Teaopia Strawberry Fields

Ahhhh, an oldie but a goodie! Strawberry Fields was the first tea I bought at Teaopia and I found a small tin of it sitting in the very far back corner of my cupboard (I cleaned out my cupboard and put all of my teas into a huge cardboard box in my closet). From the website

This aromatic White Tea is a combination of White Tea, apple pieces, currants, hibiscus, melon cubes, strawberry pieces and strawberry slices. Enjoy the delicious flavour of strawberries all year round with Strawberry Fields tea.

I love this tea! White teas I enjoy because they're light and delicate. Add in some fruit like apple and strawberry and you have a delicious, light tea that's refreshing, hot or cold. When I get through more of my stock, I'll be going back to Teaopia to get a large tin of this, it's that good.

Tea Presents

Okay, I know it's been a while since I last posted...can I say that I've been busy drinking tea? ;-) I've got a couple of pictures to share today. The first one is the assortment of tea I received for Christmas (thank you to my friend Brianne and my sister Erica for all of the Twinings!), and the second is of the new tea thermos and mug I got in the mail yesterday from Stash Tea 

Two weeks ago I attended the 6th Annual Victoria Tea Festival with my mum, and we had a great time sampling all of the different teas. We ran into my friend Kate and listened to a presentation by Murchies on the history of the company and how they blend their teas. At their Victoria location, they have over 10,000 different tea blends recorded in their big book of personal tea blends. Yes! I said over ten thousand!!! Next time I go on a tea run, I'm going to head downtown to Murchies and check out their wares for sure!

On another note, I'm planning my 3-week trip to Scotland and England in July, and as you can imagine, I'm trying to locate the best places to have tea :-) If you have any suggestions of where I should go, please let me know. The towns/cities I'll be staying in are:

Glasgow
Oban
Inverness
South Shields
Gainsborough
Upton-upon-Severn
London

Tea Video

I just came across this cool vintage tea-making video. Enjoy!

Tea Making Video

Good Earth Sweet & Spicy Herbal Tea

This tea was given to me by my friend, Ina, who is a naturopath (and therefore an expert on all things natural!). She raved about this tea to me, and gave me a few teabags to try. Unfortunately, this is not available to buy in Canada...so if you have friends in the US who are willing to send it to you, count yourself lucky!

Sweet and Spicy is a rooibos blend of many different ingredients. Many ingredients. It smells just like its name, sweet and spicy. On drinking it, though, the overwhelming flavour is cinnamon, like those cinnamon heart candies that everyone except me seems to love, ha ha!! This tea also tastes like you've added a couple teaspoons of sugar to it. I've never tasted a tea that tasted sweet, but hasn't had any sweeteners added to it. I like the concept, as I do like a bit of sweetness in my tea.

This is by far the most flavourful tea I've tried. If you get the chance, definitely try it for yourself!

DavidsTea Hot Toboggan

DavidsTea Hot Toboggan is part of the Winter Collection from DavidsTea. This is a green tea, but I'm not sure that green tea is the main ingredient, seeing as it's so full of apple pieces and lemongrass. When it's steeped, it is really pale, and cloudy, so much so that it doesn't even look like a green tea. It smells sweet, like cinnamon, and the taste is a tart/fruity combo, which is really nice and smooth.

Get fired up

Playing in the snow can be pretty hard work. You’ve gotta stay energized. Focused. Warm. So, what’s in your thermos? How about this blend of green tea, apple, cinnamon, and almonds? You get all the benefits of green tea plus all the sweet, creamy flavour of a caramel apple. Pack some to go and you’ll really heat things up on the toboggan run. And with a tea this delicious in your hands, you’ll never want to come in from the cold. 

 

ingredients

Organic: apple, almonds, Saigon cinnamon, lemongrass, green tea. With natural flavouring*.

Allergens: Tree nuts

DavidsTea Creme Brulee

DavidsTea Creme Brulee was given to me by a coworker who didn't like it. When I open the bag, it smells sweet, with an almost alcoholic smell to it. Once steeped, it smells strongly of vanilla. The flavour is very smooth and mellow, I actually quite like it. I don't know what my coworker didn't like about it, but her loss is my gain!

From the website:

 

Sweet seduction

No one can resist this organic green rooibos tea. Seriously. The aroma is just too outrageously tempting. Creamy, caramel, decadent, rich. And the taste! How can something so sweet be so light and fresh? Plus, rooibos is caffeine free, making it the perfect drink for after dinner or before bed. Could life be more wonderful?

 

Ingredients

Organic green rooibos, organic safflowers, organic calendula marigold, natural flavouring*.

Some teabag teas!

In the course of trying to use up the tea I have before buying more, I realized that I have quite a few types of teabag teas. Now, if I had to choose between loose tea and a teabag, I would choose the loose tea hands down. But, there are times when I'm feeling lazy, or I'm in a rush and I don't want to deal with the mess of loose tea. That's when I go for a teabag. Here are my thoughts on a few Tetley teas...

Tetley Rooibos Vanilla  is my first Rooibos in a teabag. It smells faintly spicy, but once steeped, it smells faintly like vanilla and Rooibos (you know, that burnt smell). Drinking it, there is very little flavour, but I can make out a hint of vanilla, and surprisingly, it does NOT have the burnt flavour I associate with Rooibos.

Tetley Naturally Decaffeinated Lychee Pear Green Tea is a nice, sweet-tasting green tea put out by Tetley. I assume the sweetness is from the lychee, and I can smell/taste the pear essence as well. This is a nice tea cold as well as hot, and it's refreshing. It also travels well in the stainless steel thermos.

Tetley Earl Grey Vanilla is a surprisingly nice tea, for a teabag. The overwhelming aroma is vanilla, which gives it a nice creamy flavour. I swear that I can't taste any bergamot in this, but it's listed on the ingredients list, so I guess it's there. I like this one if I'm in a rush and don't want to deal with cleaning the loose tea out of my tea maker.