Design a Tea

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86

ICED attempt:

it’s ok…iced…I think I actually like it better HOT…hum…I can taste the coconut more when it’s hot. Still pretty good tho!

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86

I was unable to find this one on their website but I am sampling it now. It’s Lemongrass with coconut powder. It smells wonderful! Almost like a Mike’s Hard Lemonade or something! Sugary-Sweet-Lemony-Coconut-YUM!

This is lovely…the taste is light and seems to be perfect for summer. Altho I am currently drinking it hot I am thinking about putting it in the fridge and drinking the rest cold. So…I will, I think – and report back…

For the hot tho – it’s really good HOT…a nice even lemon flavor with a hint of coconut to assist! Refreshing!

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89

This smells lovely. It ‘brews’ fairly dark. The taste is juicy with hints of floral undertones to it. This is a VERY enjoyable cup! A nice flavored black. I’m drinking it hot but KNOW it will be just as delightful ICED.

This is just JOY in a cup! :)

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86

This tisane has been staring at me for at least a week so I finally gave in! Altho it’s a little mistimed I figured I would drink it anyways. Lets just hope the ‘need to cuddle after drinking this tea’ doesn’t kick in while I am still working…that would just be a harassment charge waiting to happen! LOL

I can smell a lot of chamomile which almost scares me. I can see a lot of lavender which almost scares me.

I’m pleased to report that the Rooibos and Cherry Flavoring tone down my fears mentioned above.

I do like this one. I’m a little surprised, actually. This is very pleasant. I wonder what chocolate would taste like with it…hum…

Cofftea

Haha! That’s the one thing I hate about hot tea. The need to cuddle effect- even true tea gives me that feeling.

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85

I infused a cup of this and eventho my water wasn’t hot enough this still turned out good. It’s a perfect combo of Rooibos and Spearmint…relaxing and refreshing!

The 2nd half of my cup was near ICED and it was VERY good – great end to the day!

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85
drank Butterfly Tea by Design a Tea
4843 tasting notes

I really like the combination of chamomile and lavender. While rooibos isn’t my favorite “tea” – it works pretty well in this blend. The woodsy flavor lends a nice depth of flavor to what would otherwise be a somewhat thin tasting tisane.

There is a nice floral flavor to this blend (I guess that’s not surprising). Sweet and very pleasant to sip, especially later in the evening. (like it is right now!)

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 8 min or more
__Morgana__

Have you tried Yellow and Blue by Harney?

LiberTEAS

Morgana: No, I haven’t. Good?

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83

This is highly scented…VERY blueberry and nutmeg! Wooooo! Very nice smell! It infusions pretty dark for an oolong. The Post infusion scent is a little lighter on the blueberry and nutmeg and more woodsy but both flavors are still identifiable! The taste is good! I can taste the Oolong then the Blueberry then the Nutmeg and at the end of the sip more woodsy. The after taste lingers with the blueberry/nutmeg goodness and it is quite memorable! This is Aroma and Taste in a cup! Yup! Thumbs Up!

gmathis

Neat combo!

sygyzy

How are the blueberry and nutmeg integrated into the tea? Are there dried bits of the fruit?

TeaEqualsBliss

Nothing overly visible more flavoring but darned good flavoring!

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89
drank Island Blend by Design a Tea
4843 tasting notes

This is the very first time trying a tea from this company, and I’m liking it a lot. It brews to a beautiful, pale green color. It smells rather unusual, I can smell a vanilla note and a fruit note, but there is also a very strong… almost baked kind of aroma to the cup. Almost like cookies. It doesn’t smell like a typical tropical blend, that’s for sure. Nevertheless, it does smell delicious in its own way and it is a very intriguing sort of fragrance…

The vanilla flavor is strong here, very creamy and sweet tasting… The mango also holds its own in the blend. The green tea offers a light, fresh taste to the mix, I’m not getting a lot of what I would call grassy flavor but there is some vegetative characteristics to the cup. The combination of the vanilla, mango and Sencha is a very tasty one, indeed.

