Teajo Teas

First impression once I opened the bag was that it smelled like vanilla icing – creamy and delightful, but with a definite “fake sugar” hint to it that I found interesting. I couldn’t wait to try it.

My minor complaint is that the rooibos is shredded fine enough to go right through my infuser basket…but this is what happens with most rooibos, so I can’t blame it on Teajo. :)

Once brewed up it retained that creamy quality laced over the richness of rooibos, but sadly it also kept the fakeness that I was less fond of. There’s a lingering vanilla taste that stays with you, but I can’t get over how artificial it tastes.

If the vanilla flavour had just been knocked down a notch this would’ve been a beautiful tea, but for me this is a bit too overwhelming. I have some Dosha Chai from Teavana that I think this will blend in nicely with, though, in order to cut down the intensity…

Good tea, but perhaps not for me. I’ll be putting this one in the TTB in hopes that someone else will enjoy it more.

I wanted to try something new this evening after dinner and caffeine free was what I was going for.

This one smells of vanilla and rooibos, and maybe a touch of berry as dry leaf.

Steeped I found more rooibos than vanilla while it was hot. As it cooled I got a little more sweet vanilla creaminess, but still much of the rooibos base. It wasn’t offensive, just very present. I did add my normal touch of sugar and it was a bit much with this blend, thinking the sweetness of the vanilla made it come through as sweeter.

I’m thinking this one would work well on an evening when I wanted something no fuss… that or when I want to be creative and add to it :) Thinking a creamy vanilla rooibos chai for an evening when I want some kick.

Thanks MissB for a sample of this one :)

I actually found myself looking for a green tea yesterday morning… not a usual thing for me as blacks are my normal morning tea. I went looking through my samples and snagged this one… mint sounded good too.

Dry leaf smells like mint and bitter chocolate.. Not sure I would call it dark chocolate.

Steeped this is light and refreshing, but I had a hard time finding the chocolate… Mostly mint here like you would get in mint choc.chip ice cream, but not amazingly so, with just enough green base coming through.

I received this from MissB’s tea stash sale. Thank you!

This was quite the treat! This tasted like my favorite raspberry hot chocolate without the guilt!. This was a little week, but I blame that on my under leafing. I will try this again with a tad more leaf, milk and sugar for a yummy dessert.

A sample from MissB’s lovely package! thanks again! I wanted to try this one since Teajo’s Earl Grey is my favorite non-cream Earl Grey. Certainly their other teas must be nice as well? The brew color on this one is actually very light, especially as it steeped longer than I wanted it to (five minutes). But it isn’t oversteeped at all… especially since it basically wholly peach! I can’t even taste the black tea at all. So much peach! It’s almost on the verge of candy peach, but not quite. Very nice. This could certainly represent peach in any tea collection! (I wonder why I haven’t seen any dried peach pieces in ANY tea blends though?)

I want to love this. I mean, I adore vanilla, and rooibos is my go-to most nights, although I’m finding red rooibos a bit hit or miss of late. This one, I’m getting zero throat fuzziness though so this makes me happy.

Out of the bag and steeped it smells strongly of vanilla. Steeped, I get rooibos first, then vanilla, and had to add a touch of stevia to make it creamy vanilla awesomeness.

It’s good, it’s just… one dimensional, to me. I wanted zero rooibos taste and just vanilla cream. If I were on the hunt for a vanilla rooibos though, I could see this being a staple for some.

Somehow I mixed this and Della Terra’s Peppermint Bark up together. How? Uh.. I dunno, because they taste quite different from one another.

It smells perfectly of raspberry chocolate in the bag and brewed. Drinking it alone, with zero additions, left me desiring something more though. It’s really, really dry. I get the cacao in here, which adds to the dryness, but this is a bit extreme for me. Some Truvia makes it more creamy, much less dry, and I can taste the raspberry more, especially a few seconds after the sip. My mouth is literally so dry now though, I’m challenged to really enjoy this cup at all. I can also taste the base a lot more than before.

Again fooled myself thinking this was a black, and almost brewed it as such. Luckily I caught it in time, because this one lovely cup when brewed correctly. Creamy chocolate and mint, although both are pretty mild flavors, it’s a pleasant sip and one that I’m enjoying.

Why did I assume that Dark Chocolate Mint = black tea? This was a lovely surprise, the sencha.

Brews up to a very light greenish yellow color. The smell is lovely out of the bag, and changes a bit to something more chemical after brewing. Drinking it reminds me a bit of the smell of the chemicals used to check the pH of a swimming pool. Sweetened with a bit of Truvia, it loses some of the chemical flavor, however I’m getting little cacao, just a hint of mint.

