[Tea Review] Kusmi Tea "Blue Detox"

Now if you read my tea blog you are familar with the French tea company Kusmi. I have reviewed a lot of their teas in the past. This time I decided to try one of their newer teas "Blue Detox". I generally do not buy "detox" teas, but this one sounded like it would be really good, so I decided to give it a try

Blue Detox is a green tea with mint and pineapple flavors added to it. From the box it has an amazing pineapple smell to it. Once steeped it has a great mint smell with hints of fruity pineapple. The taste is a light green tea taste with a hint of mint, and a subtle pineapple aftertaste. Not overpowering while still having a great flavor. 

Kusmi sells their teas in a variety of different ways from loose leaf (in different sized containers) to tea bags to individually wrapped tea bags. I normally buy the loose or the muslin tea bags (since I travel a lot and it is easier on the mess.) This time I got the muslin tea bags, however in the box they weren't muslin, which was interesting, since I am so used to them. Still tasted great and am really happy I tried this one out! The box I purchased retailed for $17.40, and you can find all the purchasing ways on their webpage here.

[Tea Review] Lupicia Tea's "Soleil Levant" Holiday Tea

Lupicia sent out samples of their "Soleil Levant" tea in their monthly tea newsletter that they send out to customers who purchase more than $30 with them. I was really excited to get to try one of their holiday teas since I haven't gotten to purchase a lot of teas recently. Since I try to review holiday teas each December!

Soleil Levant is a green tea, the name means "The Rising Sun" in French. The tea has grapes and citrus flavors with matcha. You can really smell the matcha and the grape and citrus when you smell the tea bag. This tea smells amazing! Once it has been steeped you can really smell the matcha. 

Art from Lupicia's packing for Soleil Levant

The taste of this tea was really surprising. It has a matcha taste with a grape taste as well. It is really refreshing. I did not expect it to have such a wonderful grape taste to it. I would highly recomemd getting some of this green tea before Lupicia sells out of it, since it is a limited release. You can find it online here. Also I really want to comment on the super cute package design for all of Lupicia's holiday teas! The deer and hedgehogs knitting is super cute and random!

[Tea Review] Tea Hugger's Organic Eggnog Chai

Tea Hugger is a small tea company located in Greensboro, NC. I stumbled across tins of their tea at the Spice Shop at Friendly Center in Greensboro NC and then did some snooping to find out more about them. They have a small booth at the Greensboro Original Farmers Curb Market, where they sell cups of tea and their blends. I made my way up there on Saturday so I could check out their teas and picked up a lovely Holiday Tea set with 5 winter tea blends in it! The first one I'll be reviewing is their "Organic Eggnog Chai", an Assam black tea with lots of other goodies added into it!

This tea has an amazing look to it. It has lovely tea leaves and lots of cloves, cinnamon and vanilla from the smell of it. This stuff smells amazing.  I was a bit worried because I am not a huge fan of eggnog as a drink but I was really excited to drink this tea based on the smell alone.

After steeping this tea does have a slight smell reminiscing of Eggnog. It also has cinnamon and cloves and vanilla scents to it. The taste is spicy and nice, not in your face, you can taste the cinnamon and cloves in it and its very refreshing. I was pleasantly surprised since the name "Eggnog Chai" scared me at first, but I really like the taste of this tea.

You can check out Tea Hugger every Wednesday (8am-1pm) and Saturday (7am-12pm) at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market. Or if you are not local to Greensboro, NC you can check them out here online to order their teas! 

[Teaware Review] David's Tea Nordic Mug Review

I have been wanting a Nordic mug from David's Tea for some time. I really wanted the Cat one they released a few months ago, but sadly missed it, So I grabbed the Haunted Castle Colour Changing one before it disappeared with the season. The Haunted Castle Nordic Mug changes colour when you put hot water in it, which is very fun.

All the Nordic mugs come in a very sturdy box that has all the pieces packaged wonderfully so nothing breaks. 

The mug itself comes with three parts. The lid, that also seconds as a saucer. A wonderful tea infuser, that has tiny holes for water to get through, so even if you are using teas like rooibos, the tea will have a harder time escaping. And then the mug itself, which is great, it is ceramic, so it is sturdy and holds a lot of liquid. 

