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Below are the 15 most recent journal entries recorded in
Tea Traders' Blurty:
- Stash Teas Decaf Vanilla Nut Creme
( My review :/ ) - Stash Teas Decaf Creme Caramel
( My review :) ) - "T" Mango Rooibos
( My Review :/ )
Please take the above reviews with a grain of salt or teaspoon of sugar, whichever you prefer. I'm no tea expert, and everyone has different tastes. If anyone else has tried these teas and would like to share their experiences, please feel free.
Advice for the tasty consumption of these teas would also be appreciated, especially for the roobios tea... I have the better part of a tin waiting for my consumption.
| Friday, November 21st, 2003 | |
| 2:28 pm [miasaintjohn] |
This is a great community! Who knew so many others share my love for tea! I'm real happy to have found this place, I love all of your posts. I usually only drink packaged teas, but I hope to try every kind of tea and learn more about it. All I know is I love how it makes me feel. My favorites are probably green tea, Earl Grey, and different bedtime blends. Current Mood: good |
| Saturday, September 20th, 2003 | |
| 7:10 pm [kirameku] |
hehe! ♥ hi I just joined this community b/c it looks interesting..and though I might not have alot to say I really want to watch this community. So hello, everyone it is nice meeting you. |
| Saturday, August 23rd, 2003 | |
| 1:12 pm [killermuffin] |
Making Iced Tea My mother in law puts water in a bowl, tosses in six bags of lipton, boils for 10 minutes, pours in a recycled gallon sized pickle jar, adds water, leaves on counter. This is my tea-making roots. Pity me. I've learned to make a more delicate suntea. I use purified water, to start with. I also use a glass container that's held only tea. Once it's been touched by koolaid, it's never used for tea again. The StudMuffin learned that the hard way. Then I use only four bags of tetley (superior to lipton in my opinion) and steep it in the sunlight for less than a hour (depending out ambient temperature and angle of the sun. Bitter? Never. No longer do I need a cup of sugar to kill the bite of overbrewed acid. Lately, however, I've been trying something new. I have all of these completely delicious loose-leafed teas that a fabulous friend of mine purchased for me. The problem has been how to steep them without making bags for them. I tried steeping a gallon's worth of loose leaf in one part water and then mixing with three parts water. It was too bitter, too not so good. I like my tea to have a delicate taste that makes the palatte savor and enjoy rather than a strong overpowering taste that makes me want to coat my tongue in plastic wrap to cut down on the flavor. Last night, I wanted a glass of cold tea to the point of screaming like a shrew if I didn't get one. I didn't have any regular tea made and the prospect of boiling tea bags turned my stomach. So, I made a single serving of my looseleaf tea, stuck it in the fridge, and then drank it when it was cold. Perfect! It was absolutely delicious! Now, I have this whole admittedly overly done new ritual where I make a gallon of tea by brewing it one serving at a time. Actually, it's not quite a serving at a time. My pot makes 16 ounces a shot so it only takes four turns around the microwave to do it. I have a very nice vanilla black tea with a generous 1/3 cup of sugar mixed in cooling its heels in my fridge at the moment. I'll keep you updated as events progress. I'm really excited about this. Current Mood: pleased |
| Saturday, June 14th, 2003 | |
| 10:57 pm [killermuffin] |
Almond Tea I just picked up the barbeque summer magazine from Southern Living today and was pleasantly surprised by the beverage recipes. You just don't see that anymore. They had one in there that just sounded incredibly interesting so I had to try it out. I am so in love with this recipe. It's sweet, which I like, but it still has a touch of a bite. It's the season of iced teas, these days, and while sweet tea is a solid foundation beverage, who doesn't like variety? Almond Tea Makes 2 quarts 2 cups sugar 3 regular lipton tea bags of 2 family sized 6 cups water, divided (use bottled or filtered) 1 cup lemon juice 2 tablespoons vanilla extract 2 teaspoons almond extract Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, add tea bags. Boil for 1 minute, turn off heat, cover and steep for 10 minutes. Add sugar and bring to a boil again, stirring constantly. Boil for 2 minutes (be careful it will boil over). Turn off heat, add lemon juice, vanilla, and almond. Let cool. Pour syrup into a large pitcher, stir in remaining 4 cups of water. Serve over ice. |
| Wednesday, May 7th, 2003 | |
| 12:16 am [twotone] |