Going to avoid rating this before playing around with it a bit more.

Hm. Very different experience than last time I made this. Still tasty, however it’s more of a mango EG than purely mango today. Definitely strong floral notes that I would have remembered and noted last time, had I tasted it then.

My teenage daughter says, “I’m not an expert like you Mom, but this tea tastes really good.” That’s a few minutes after steeping with the water having cooled, and zero sweetener. Yep, it’s a tasty tea.

Out of the bag it smells very tropical and mango-y, with a slight hint of floral in there too. I’m okay with the floral in this case, as it’s faint and seems to only enhance instead of taking over.

Steeped, the mango is prominent, with whatever floral note falling way behind, and the black base solid in the middle. I prefer this lightly sweetened with Truvia, but that’s just because it’s more fruity.

Will I buy this again? It’s tasty. I have a credit with Teajo because of the exploding tea incident during shipping — and thank you for the credit, and for dealing with the issue so quickly! If I needed something else to round out my order? Yes, I’d order this again. I doubt I’d go out of my way though if this was the only thing I wanted.

Received my order from Teajo today, and this was my first choice to try. Why? Because the bag exploded everywhere while in transit, covering the inside of the shipping container with rooibos and ‘natural spices’ (that’s the list of ingredients on the bag). I, having zero tolerance for exploding tea, poured the whole shebang into my Breville for 1L of tea. Who knows if the proportions are right? I’m not measuring the mess.

This smells like a chai, and tastes like licorice. That’s all I’m getting here. Which, is nice if you like licorice (I do), I just wanted more depth from this tea than that one flavor. Oh, wait, I can taste something spicier now too a few sips in… peppery, maybe some ginger sans bite.

Ah, well look at that. This sample bag should have netted me 8-10 cups, and I used it for four. Well, that explains that.

This came my way as part of the Pageant of Winter Teas – thanks, Piccolo!

Opening this package was like unpacking a stocking on Christmas morning. The dark chocolate and plant-based raspberry flavoring work beautifully together to bring to life one of my favorite holiday treats! I didn’t really taste the base as much as some of the other reviewers (different steeping methods?), but the chocolately-goodness of this blend more than made up for it!

You can read the full review here:
http://wordsabouttea.blogspot.com/2013/11/raspberry-chocolate-bark-by-teajo-teas.html

Not bad considering it’s rooibos-based (I don’t generally mind rooibos, but I tend to associate the chai flavor profile with black tea pep, so there’s no way around that disappointment after dinner). With some milk it’s quite decent. I’m weird and arbitrarily judge teas by what they do when milk is added (when I happen to be adding milk, which is becoming rarer and rarer these days for some reason)—if they turn that muddy cloudy dishwater hue I kind of internally dock the tea some points, and when they get a nice creamy opaque marble it impresses me. No real reason, admittedly; the former’s just unappealing. Anyway, this one does the latter, so kudos.

Definitely one of the better chocolate teas I’ve tried—I don’t know why chocolate is so hard to get right with tea. Dark, intense chocolate seems especially tricky, but this does a decent job. It smells deep dark chocolate-y, but tastes more like milk chocolate, and is very smooth. For some reason I feel like I can smell a whiff of mint, like it’s a dark peppermint patty or those Andes after dinner mints. No idea why, but it’s quite pleasant. Excellent for PMS jonesing, I reckon. This and Raspberry Chocolate Bark have been lovely introductions to Teajo’s dessert teas.

Well, this is a tasty way to start the morning! Shadowfall gave me an opportunity to try this in our swap, and with each sip I cannot help but make comparisons with English Breakfasts that I know and love. It’s not quite the same thing, but has such a wonderfully malty, brisk presence that my mind can’t help but go there. Maybe I should make some zucchini bread to go with this!

I got this at the NYC meet-up, but I can’t remember if it was from Greenteafairy or if it was from Nicole_Martin. Thank you, whichever one of you gave it to me! I need to start labeling my teas a little better. :-)

I drank this straight without anything in it. I really liked that I could taste the Assam. So many chais are so overly-spiced that you can’t taste the tea itself. This assam has the golden, sweet, and malty taste that I’m growing to really love. The spices are a nice blend- maybe slightly too heavy with the cardamon. I’m really craving some honey for this. I should start keeping some at work.

5/5

Love this, goes right in that category in my mind of “reach for this when you crave the taste of tea you remember from a long time ago, just that thick blackblackblack flavor bordering on bitter but done really well” where A&D Double Knit Blend, Persimmon Tree Vintage Black, and Golden Moon Sinharaja fall. Where it’s both coffee-like in many ways and yet very…“old-fashioned tea” tasting. It’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea but when I do crave it it’s the strongest craving ever. So glad to have this one.