The infuser is a wonderful size and fits right inside the mug. I have a lot of infusers where the holes in them are way too big for a lot of the tea I drink, so having one with tiny holes it works for all those teas with very small leaves.  (like you could probably put coffee in this thing.) 

The Nordic Mugs retail for $23.00 (they do have some designs on sale on their webpage and in stores.) I really like this mug, and for what you are getting (infuser, mug, lid.) you are getting your monies worth with the purchase. Cleaning is easy and all pieces ash up well. Want to check them out? Here is the link to the mugs on David's Tea webpage.

[Tea Review] David's Tea Haloween Blends "Stormy Night" and "Witches Brew"

Every year David's Tea brings out a variety of fall favorites, from a great selection of Pumpkin Teas to some other really fun themed teas! I was able to visit a David's Tea and picked up the bat themed sample sizes they had of the two (they also had this is Pumpkin Cheesecake but I had a bag of that at home.) The packaging for these 15g packs is so cute! I love the bat design! They were two for $10.00 so I figured why not, lets try out these Teas with chocolate in them!

The first tea I tried was called "Stormy Night" its a black tea with dark chocolate, ground vanilla bean, cinnamon, allspice, clove, and chilli. It has a great chocolaty, spicy smell to it. Very different from the other teas I drink, it almost has a mild hot cocoa smell to it. 

The taste is weird. The chocolate isn't a dominate taste in it. The vanilla and black tea are with a hint of chocolate in the background. the color is almost that of hot cocoa, very dark and chocolaty looking. With how the tea looked I expected it to have much more of a chocolate taste to it. The tea is refreshing, and I could see this being a great, cold evening in front of the fire tea. This tea runs $10.98 for 2oz. or you can find the smaller serving pouches still in stores (sold out online). check it out on their webpage here!

The other tea I tried from their Halloween line is called Witches Brew. This tea has a great sweet smell to the rooibos tea. It has rooibos, candied bats and witches hats, and cocoa beans in it. Compared to the two teas this one smell wise is the most appealing to me. The taste was also really good. I like this one the best out of the two I tried. The rooibos tea has a great taste with a hint of chocolate, and the little sprinkle candies give it a tiny hint of sweetness that is not overpowering to me at all. I also love the smaller sizes that David's offers since they make a few cups of tea without having to buy 2oz. (which can be a lot if it is a tea you aren't too sure about.) You can purchase Witches Brew for $8.98 for 2oz. or still find the awesome bat bags in stores. 

[Tea Review] Vida Pour Tea's Organic Rooibos Apple Pie Chai

Next up for the awesome Vida Pour tea fall blends that I got to try is their Organic Appple Pie Chai Rooibos. I am a sucker for chai or spiced teas, and even more so when they smell like apple pie. This tea has an amazing smell and makes you want to make a cup to enjoy with some vanilla ice cream to go along. 

This tea is a Rooibos blend with dried apples and chai spices (cloves, cinnamon, and so on.) It has a great apple smell, with cinnamon and clove scents, and just smells yummy. The taste is also amazing! It has a great cinnamon apple taste to go along with the rooibos tea, it is light and not too sweet and really hits the spot on a cold afternoon. 

This tea looks beautiful. I had to use my tiniest infuser since it is Rooibos. It has dried apples, and cloves and cinnamon and is just so pretty to look at, tea wise, and you just want to sit and smell the amazing aroma it lets off. If you want to check out this amazing tea it can be purchased at Vida Pour Tea, in Greensboro, NC. This was a special blend made for fall, so you will have to possibly ask for it to be made. They sell on their webpage and in their store, so even if you are not in NC. you can still get some yummy tea!

[Tea Review] Vida Pour Tea's Smoked Pumpkin Chai Black

I love small tea shops that do their own tea blends. Sarah, owner of Vida Pour Tea does an amazing job of mixing her teas and coming up with some amazing tea combinations and flavors. For fall she made two very wonderful fall blends, Smoked Pumpkin Chai Black Tea and Organic Apple Pie Chai Rooibos.