Tea Geek vs. Tea Snob, Round 1 I consider myself to be more of a Tea Geek than a Tea Snob. I get giddy when I find a new or untested flavor of tea. I'll happily plunk down 4 to 7 dollars "just to find out what it tastes like"... and on more than one occasion, I've regretted buying something that sounded "intriguing" or "fun". My mom, on the other hand, looks down on all of my tea experimentation. Any Green Tea that doesn't come from Japan isn't *real* green tea, obviously... whether it comes from a tin or a teabag, it's considered to be unworthy of the name "green tea", apparently. Likewise, I have never seen her buy any blend of tea OTHER than Twinings Earl Grey or Red Rose. She frequently complains that *any* tea that I brew "stinks" or has a "sickening scent". Clearly, teatime at our household is not a happy affair. In April, my mother and I went to Japan to report my impending While visiting my mother's cousin, we were offered tea. Mom immediately started to launch into some Japanese-style kvetching about me and my disgusting teas, when our hostess said that she had some mango-flavored tea that her daughter had brought from Malaysia. ... Hee. As our hostess insisted that mom try some of the mango-tea, mom grudgingly did so, and admitted that it was, in fact, good. Meanwhile, our host and his daughter partook of "ro-i-bo-su". ... ROOIBOS! :D I immediately (geekily) started discussing the health benefits of Rooibos with my second-cousin. She enthusiastically recommended chilling it, which was neat because I'd been having it scalding hot and over-brewed. Score one for the Tea Geek. (I still haven't tried the chilled Rooibos, though. So if anyone has other suggestions, like sweetener or amount of water-to-leaf or anything, I'd appreciate it muchly.) Current Mood: amused |
| Wednesday, April 2nd, 2003 | |
| 10:59 pm [twotone] |
Adventures in Tea-Testing I have a very bad habit of buying new and untested foodstuffs on the basis of "hey, I haven't tried this before, I wonder what it's like?" This has resulted in me shuddering through a box of pop-rocks encrusted chocolate kisses, or a bag of sweet chili sour cream kettle-cooked potato chips and, on one memorable occasion, a bag of popcorn that seemed to contain chili powder, barbeque flavoring, and copious amounts of vinegar. I do the same thing with teas, whenever I have more than $20 on hand. The results can be... interesting, and result in lengthy complaints from my family who have to put up with the resulting "stink". (Note: my family has a long tradition of only buying Twinings Earl Grey. A recent foray into the world of Red Rose Orange Pekoe was considered extravagant and wild. Also, since my parents are fairly traditional Japanese folks, the concept of green tea flavored with anything other than jasmine or lotus flower is "just WEIRD".) Recent complaint-mongering purchases have included: Current Mood: thirsty |
| Sunday, March 30th, 2003 | |
| 1:52 pm [thorne] |
hello. i saw this community and immediately had to join. i have not explored the world of tea to the fullest amount to call myself an addict [yet] but i will reach my goal at some point. i have a deep love for spice tea and traditional green tea. if there are any suggestions, i'd love some. and also, how exactly does one define a tea addict? any ideas? ;] |
| Wednesday, March 26th, 2003 | |
| 12:48 am [killermuffin] |
Hello! I'm Muffie! I'm a recent convert to the tea world. I did, of course, do the usual iced Lipton for most of my life when I felt guilty about drinking way too much Mountain Dew. I'm a reformed Dew-a-holic. That stuff is evil. Once I decided to not only kick the caffeine habit, but the soda habit, I had to find something to drink. Coffee is absolutely disgusting. Koolaid is vile. Water tastes funny. That left tea. So I hike my happy backside right on down to the grocery store and bought some tea because, well, Lipton only really tastes good in it natural state. That is, suntea. I wanted something that would please my senses, not just hydrate my body. I started with Lipton's Apple Cinnamon tea and I really liked it. Raspberry wasn't too bad. When I ran out, I got a mixed bag of flavored teas from Celestial Seasonings. I liked those even better. They were smoother than Lipton. My friend around here is pretty evil and I love her for it. She sent me a package (I thought it would be a pen or something) of teas and a tea pot from Adagio.com. It got here yesterday. I've had three different teas from it. A green called Casablanca Twist, which is a moroccan mint base with a bit of darjeeling and peppermint. Darjeeling Rhapsody 22 is a second-flush darjeeling (apparently that means summer tea). The last has been Vanilla, a black China tea with vanilla beans in it. I've been having trouble keeping that one from tasting bitter, if I can do that, I think it will taste pretty good. I like vanilla. I really liked the Casablanca Twist, it was so smooth and delicate for a mint tea. I don't know about the darjeeling, I had to leave it almost as soon as I made it, so I'll try that again later. At any rate, I'm now a confirmed tea addict. Worse, I'm a confirmed expensive tea addict. I live in backwater hick hell so it's going to be 'Net purchased tea for me from now on. |
| Sunday, March 23rd, 2003 | |
| 5:15 pm [miaow] |
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| 2:03 pm [miaow] |
Chamomile Flowers At a Thai restaurant I ate at, they brought me a menu of herbal teas at the end of my meal. I'm not a big fan of herbals, but I chose the chamomile because I was going home afterwards and wanted to relax. They brought me a coffee press filled with water and chamomile flowers. After it steeped, I pressed the plunger down and poured the tea into my cup. It was wonderful! Yards above the bagged chamomile I'd tried before. I looked around the web last night and found that MotherNature.com sold bags of chamomile flowers - 1 lb. for $15. When it arrives, I'm going to make myself fresh chamomile tea. Has anyone made chamomile tea like this? Any suggestions/ideas/warnings? |