This is really good.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec
Lori

Hmmm…I may add this to my shopping list….

LiberTEAS

Lori – I just got finished writing a review of this tea for the SororiTEA Sisters blog, it will publish on July 2. http://sororiteasisters.com :)

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81

This is every bit of Coconut and Pineapple flavored black tea. Thumbs up for creativity and pulling it off. It smells great and it pretty tastes good too.

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94
drank Plum Lov'en by Design a Tea
6768 tasting notes

This is just awesome! Sweetness of the Rooibos but more importantly an even 50/50 of Plum and vanilla. It sort of tastes like a mixed drink but then you know it’s a rooibos tisane. It’s very, very yummy.

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92

I received a sample of this and I must say the aroma is marvy! This is perfection in the form of CHOCOLATE and rose and black tea prior to infusion. Post infusion it does lose a lot of the scent but it’s till identifiably chocolate and floral and a black tea – almost – but not quite pu-erh smelling. The Chocolate melts into the hot liquid making it semi-murky but it’s hard to tell there is that texture because it infuses so-so-so dark. The taste is great…black tea and chocolate with a hint of rose. Exactly what I was hoping for. This is VERY nicely done! I would certainly drink it again! And maybe even purchase larger quantities to have on hand!

Jenn-cha

Sounds like their China Seduction tea which does actually use pu’erh http://steepster.com/teas/design-a-tea/10892-china-seduction

TeaEqualsBliss

Interesting…thanks Jenn-cha!

TeaEqualsBliss

Come to find out…this IS China Seduction…I was reading the label wrong…Oops!

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47

This was the second of my two Design a Tea samples. I was more adventurous with this one. Now that I look at the name I wonder what I was thinking. At the time, the flavors seemed like they’d go well with oolong. I quite liked the GM caramel oolong, but I haven’t really enjoyed any other flavored oolongs that much. Wonder how this one will do.

As with my other sample, I poured the tea out of the little bag it came in and weighed it. This one is 1.4g, so I’ll be making very small cups. If I’d thought about it I could have used this to break in my tiny gaiwan, but I’d already washed out a Finum filter and I poured this in there while it was still slightly damp. If I tried to pour it into the gaiwan now I’d lose a fair amount of the sample to stickage around the edges of the Finum filter. So no gaiwan this time.

The dry leaves look green and a little powdery, and smell like… hazelnut and mocha, but the hazelnut here isn’t the true nuttiness of Florence. It seems a little more of the Frangelico variety.

The liquor on the first steep is a light orange/tan, sort of a light caramel color, and cloudy. I can smell the nuts and mocha, and some butter.

The taste has a very heavy mocha note. An unsweetened coffee. Hazelnut, not so much. It’s kind of amazing that the tea manages to escape being bitter given the unsweetened coffee aspect. Perhaps it is the mediating effect of the oolong’s butteryness. Like my first Design a Tea attempt, this is ok but just ok. Perhaps slightly less ok than the first attempt because the hazelnut isn’t really present in the taste. There’s a generic nuttiness, but not more than I’d expect from a more oxidized oolong even without flavoring.

Second steep, three minutes. Um. Is this really an oolong? I am wondering. Because the resteep is really lame. All the flavors again, but a faded photograph of themselves. Hmmm. Really not hopeful for a third steep but I have to give it a shot at redeeming itself if it really is an oolong, because if it is, steep three should be among the best.

Third steep, four minutes. Now all the flavorings are gone and if there’s an oolong flavor in there, it’s hard to detect because of the strength of the earlier flavors. If it’s there, it is paling by comparison.

This one was not meant to be. It wasn’t awful, but it was not meant to be.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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60

A while back after I read someone else’s note about a designed tea (can’t now remember whose), I decided to go design a couple of samples. This is one of them. I think if I had to do it over again I would have been much more adventurous in my choice of flavors. There are probably hundreds of versions of this Mounds combo available. I’ve even bought a few myself. Oh well.