The Smoked Pumpkin Chai Black has an amazing spicy chai smell to it. I love the cinnamon and how it makes your nose tingle.There is black tea, pumpkin, cloves and other chai spices that make this tea smell and look wonderful! Once steeped the smell of cloves really comes through with the black tea also being dominant in the scent.

The taste of the Smoked Pumpkin Chai Black Tea also does not disappoint. It has a spicy black tea taste that is unique but not over powering with a hint of pumpkin and spice in it. I even had a regular coffee drinker try this tea and they thought it tasted really good.

Vida Pour Tea's is located in Greensboro, NC and Sarah the owner is amazing at making tea blends, this tea blend is not available in the store at the moment, but it can be requested to purchase. Check out their webpage here, and check out their facebook page here. They have lots of fun events going on that you can check out if you are local and they make some great drinks in house! So definitely check out this jewel of a place that I am so happy exists in a town next to where I live!

[Tea Review] Teavana's Pumpkin Spice Brulee Oolong Tea

This weeks tea is Teavana's Pumpkin Spice Brulee Oolong Tea. This is their seasonal tea that they bring out every year, and since it is easily available to most, I decided to add it into my reviews for Fall this year. 

I got to first try this tea via the samples that they have at their stores. The samples have A LOT of sugar in them, so if you like the sample version, remember that for when you make it at home, that it will take a lot of sugar (Teavana uses their own rock sugar that they sell.) or a lot of honey to make it taste like it does in the store. The actual taste of the tea has a pumpkin spice caramel taste to it, with a little bit of a vanilla after tone. Its good, not amazing, but a good tea to enjoy hot. The smell of the tea has a deep caramel and spice smell to it. 

The look of the loose tea is good. You have the Oolong leaves in there with pumpkin, cinnamon and ginger spices, and cocoa caramel in there as well. It has a great spice smell. Steeping and making the tea was simple, a tea spoon made a great tasting strong cup, that you could then add sugar or honey too to sweeten. The Pumpkin Spice Brulee can be found in stores or online here. It costs $12.98 for 2oz. 

[Tea Review] David's Tea "Pom Cider"

Pom Cider is my first non pumpkin fall tea that I am reviewing this year. I purchased this at the David's Tea in Bethesda Maryland and this stuff caught my nose right away. This stuff smells amazing! It is a black tea with Pomegranate and citrus fruits and hibiscus. And smells like Pomegranate juice tea to me. 

The taste of this tea is great, it almost tastes like a cider more than a black tea. This tea tastes wonderful hot or cold and doesn't really need any sweetener with it either in my opinion. Even the color reminds me more of a herbal tea than a black tea, it has a lovely red-ish color to it. 

There are a few different packaging for the fall teas, this one was one of the four that had the option of coming in its own specific 1.8 oz. tin for $9.50. They also sell them by the ounce on their webpage, and in their stores (if you are lucky enough to have one near you.)  

You can check out Pom Cider on David's Tea webpage here. 

[Tea Review] Short and Stout Tea's "Pumpkin Spice" Rooibos

I looked long and hard for all types of different teas to try. This Pumpkin Spice Rooibos comes from Short and Stout Tea in Guilderland NY. Short and Stout is a tea shops specializing in different teas, drinks, bubble teas, and baked goods, they sell their loose teas in their shop as well as serve them and have a nice cafe style area to sit and enjoy them.

This tea has a great nutty, pumpkin smell to it. The bag shown is a 2 oz sampler and sells for $3.00 US. The tea itself looks great, it has a lovely reddish/brown color to it, with all types of extra goodies added in to make the tea taste amazing! 

                   

The color of the tea is a lovely red and the taste is nutty with hints of pumpkin. I generally add some honey to rooibos tea and did the same for this one since I needed that extra sweetener to it.  

This was a great change up from all the black and green teas I had been drinking since the taste is so different from them. And I love how Short and Stout puts all the ingredients right on the front of the bag, so you know exactly what you are drinking. 

You can learn more about Short and Stout on their webpage here! They make a variety of teas, and the ones I have tried from them do not disappoint in taste or in price range. 