| 3:27 am [miaow] |
What a great community!! I just found this community today, and what a great idea it is! I started drinking tea a few years ago. I liked the green tea that I was served at Asian restaurants, so I went looking for some. I ended up becoming enamored with Lipton's green tea with jasmine in a bag. For a year, I drank a cup of that every day. One day I received an email coupon for Adagio. They sell mostly looseleaf teas. My experience with looseleaf teas at that point was that they were messy, time-consuming to prepare, and I always ended up with more tea leaves in my cup than I liked. I bought the Aria Teapot, along with several samples of green teas. The prices are very fair, and the tea is excellent. But what really converted me to looseleaf was the Teapot. It's easy to use, easy to clean, and no leaves end up in the cup. It's wonderful! My favorite Adagio green teas are the mandarin, the citron, the sencha premier, and the casablance twist (which is the best mint tea I've ever had). They used to sell a wonderful Jasmine tea, but discontinued it for some reason. They have tea forums (which I've never really looked at, so I don't know if they're any good or not), a wide variety of all types of tea, lots of teaware, and a newsletter, along with excellent information and instructions on all the tea they carry. My only real disappointment with Adagio was their Tea of the Month club. I signed up for a year, thinking I'd be receiving a new tea once a month. Instead, they ship you two new teas every two months, which to me isn't as fun as getting a new package in the mail every month. It's a small thing, but it bugged me. When Adagio stopped carrying jasmine tea (my favorite), I went looking for a new supplier and found TenRen.com, a tea importer based in San Francisco. They sell 6 grades of jasmine teas - from 5th grade all the way up to super fine. As I understand it, the grading of the jasmine tea is determined by 1) the quality of the green tea the they use, and 2) the number of times the tea is "scented". To make jasmine tea, the tea leaves are laid out and fresh jasmine flowers are placed over them all night long. The flowers open and leave their "scent" on the tea. The more times the process is repeated, the more jasmine "scent" the tea contains, and the higher the grade. From Tenren, I bought ginseng candy (which really packs a punch!), some wasabi-covered peanuts, and a bag of the super-fine jasmine tea. The tea was more expensive than the jasmine tea I bought from Adagio, but a whole lot better. I like black teas, especially English Breakfast and orange pekoe. However, my tea of choice is green. I drink a mug nearly every day, usually around midday. I like my tea sweetened, but will drink in unsweetened if there's no sugar handy. A quick question.. a couple weeks ago, I was in Thailand at a health & wellness resort where they plied me with pitchers of lemongrass tea. Does anyone know anything about lemongrass tea? Is it a leaf-bsed tea, or herbal, or something else? Has anyone ever had any? Thanks for reading my babble, and compliments on the great community! |
| Sunday, March 9th, 2003 | |
| 9:46 pm [velvetdeer] |
hello i just discovered this community, and was very excited to discover that there shall be a lovely place to share tea goodness here :) recommendations and trades sound like good fun. i am most certainly a tea addict... 3-4 cups a day usually. (i dislike coffee generally) currently my teas of choice are 'just us' brand organic peppermint tea... and a blend of maple black tea. :) i like mostly all kinds, except herbals teas that are really really fruity, and straight ginseng tea. blah. anyways... i look forward to reading all your posts and perhaps sharing tea. :) ~zhanna Current Mood: mellow Current Music: 'chiron'-- four tet |
| Saturday, March 8th, 2003 | |
| 10:12 pm [twotone] |
Celestial Seasonings Golden Honey Darjeeling This is the second or third box I've bought of this stuff since it's been released, but only *now* have I noticed that the Golden Honey Darjeeling put out by Celestial Seasonings has chamomile flowers in it. :p That would explain the faintly herbal aftertaste. Now I'm going to have to find some "real" Darjeeling so I can memorize what it's supposed to taste like. Not that the CS version is bad, as such... it's just that I feel silly not being able to recognize Darjeeling when it's supposed to be "the champagne of teas". Current Mood: silly |
| Sunday, March 2nd, 2003 | |
| 7:16 pm [poesie] |
Hi... I'm Celia. Being half English, I like Tea. My favorite type of tea at the moment is Earl Grey. I quite like Caramel and Vanilla Tea as well. Current Mood: happy |
| Saturday, March 1st, 2003 | |
| 12:39 am [twotone] |
Introduction I spent some time coming up with a slick introductory post, but I think Blurty's last server hiccup ate it. :( Condensed version: I started this community for a number of reasons: - so that tea drinkers could find a place to congregate and share reviews of teas/online tea stores - so that tea drinkers could easily recognize each other via their user info pages. Um, assuming that they don't have "tea" listed as an interest. I'm hoping that I can also post tea-related recipes in this community as well. Lurkers and contributors are welcomed... among other things, it'll make me feel like less of an EA abuser. Current Mood: silly |