

TLDR: 

Clever Creator: Gold Peak 

The long and hot of it: N/A

How do you take it? Chilled

Reusability: N/A

I want this too! Likely to be found at any location that sells this product. Gold Peak actually has a nifty little "product locator" vs a store locator on their website.

Comments: Back in August I was invited to a cousin's engagement party thrown by her parents. My aunt and uncle tend to go all out whenever they host parties, and as a result I usually end up being sent home with leftovers whether I have the space in my fridge or not (free food is great...I always usualy take advantage of free food, but it only works when you know it's not going to go bad because you can't keep it refrigerated).

Most of the food had been consumed this time around, but there was a HUGE excess of drinks left. I grabbed what Angry Orchard cider was left, but I was urged to take more. I ended up including a couple of beers for my roommate, and then saw there were some bottled Gold Peak iced teas, so I figured I could grab one of those for the blog as well. I had the choice of sweet vs. unsweet and went with a sweet one because that seemed to be the obvious choice as I usualy add some amount of sugar to my drinks.

I.....I really should have gone with the unsweet one. Long story short, when I popped the bottle open at work and took the first sip, it felt like I'd ingested pure sugar water. It wasn't pleasant to say the least. I thought perhaps it was something to do with the "real sugar" advertised on the bottle, but I've had drinks with real sugar (not to mention it's what I use when making tea at home most of the time) and they're nowhere near this bad. I'm pretty sure this is a quantity rather than quality issue.

Because it the sugary taste was up and front it was all but impossible to gauge any other taste this drink had. I might have gotten a very faint impression of a tea flavor one one out of the about 5 sips I could manage, but it was just impossible to think of anything besides the sugar.

The Subject: Lemon Tea

The Components: Green and black tea plus lemon flavor

TLDR: 

Clever Creator: Snapple

The long and hot of it: N/A

How do you take it? Cold

Reusability: N/A

I want this too! Likely found in most convenience/grocery stores or restaurants that sell Snapple products. Mine was $1.89 for the bottle but prices will no doubt vary.

Comments: Something tells me I need to start branching out with buying bottled iced-tea considering I had a panic moment and thought I had already reviewed this one! Thankfully nope, just the same flavor, different brand.

And to be honest, I liked Honest Tea's Lemonade/Tea drink more than I did this one.

I've pretty much come to accept that many bottled iced teas are going to come sweet, which is fine with me as I usualy add sugar to my tea anyways, but I still like it to taste like tea. This offering from Snapple tastes pretty much like straight juice or a less sour lemonade. I know in the past I've liked sweet teas that remind me of juice because it makes them easier to drink but again, there was at least a hint of the tea (or tea flavoring) in there. The drink's smell also seems a little odd, but it's far from being off-putting so I don't think it's anything to really worry about.

Special Review Time!

Has tea flavored candy always been a thing, or have I just been missing out because I've only been drinking tea for a few years now? In any case, there's some rather tasty treats out there that keep grabbing my attention, such as this lovely treat from Godiva.

My mom and I had popped into the store at my local mall after we saw a rather huge sign about their soft-serve ice cream and decided to check that out (and it's quite delicious btw, but this isn't an ice cream blog). However while my mom was ordering my eyes were caught by a different sign on the display case: Fruit and Tea Infused Mooncakes.

I knew I had to get my hands on one and soon, as I had no idea if they were a limited time sort of thing or how often Godiva cycles through their displays, especially since this particular store is pretty tiny (Edit: As I had to go online to double check some information it looks like they're part of the "Mid-Autumn" collection, so no worries about running out any time soon!).

I got my chance this week and managed to sneak back to the mall before a family event and snagged myself one of the Grapefruit-Black Tea Crunch Mooncakes. I was going to snag both flavors, but they were out of the Lychee-Green Tea Crunch, which in all honesty probably worked out better for me. I'm more open minded about green tea lately, but I'm not a huge fan of lychee either and these things are $6.50 apiece.

Before moving on, this is how the item is described on Godiva's website:

A dark chocolate ganache flavoured with black tea sits beneath a grapefruit mousse enhanced with a hint of lemongrass and vanilla, filled with brésilienne. The intense and silky dark chocolate shell features the Lady GODIVA icon, expressing love and heritage.

And now that I know what's in it, it helps describe the taste better. The dark chocolate was very hard to ignore (much to my dark chocolate craving self's delight) and the tea and fruit flavors blended together rather nicely, giving the chocolate a fruity tang with very faint floral undertones, but it definitely wasn't the grapefruit taste I was expecting. The lemongrass would account for this, and possibly the brésilienne as well. Google's not being terribly helpful in figuring out what this is exactly but I think maybe they were the crunchies?

Speaking of the crunchies, they were pretty far and few inbetween. I would have expected a lot more in each bite for something with the word "crunch" in it's title rather than just a few every other bite. I also have to warn anyone who's a dark chocolate fan that this is definitely sweeter than usual. It's definitely still dark chocolate but I had to pace myself with eating it rather than just inhaling the thing like I normally would.

Though I am curious...are these even technically mooncakes? I mean the structure, size, and filling is about right, but it's not a pastry like the ones I've had in the past. And according to Wiki

Food critics sometimes point out that "chocolate mooncakes" are in reality just chocolate shaped into mooncakes, and not mooncakes made of chocolate.

Sooooo looking for any suggestions my followers might have because my wishlist is huge and I can't decide on what I want. I almost caved and finally bought one of the Framed Fandoms but talked myself out of it because the fewer stuff I have hanging on the walls the easier my move will be when that finally can happen (and at this rate wont probably be until spring *sighs*).

The Subject: Captain Jack

The Components: Ceylon Sonata, rooibos almond, chocolate chip

TLDR: 

Clever Creator: Cara McGee via Adagio

The long and hot of it: So I heat my teapot on the stove until it whistles [and] don't know how long I steep it. Perhaps a bad habit, but I rarely take the leaves out of the water. Not sure if lazy, or just like really strong tea. (I do like strong tea.) This time it was probably.....15 minutes?

How do you take it? Straight, but this tea would probably be good with milk.

Reusability: N/A

I want this too! Available through Adagio with their regular prices

Comments: This was one of the first adagio teas I was introduced to by @eialyne.

I'm not great at knowing what different tea flavors or types will taste like when put together, but this one is great. I like it because it is a light taste, with caffeine. It is strong in a sense (like captain jack) but it also has a fun flavor, rather than heavy coffee or deep black tea, (also like captain jack). I really love the after taste. Maybe it's the almond.

Anyway, this has a great flavor, especially if you like almond, and it has enough caffeine to be a good alternative to coffee. It's what I use when I want caffeine but I say I'm trying to "cut back"--so I drink tea instead of coffee.

It is also good cold--again, the aftertaste is just awesome--so that's good, because I have a tendency to drink half a cup, then forget about it and let it sit for an hour, and then remember it and finish. So...good both ways.

This is one of my most returned to teas. And, just to plug adagio, I still have the same bag I've had when eia gave it to me. It's lasted this long :)