[Tea Review] Capitol Tea's Pumpkin Spice Oolong

For the next few weeks all my tea, makeup/beauty and food reviews will have a fall theme to them! I am starting off with a tea from Capitol Tea's, a tea company that has its headquarters in Annapolis Maryland, but have stores all over Maryland, DC and Virginia. I purchased my Pumpkin Spice Oolong at their Charlottesville, Va. location. 

I chose the Pumpkin Spice Oolong for the amazing smell it has, a spicy smell with hints of pumpkin and apples, and because I had so many Pumpkin Chai's that I wanted to mix things up a bit, and who doesnt love a good Oolong every now and then! I got 4oz. of the tea (since that was the smallest amount they would sell in store) and it cost 24.90 for it. HOWEVER looking on their webpage you can also order there and get 2oz. of the tea for 12.45, for those who just want a little bit to drink.

Capitol Teas Tin 

The tea looks amazing and smells amazing, like I said above, the tea has a great spicy smell to it with hints of pumpkin and apple (you can even see the apple pieces in the tea.) The Oolong leaves are also beautiful in color and after they were steeped the tea swelled up and you could see how fresh it all was. 

Loose Tea

The color of this tea was a dark honey color, and has a light pumpkin pie smell to me. I know there is tea in there but I cant smell it from the pumpkin spice, which is fine because it smells delicious. 

Tea after steeping for 3-5 minutes

The taste isn't as spicy as the smell but you have pumpkin and apple hints in it. The taste is good and this would be a great, sit by the fire and sip tea in my opinion. The description for this tea on the webpage is "A rich organic oolong with the flavors of fall, this seasonal treat features creamy pumpkin and apples accentuated by rich vanilla."

I didn't really taste any vanilla in the tea, but that's OK to me too since that is one flavor that can overwhelm the others to me. I really enjoyed this tea, it has a little bit of an earthy tone to it from the Oolong, which is normal in Oolong tea. Overall a great warm tea to enjoy! You can find it here on Capitol Tea's Webpage

[Tea Review] Owl's Flower Tea from Discover Tea

This weeks tea review is a little different than my normal reviews. I have reviewed one of Discover Tea's custom blends before with their Oolong Who, so I was excited to get to review another custom blend (that can be ordered if this sounds like something you would like.) Along with the tea I also have photos fro the Owl's Flower book release party. Owl's Flower is a light novel series from Kara Dennison and Ginger Hoesly (the two wonderful ladies who did art for my cookbooks.) Also, since the light novel series has a small focus on food, I have contributed a recipe per book that goes along with the story.

Owl cookies from the release party. Honey Sugar cookies, recipe by me and you can find it in the first book.

During InterventionCon in Rockville Maryland The two had a book release party on the Saturday of the convention where they had their two custom blend teas and honey cookies made from my recipe. During the party they gave away some cute gift baskets with Owl's Flower mugs and tea in them. 

The first tea blend that I tried was called "Owl's Flower" An Oolong bend with Sage and Floral Scents to it. The actual tea for this blend was lovely, you can see the sage in there with the Oolong and the sage really is the main smell you can smell when you take a wiff off this tea out of the bag. The floral scents are in the background but there is a great earthy smell to this tea.

The sage smell comes through once brewed too. And it is such a lovely dark color in the cup. The taste is earthy, with the sage at the front and the floral scents in the back after the initial taste. 

The next tea that I tried was called Stormy and was prepared as a cold brew with seltzer water. 

Stormy is a Lamarche Spice, Cherry Rose Green Tea and Lime. The blend has a great green tea taste and with the seltzer water is has a unique taste to it. 

The tea itself looks love, the green tea leaves look great and it has a wonderful fruity/spice smell to it. The Cherry Rose Green tea on its own is one of my favorites from Discover Tea so I was really excited this as included in this blend. 

The color was a lovely light color, and had little bubbles in it from the Pelogrino. Very fun and unique way to prepare the tea. 

Ginger and Kara at their release party held at InterventionCon 7

You can find out more about the Owl's Flower Light Novel Series here. Also check out Gingers awesome art shop (where you can get mugs, shirts, etc.) Here. And Discover Teas here!

And check out the wonderful convention, InterventionCon here! Intervention is an amazing convention that focuses on creators and all the work they do and helping others who want to be creative achieve their goals to do so!