It came in a cute little bag, which I suppose could have been used for steeping, but instead, I poured it out and weighed it. It came to 1.5g so I will be making about half a cup with it. The dry leaves are dark, and there was a fair amount of dust in the mix. They smelled exactly as would have been expected: like chocolate and coconut. The coconut is probably the slightly stronger fragrance of the two.

Steeping brings out the coconut even more, and I have to say that this combo is smelling extremely good. It really does smell like a Mounds tastes. Yum.

In taste, the tea is just ok. It’s a little harsh at the back of the throat, and though the tea has a nice, chewy mouth feel that goes with the candy bar theme, it doesn’t have the depth of flavor I was expecting from the aroma. It’s chewy in texture but it’s thin in flavor at the same time. I can’t taste the tea under the flavorings, which probably explains part of this. I feel a little like I’m drinking a too dilute hot chocolate with coconut flavor.

Fortunately I don’t have much of an interest in tea blending as if this is any indication, I should leave it to the experts.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

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55
drank Orange Zabaglione by Design a Tea
67 tasting notes

I tried my hand at creating my own tea blend over at Design a Tea, and this is one of the packs I created (the other was hazelnut and peppermint; Design a Tea also threw in a sample of marzipan tea which I’m dying to try). There was nothing overly special about this tea; when sweetened and splashed with cream, this tastes like a creamsicle with a faint eggnog-y flavor. All in all, a good dessert tea.

Preparation
Boiling 6 min, 0 sec

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67

This is my 2nd Design a Tea free sample. It’s alright. I tasted it without any sweetener and it had real soapiness to it that I think comes from the vanilla. After adding some agave nectar, the soapiness is reduced and the raspberry comes forward. The raspberry flavor is like a candy raspberry. The rooibos is barely noticable. Once I sweetened it, I liked it quite a bit. But, I did like 52teas Raspberry Cream Cheese Danish better.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 5 min, 0 sec

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67

I got two free samples in the mail today from Design a Tea. This is sample 1. It is a rooibos with maple and pecan flavoring. The rooibos has that woody flavor to it, but it is not overpowering. The flavoring is strong. If you like a ‘pow’ kind of flavoring then you might like this. The pecan seems to be the more predominant flavor. The maple is kind of a background sweetness. The maple is more of an Aunt Jemima “maple” rather than a Vermont maple. I am also picking up on a coffee-like flavor and some burned sugar flavor. I like the burned sugar aspect, but I don’t like the coffee flavor so much. I think that is coming from the pecan. The smell is distinctly coffee. All in all, I’d say give this one a try.

Note – you probably don’t need any sweetener at all in this (coming from someone who sweetens everything).

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 5 min, 15 sec
Cofftea

This flavor (not the base) sounds so yummy… although I’m still not sold on the soggy nuts. I have to close my eyes and pretend they aren’t there when I dump my Mayan Chocolate Chai leaves lol.

Kristin

Actually, this might taste a lot like a pecan waffle with maple syrup and a side of coffee. I love nut flavors in tea! :)

Cofftea

The flavors of nuts in tea is fine… it’s just the thought of the texture… I’m very much a texture oriented person.

Kristin

They do look yummy, but they contain milk and eggs (boo). Thanks for thinking of me.

Cofftea

Oh yeah… forgot about that one…

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86

I had a nice, peaceful, bit of time before me so I decided to try the other sample of tea I had designed from Design A Tea. This one was definitely a success.

The liquor was a bright honey-gold with a bit of a peach tone to it. The first sip was strongly plum, then peach. The second I tasted the oolong as well. A little further along and there was a hint of pear also. The flavor lingered pleasantly at the back of my mouth after each sip. About halfway through the pot I found myself thinking “Is this tea…or nectar?” It was so good and I am very happy that I had been given the time to appreciate it properly.

