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HI GUYS totally did not mean to vanish, trying to decide if I risk going on Steepster at work because that’s where I’m doing all my tea drinking.

Especially since I had to go to the ER last week after I became allergic to the antibiotic I was taking out of nowhere, and my heart went crazy for a bit there. I’m afraid to drink coffee, hell, I was afraid to drink any non herbal teas until this week.

Anyway I’ve got a list of things to log but I didn’t add this on there since I was drinking it at home about two weeks ago.

I really would like to see this or something similar as a hot tea, because it honestly sounds like something that’d be better hot.

It is a bit busy though, I didn’t get too much pumpkin compared to chocolate and vanilla. All the flavors are present, that’s for sure, I just was drawn to it more for the pumpkin pie aspect.

I ended up not finishing the whole pitcher since two days later the whole allergy debacle went down, but I don’t think I’m in a hurry to try it again. It was good, but for me personally it just doesn’t suit iced tea.

Trying to go through things I think I want to keep but you know, need to taste to know if I like it.

This is one of them. I’ve grown to like hibiscus based teas but I don’t know what it is about this one that just has something about it I don’t like. Maybe the strawberry leaf and lemon verbena with it? Or just that it’s such a mix of fruit, something in there might just not mesh with hibiscus to me.

It’s just TART. And it’s hard to find a way to enjoy it. Sweetening it really does nothing for me with this one. Bears like sweet stuff don’t they? I would make a bad bear if I don’t care for this maybe.

Apparently according to an old tasting note, I was supposed to try this cold brewed. Meh. I think this will join the list.

Speaking of, yes, I FINALLY have the first round of teas I’m trying to get rid of here: https://justamandathings.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/teas-for-sale/ all the info is there – wanted to open it up to those of you who still have followed me after all this time first. (btw to not waste anyone’s time, it’s US only because I don’t have time right now to go through everything to send internationally :( sorry)

And eventually I will make that my food blog. I have been showered with gifts from Olive Garden for food photos on Instagram from an event there a few weeks ago so I figured it was time to start one again. After I move though.

Searching around for a good tea to ice, I pulled this out so that I could eat my burrito bowl in peace. The one downfall of barely drinking tea for months…it’s really hard to pick one.

I checked my old note – I first tried to have this hot and it wasn’t very good. So I made it iced and sweetened it a little.

It’s pretty good iced. I can get some of the flavor profile you might associate with a lighter, sweet red wine – I think it’s the hint of spice there is to it? It’s very fruity. It’s too light to me to really taste like sangria, but that might be because it’s made with water and not wine.

I wish it was more apparent what kind of fruit it was. It’s just sort of berry and citrus, outside of the grape flavor of course. I think you have to walk a fine line sweetening this one, because the grape flavor is a little fake tasting. Too much sweetener could definitely put this into Kool Aid territory.

Kool Aid Sangria though…sounds interesting.

Oh and I must tell you about my bird. He is trying to talk to me. He is learning “pretty bird” so he just sort of almost says “pretty” over and over. And then when I say “pretty bird” to him again he makes these crazy noises like he’s really trying to get it to work. SO CUTE.

HI AGAIN. I GOT THE JOB! So now I have to find a new apartment in Atlanta. That’s kind of going horribly because there’s a service that finds places and will check for specials and the guy basically wasted my day by not sending that until 4:50 today…place I’m really interested in of course closed their office at 5. I need to move hopefully in 17 days otherwise I’m going to have such a time crunch if I have to wait until the next weekend. Ugh.

Anyway! I’m trying to drink more stuff while I also work on getting rid of stuff. I am going to be doing the whole garage sale-esque thing and I’ve started working on it but it’s a bit time consuming.

I even bought a new tumbler at work today for like $7.70 so that maybe I will have more. Which I am going to work on while I move…my friend said wine makes you more productive though, ha.

So I bought the set of 6 oz of this tea, plus a nice stoneware tumbler and a tin back when it was on clearance. I’m pretty sure I had this tea before from someone, and I liked it so I figured it made sense iced. And it was good…I sweetened it just a bit and sucked it down.

