Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Lemon City Tea
Tea Description:
You forgot to make an offering to your orishas today? No wonder you’re feeling so tired. Have a cup of San-té-ria. This blend of premium black tea will get you so awake, it’ll seem like divine intervention..
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is sipdown #13 on my epic journey to sipping down my tea stash before I can buy more.
What a great tea too! This tea is very well done and is giving me the pep in my step for the rest of the afternoon. This tea can be bought as a loose leaf tea or tea bags. I had the tea bag variety which is lovely for when I’m at work. Boil some water and plop in the tea bag. A few minutes later, TADA! Lovely tea.
This particular tea is a blend of different black teas. From what I’m seeing on the back of the package this is Premium Whole Leaf Nilgiri Tea-Hand-Blended with Yunnan Golden Buds. Well, whatever it is blended with, it is good!
San-te-ria hits all the right notes that I like in my black teas. Not overly malty with a hint of dryness, but by no means overwhelming. A smooth sipping tea. This one definitely has those trademarks and more. I’m really liking it and before I knew it, the cuppa is gone. (Insert sad face here).
I can tell this tea would be amazing iced. I think I’ll try that with the next infusion. And if you wanted this to be more flavored like, I bet throwing in a vanilla bean would be amazing. This tea has that flavor profile of slightly woodsy. Just thinking of adding vanilla beans makes me crave cuppa.
This tea does its job. It has such a nice cleansing taste to it after drinking a few flavored teas. Gives my taste buds a nice break.
Black Tea from Naveya Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Naveya Tea
About Naveya Tea:
Our fitness tea select best 100% natural detox tea,using flowers and teas to heal your body and soul.We promise all of our ingredients are renowned for their positive effects on metabolism and detoxification.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I drank this tea the other day after having their Jasmine Tea which was very good and a solid green jasmine tea. I had high expectations for this one. This is a straight black tea. Their site that has recently been revamped to market their line of teas as Fitness Teas has quite a nice assortment of teas to choose from. I was glad they sent me this tea and the Jasmine Tea to try.
Brewed this up like a black tea but errored on the side of caution and went with a 2 min steeping time. I didn’t want to oversteep this one. The dry leaves of this tea had a very nice robust malty aroma that I didn’t want to turn bitter.
Let this cool for a few minutes and took my first sip. This tea was delicious and hit the spot. There is just the right amount of malty notes to company the full bodied taste that you get each and every sip. Even as this tea cooled in my traveler mug, I didn’t get any bitterness hitting me or even strong astringent notes. Each sip was a smooth refreshing almost silky like black tea that I found myself wanting more of.
Since my first experience with this tea, I’ve had it a few more times and each time this tea is spot on. So good! I really like this and I am one that likes to take a black tea with me along with my water bottle for my hour drive to take the kids to school and me to work.
My only issue is that they are marketing this as a fitness tea and that seems to be the new craze lately. I read in a Vogue article that we wold be seeing more and more of that this year. I don’t have a problem with companies marketing their teas as fitness teas at all. As long as there are disclaimers were they need to be. Like I said in my review of the jasmine tea. I just really liked the look of their older site with the beautiful floral arrangements and tea pots galore. Those kind of sites are what attract my attention. When I see the site now, it gives me two feelings. 1) I need to go work out and 2) Guilty for not working out. Again, no issue here with them marketing their teas however they want. I just think the tea enthusiasts out there would like the previous site just a bit better.
Regardless, they make some amazing teas!
The Full English from Twinings
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Twinings
Tea Description:
This tea is not available on the US Twinings website.
Learn more about Twinings Black Tea options for the US here
Taster’s Review:
I am on a quest. A quest to drink down some tea. My tea cupboard has gotten outrageously out of control. So I am now honor and duty bound to drink some up before this coming fall season when there will be pumpkin spice and apple pie teas tempting me to gobble and snatch them up!