When I order again from this company this blend is DEFINITELY on the list!

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 30 sec

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93
drank China Seduction by Design a Tea
104 tasting notes

I decided to give this one another try today. I measured out two heaping teaspoons, double what I had used before, and as I was doing so I realized that only about a third of the mix was tea leaves. The other two thirds were chocolate nibs and rose petals respectively. Perhaps that was the cause of the weak taste last time.

After steeping the liquor was a murky red-brown. Very murky, I could hardly make out where the spoon touched the bottom of the tea cup and I use a small cup.

First sip…WOW! Now THAT is CHOCOLATE! Milky smooth but with a slight dark coco bitterness. It actually tastes a lot like the jasmine-infused chocolates that I have. I’ll have to try blending this with some jasmine tea at some point.

Preparation
Boiling 6 min, 0 sec

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93
drank China Seduction by Design a Tea
104 tasting notes

When my package from Design a Tea arrived last week I could smell this before I even opened the package. Not the bag with the tea, the PACKAGE that all of the teas came IN. Ever since I have been smelling it whenever I open my tea cabinet. Today was the day, I vowed

So, after steeping this tea is a very dark, murky amber. The murkiness being from sediment due to the chocolate chips. I tried without sugar first and was saddened to find that the liquor did not taste nearly as chocolaty as the dry leaf had smelled. With sugar there was definitely an improvement on the level of chocolate on my tastebuds. So I tried adding milk. The chocolate level was the same but there was a smoother finish and the liquor felt almost silky.

I think next time I drink this I will try doubling the leaf amount. Definitely better than the Chocolate Raspberry blend though.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

You could smell the packaging??? Ewww

Jenn-cha

No, silly. Smell the tea through the packaging XD

Cofftea

Oh, ok. I thought “Not the bag with the tea, the PACKAGE that all of the teas came IN.” was what was being smelled.

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95
drank Zabaglione by Design a Tea
259 tasting notes

Design a Tea was offering free samples—perhaps they still are. Today I got mine only a few days after I had requested them. One of my picks was Zabaglione because I love the flavor mixes. It’s difficult to make a good zabaglione and because the dessert requires so much intensive, last-minute cooking and detailed attention, few restaurants seem to offer it. Sometimes it’s called a “Sabayon”.

The ingredients for the Zabaglione are “Koslanda-Dimbulla blend from Sri Lanka” and “All natural flavoring”. My tea revealed a complex unfolding of flavors. As you might expect, the eggnog flavor predominated but there were little rushes of true marzipan, almond, and a general sweet creaminess. The only tea I’ve tried which is similar is, not surprisingly, an eggnog tea by David’s Teas. This one, of course, offers more than the generic eggnog—not that that is not delicious alone.

I drank most of it straight up and then added a soupçon of sugar and milk which enhanced the creamy sweetness.

I’m impressed with Design a Tea. They have a similar concept to Adagio’s, but seem to be smaller and perhaps offer a purer, more organic, and focused product. I plan to order from them after the fantastic tea prOn experience of spending time on their site.

Preparation
4 min, 30 sec
Cait

Okay, I need to check out this website offering tea pr0n! :)

sophistre

I giggled, because Zabaglione is spelled differently in your tasting note in every spot in which it appears. What a weird word. Until today I didn’t even know what Zabaglione was. How can I have been to Italy so often and not had this? Especially since creme brulee is among my favorite desserts ever?

Learn something new every day! I’m very curious about this company…thanks for the heads-up!

Doulton

I tried to fix the spelling. I think it must have been my enthusiasm—-I was just humming along and typing far too quickly. A true zabaglione is must better than a creme brulee and must be made at the last moment. They are hard to find. I’ve had a good one in London,a good one in Venice, and a really ersatz fake one in Ohio that tasted like plastic. Even in Italy they are not on the menu as often as I’d like.

sophistre

It’s a weird word!