I always thought the cherry might make this taste like medicine but it’s just refreshing. It turns hibiscus pink but it’s not too tart, or maybe making the decision to sweeten right away took away from that.

Just definitely a good tea to have iced since it’s suddenly decided to be summer again here. More on the fruit side than the green tea side but of course it is Teavana.

helloooooooooooo

Long time no post, I haven’t really been drinking tea much anyway beyond typical iced tea.

Graduated, still at Starbucks, in this horrible limbo of hoping I get a real job in the next 2 weeks because my lease is up 9/30 and I may have to go back to my parents’. So be on the lookout for a lot of tea going up for sale because if I have to go back there, I am going to have to seriously, seriously downsize my stash.

Anyway I had to run to mall-bucks to ask for more hours next week (I was given 16 at my store. THAT’S IT. Now I’m up to 27 after that visit.) and my manager told me about Teavana’s new chais so I decided to grab a cup of the two mixed.

One is a caramel chai, rooibos based, the other is a chocolate chai, Assam/Kenyan black based. They are really just called Caramel Chai and Chocolate Chai.

I had them mixed with just a little sugar in hopes that would coax out the chocolate and caramel flavors. It did not. While the tea was good as hot as I could drink it, as it cooled the cinnamon got so bad to the point it was all I could taste and it numbed my tongue with each sip.

Both of them are pretty strong offenders with a high amount of cinnamon, which is really disappointing. I already dislike Maharaja Chai because it’s overpowering with the cinnamon and it seems they took these same steps with their new chais. The caramel I think has more potential than the chocolate so I’m going to try that one again by itself.

When I walked in to Teavana yesterday one of the associates was trying this with Youthberry which might be a good way to go.

By itself, it’s too weird. It’s so subtle and just straight up SWEET. It’s kind of like drinking a rice krispies treat.

The tea is mostly made up of apple pieces and other fruit and I’m not sure really what is supposed to be macaron about this. but I figured I would mix it with some other floral/fruity teas to be sort of like the Dammann Freres macaron teas.

So next I tried it with that strawberry champagne rose or whatever they’re calling it now, which was slightly better. It really had the color of rose, but it was still too light and too sweet. I did a 50/50 mix so maybe I’ll go heavier on the other tea next time.

It’s certainly interesting, maybe it’s better cold, given its ingredients? I’m not much of a fan of fruit teas like this hot.

I was at the mall to go to the Apple Store since my phone is a jerk. I had like 20 min to spare so I went over to Teavana to get a cup of tea and surprise! new teas! The sales associates were trying to figure out what to do with the weird marshmallow one, and this sounded good so I smelled it…if you just go by smelling it, that’s not the way to go. Because it smells SO strongly of grapefruit.

I decided to get a cup of it iced to go drink while waiting for my appointment, just slightly sweetened. It was really good, almost like a fruit punch with a little green tea instead. The strawberry and orange were stronger than grapefruit…I drank it way too fast and ended up having to get some for home.

I didn’t even know it said it’s recommended iced. Given it turns hibiscus pink, that’s obviously the first ingredient so yeah. But it’s surprisingly not that tart. I did sweeten it but just a little.

I’m surprised this is so poorly rated. I thought it tasted fine but it was hard to actually be able to taste the ingredients. The green tea was pretty weak itself, but I could taste mango and papaya.

I decided to have it iced though, maybe that helps. There was just something about how it smelled that made me think it was better to ice it. And I sure as hell didn’t steep it for 5 minutes and certainly not at 200 degrees, jeez DavidsTea…it’s green tea.

I am sure I probably used the green tea setting on my kettle which is 175 and steeped it two minutes. I think instead with the rest of it I will use more tea. It just seemed really weak but apparently the only alternative is bitterness. Finicky tea!

And finally to the last tea of Christmas (let me add I still have my Christmas tree up, oops.).

This was really good, it seemed a bit like bai mu dan and silver needle had a baby and it was this tea. Definitely had typical notes of hay witha bit of honey and some nuttiness. Since there’s so much in the bag I can’t wait to have it again.