The first one I grab is one that isn’t available in the US. This is something that I have always been confused about. Twinings has a US store and an international store. The international store has an amazing selection of teas that make me drool thinking about them. But alas,the same selection isn’t available on the US site. Eventually one of these days, I’ll order form the international store and deal with the higher shipper cost. For now, I’m happy I was able to try this one.
The Full English is a tea I believe I picked up from a Steepster member who was putting together some pretty amazing boxes from her travels. I couldn’t resist. I kept reading these amazing reviews from teas she had picked up from other Steepsterites and I wanted to be part of the club!
I say this with my head low but this is the first time I’ve even cracked into the box. I know! Shame on me. Like I said, my tea cupboard is getting out of control.
I brewed this up like a traditional black-212F-3 minutes and pulled the tea bag out. I didn’t want to leave this one in which turned out to be a good thing. At 3 minutes this tea was already turning bitter. The first few sips were just plain lovely black unadulterated black tea. Nothing fancy, just good. But as this starts to cool, the bitterness is swooping in.
For a tea at work, this one would do, but I would be afraid that I would constantly have an issue with the bitterness. This is definitely one you don’t want to forget about. I can just picture this one being lovely when at a tea party or enjoying a spot of milk in it along with a treat. Yum!
Organic Assam Breakfast from The Republic of Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: The Republic of Tea
Tea Description:
Back In The Body Tea – The robust, malty character of this tea comes from pure, unblended Assam leaves grown in Northern India. Plentiful golden tips on leaves & hearty body qualify this tea at the top of its class.
Winner in the North American Tea Championship Assam Tea category.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’ve tried several RoT blends before, but I can’t say that I’ve ever had them in loose leaf form. I just always seem to associate RoT with tea bags, something that I shouldn’t do now that I’ve tried this blend.
After having a few herbals and green teas today, I thought I would pull out this one to try it. I needed a good pick me up after my lunch. Around 2pm seems to be when my body says “Hey, silly head. It is nap time”. Unfortunately my office would frown upon me pulling out a nap mat and taking a snooze so I have to find something to perk me up.
I brewed this up with boiling water and let it steep for about 3 minutes. Took a sip and I’m sad. This didn’t have a nice black tea flavor to it. More of a muted flavor, so I put the tea back in my cup to steep just a bit longer. Unfortunately I think I oversteeped trying to bring out the flavor. Now I have a tea cup filled with an astringent bitter brew. Sad. I probably left it in just a bit too long. This is not a forgiving tea.
This tea really didn’t have anything that made me go WOW I’m loving this. More or less, this tea had me wishing for something else. Something with that “Wow” factor. I’m glad I was able to try it, but I don’t think this will be a re-order.
Strawberry Fields Tea from Sunshine Cottage
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Sunshine Cottage
Tea Description:
Plump, ripe, juicy strawberries with a cold, smooth cream – mmmmm! This is summer time heaven in a cup! A dash of half & half would enhance the flavor even more. Carefully blended and hand packaged, this tea will quickly become a favorite!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Strawberries in fresh cream. . .anybody a fan? Anybody? I am!
This tea reminds me of crisp sweet strawberries in fresh cream. Just like a fancy restaurant used to offer that my parents took me to quite often. When my dad was ready to go out to eat, we went all out. This particular restaurant also served bananas ‘n cream. I would always get one or the other for dessert.
This is a black tea but one that is done with finesse. I loved how the black tea provided a richness in the background while the strawberries and cream flavor where allowed to play. I did get slight hints of astringency so this one I don’t think would be very forgiving if oversteeped. There is also a very subtle and quite hint of a malty finish, which provides a bit of complexity. The strawberries had such a beautiful fresh flavor while the cream had a lush silky feel. Seriously. This tea was good. I recommend all the teas at the Sunshine Cottage. I’ve tried several and only didn’t care for a few and that was probably my fault for oversteeping. I would love to try this one as a cold brew or as a latte.
Now, to find a tea that tastes like the bananas n’ cream the restaurant also offered. . . .