I can’t remember ever seeing it on any menu in Italy, which is a tragedy, as it seems like my kind of sweet. To be fair I rarely had room enough left for dessert by the time we were ready to eat it…so I wasn’t often looking. Needless to say though, I will be keeping my eyes peeled from now on.

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53

I designed this one for one of my free samples from Design A Tea. I opened up the baggie and was treated to the aroma of chocolate. Delicious delicious chocolate. The same aroma was blasted back at me with the steam when I poured the water over the leaves in my pot. And again when I poured the bright amber liquor into the cup.

The first sip I tried without sugar. Whoa raspberry! Not tart, juicy raspberry, but definitely raspberry. Now where did the chocolate go? So I put my usual sugar in and tried again. Still raspberry…and something undefinable, slightly bitter. I could smell the chocolate in the steam coming off the cup but my taste buds couldn’t find a trace of it. I was being teased. Ok, try adding milk. The raspberry retreated, as if to sulk, and what was left was a weak, milky coco flavor.

Determined to have chocolate one way or another I used a teaspoon of hot chocolate mix instead of sugar for my second cup. The result was a tad bitter so I added a tiny bit of sugar…Perfection! At least if what you wanted was raspberry hot chocolate.

My last cup I took another try with the sugar, putting enough in for a full 6oz of liquid and forgetting the pot doesn’t hold enough for three cups full. There! A tantalizing wisp of chocolate on the back of my tongue.

So, chocolate is off the list of flavorings I’ll be picking with my next order. The raspberry has some potential though.

Preparation
Boiling 7 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

ooooooohhhhh!!!

Kristin

Based on your recommendation, I ordered a raspberry vanilla. Stay tuned to see if I like it.

Jenn-cha

I’ll be watching for it :)

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82
drank Ice Wine Tea by Design a Tea
104 tasting notes

Had this again yesterday only I decided to put the last cup into the fridge so I could try it cold. It is indeed just as good iced as I had thought it would be although I think if I’m going to drink it that way I’ll add honey to sweeten instead of sugar.

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82
drank Ice Wine Tea by Design a Tea
104 tasting notes

I kept slightly better track of how long I steeped this time. I also used more leaf and there was a lump in there that I’m pretty sure was a dried grape though it was a little difficult to tell with all the tea leaves embedded in it.

I definitely used too little leaf last time, it was much better this time around. Sweet and black tea and wine. I couldn’t say what sort of wine (since I’ve been either pregnant or breastfeeding for the past year or so and haven’t had much alcohol) other than some variety of white, which just feels odd since the tea is a dark red.

Still need to try this one iced.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 30 sec

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82
drank Ice Wine Tea by Design a Tea
104 tasting notes

I lost track of how long I steeped this, having a three year old and a five month old can do that to a person. You turn around and suddenly it’s later than you thought and you’ve got to leave NOW but the kids still aren’t ready and neither are you and – and – well, that’s another story. Anyway, steeping time was somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes.

The dry leaf definitely smelled winey and…chocolate? I think that was just due to the other tea it was shipped with though. The smell of the steeped liquor reminded me of an old country or antique shop redolent with potpourri. It was dark amber in color, lovely and clear.

Even without sugar I could taste the wine note. With sugar it was more pronounced and smoother though I think it might have been a bit thin (will definitely try with more leaf next time). After swallowing there was a slight dryness in my mouth, nearly imperceptible until I breathed in.

I tried my second cup with honey and nearly poured the stuff down the drain. Do NOT drink this with honey! Ick! I am curious as to what it would taste like with agave nectar though, too bad I haven’t been able to find any more in the area since I finished the last bottle.

My last cup full ended up cooling due to having to deal with fussy kids and it actually tasted better lukewarm than hot which makes me wonder how it would work as an iced tea.

Overall a very nice blend.

Preparation
Boiling

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