I received this as a sample from Teajo Teas several months ago and am just now – very belatedly! – getting around to trying it. I didn’t do the stovetop thing (although I’d like to try it sometime); I just followed the instructions on the packaging: 1 tsp. in 8 oz. boiling water for 3 minutes.

I mostly tasted the assam – it’s a very nice, high-quality base, without any bitterness. The pepper also came through quite strongly. Ginger and cinnamon are detectable, but faint. I couldn’t pick out any of the other spices. I love ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom, so I was a bit disappointed not to be getting more of these in particular. About halfway through my cup, I added a generous splash of almond milk. I thought it might bring out some of the hidden spices, but unfortunately it just overwhelmed the chai.

This was very pleasant, but I do prefer a more assertively-spiced chai. Reading the other reviews, though, I’m wondering if I may not have done a good job mixing up my bag – I did give it a good shake beforehand, but I’ll pay more attention when I make my next cup.

I enjoyed several cups of this over the weekend, when Jake and I were doing the three final face/offs of the Battle of the Earl Greys. It’s so smooth and well-blended that it’s no wonder the final battle ended the way it did. I’d like to send just one more thanks to Tea Sipper, because I had not heard of this tea or even the brand until you pointed it out!

You can read the final recap here:
http://www.wordsabouttea.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-battle-of-earl-greys-final-round.html

I enjoyed a cup of this over the weekend, while Jake and I were finishing up the Battle of the Earl Greys. Each time I make up a cup of this I am impressed again with how the very light touch of vanilla adds just the right amount of creaminess to this tea. A lot of the “creamy” Earl Greys I’ve tried during this project are more cream flavor than tea, but this one rises above all that into a level all its own.

The final bout of the Battle of the Earl Greys will be posted on Thursday, but in the meantime, you can read the last face/off which led up to it!
http://wordsabouttea.blogspot.com/2013/10/earl-grey-french-blue-by-mariage-freres.html

I absolutely love this tea, so it’s no wonder that it’s doing so well in the Battle of the Earl Greys! It’s fresh, nuanced, and just oh, so tasty!

You can read the full recap here:
http://wordsabouttea.blogspot.com/2013/10/earl-grey-by-arbor-teas-vs-silky-earl.html

I wanted to find something wonderful to break in my new teacup with, but I was not expecting how truly amazing this tea was. It’s joining the Battle of the Earl Greys and there are a couple I cannot wait to try it against!

The smell, the taste, and the story. They combine gorgeously in this tea and I am apparently incapable of showing any indifference to it. The name is perfect – it truly is a silky tea, with just layers after layers of nuances. This is going to be a cupboard staple, and it’s one of the few teas so far that I’ve actually used the “Poetry may be involved” section of my rating rubric for!

You can read the full review here:
http://wordsabouttea.blogspot.com/2013/08/silky-earl-grey-by-teajo-teas.html

4/5 (see my bio for more info on my new pared down scale)

This is a damn fine dessert flavored tea, I must say. Lately I’ve been lukewarm about that category in general because of the weather and my growing exposure to premium pure tea leaves, greens, and oolongs (what a wonderful spring and summer of discovery it’s been—thanks Steepster!), but I’m PMSing like whoa (guess what I thought would be a good lunch today? A bowl of potato chips and a square of dark chocolate…after I ate it I was like “ohhhhh so THAT’s why I’ve been so cranky and teary lately” duh!) and every other sample from Teajo I’ve tried so far has been great so…and yeah, as with all the others I’m very impressed. The aroma and flavor is strong, present, but never fake or chemical tasting, with lovely balance between sweet-tart berry and thick bold chocolate, yum. Furthermore the tea base is very decent (not always the case with sweet flavored teas!), assertive enough to hold its own and not get lost in the shuffle without being harsh, bitter, or so bold as to clash with or distract from the flavoring. As it’s not wimpy, it also handles additions well—I splashed my second cup with a bit of almond milk and that was delicious too.

Pretty smooth, rich stuff. Definitely evokes desserts with this flavor combo (one of my absolute favorites by the way, especially since usually when raspberry’s put in chocolate desserts it’s a given the chocolate’s going to be the deep dark kind, stuff like flourless cakes and tortes, YUM)—right down to a sort of luscious, berry jam mouthfeel. The best raspberry chocolate tea I’ve tried for sure, and I’ve a feeling it’ll be hard to top.