The Tea Scoop

Teavana Discontinues the Good Stuff

On my recent visit to Teavana, I took a look at their latest offerings.  I picked up two teas: My Morning Mate and Rooibos Chai (okay, they're herbal infusions).  My Morning Mate is an update of Matevana, and it's a nice chocolaty caffeine kick on mornings when we have a little bit of trouble getting started.  The Rooibos Chai is for the opposite issue: having a tasty cuppa late in the evening.  I had wanted some plain rooibos, but they had discontinued that long ago. When I took a look at the menu, I was amazed to see so few unscented teas at all. 

Out of the 107 teas currently offered (many soon to be discontinued), only 21 are unscented.  They no longer offer unscented rooibos or yerba mate, and of the many herbal blends, peppermint is the only simple infusion.  Although I appreciate scented teas and drink them often, I feel that many of Teavana's flavors overwhelm the taste of the tea itself.  I've run into this with other companies as well, it just struck me harder to be standing in front of a wall of teas with names like Tiramisu Treviso and Youthberry.  Perhaps I'm being crabby, but Peachberry Jasmine Sutra does not appeal.  It sounds like the flavors would conflict too much.

Now, although I criticize Teavana, I do like what they have done for the world of tea.  They have brought loose leaf tea to folks who otherwise would never have had a chance to try it, and they try to educate their customers. Because they are so vital in expanding the tea drinking population, I feel that they should be held to a high standard in some ways, and that includes selling tea that allows customers to actually taste the tea.  Perhaps in our sugar-laden society, customers aren't buying three different types of Darjeeling, so maybe it isn't Teavana's fault.  

I just wish Teavana would focus on selling the taste of tea sometimes, instead of selling it as a health drink with all kinds of hyped up flavors.  Sometimes, keeping it simple is what makes tea so special. What do you think? 

Teavana Revisited

It's hard to believe how long I've had this blog, but a little over three years ago, I wrote about shopping at Teavana. I still receive comments on that entry, because everyone's experience at Teavana is a little bit differently.  I don't shop there too often any more, not necessarily because of sales tactics, but because I've found so many other sources of good tea.  Recently, however, I did pay a visit. I'm on Teavana's email list, and I saw that they had come out with a new gravity tea maker. 

I've been using Adagio's Ingenuitea for a couple of years now, and although I've gotten good use out of it, it has one big fault.  Frequently the removable strainer pops out when I am pouring in the hot water.  Adagio was kind enough to send me a replacement, as well as many replacement strainers, but the problem remained.  I liked that it was removable, but figured I would have the same problem with Teavana's removable version, since they are both plastic.  Teavana's newest Perfect Tea Maker has a removable stainless steel strainer.  

I just used the Tea Maker for the first time, for "My Morning Mate," which is a mate infusion instead of tea (I needed an afternoon pick-me-up).  It worked great!  Now, it's only the first time, so we'll have to see if it stands the test of time. I do like that it comes with a coaster to catch drips, but then again, so did the old model. I noticed that the store used the new model to steep my cup of Tiramisu Treviso rooibos (a little sweet, but not too bad). I'll keep you posted on how it goes!  

  

Fight Fire With Fire: Mayan Chocolate Truffle from Mighty Leaf

As I have mentioned before, many of the major tea retailers source their tea from the same wholesalers.  So occasionally, you will stumble across a scented tea that seems like it was just like another one you tried from another company.  But really, this is to your advantage, as you get to shop around for price and for a company you enjoy shopping from. 

My guess is that Mayan Chocolate Truffle from Mighty Leaf and Azteca Fire from Teavana are one and the same. However, Mighty Leaf charges $8.95 for four ounces, while Teavana charges $6 for only two ounces. Since I prefer to support Mighty Leaf in any case, it's an all around good deal.  

And now for the tea itself.

I'm not usually an herbal tisane person, and you may have noticed how picky I can be about chocolate teas. But this is one of the first chocolate teas that I enjoyed, and it was love at first sip.  I love the spiciness of the chili balanced with the sweetness of the chocolate and subtle flavor of strawberries. I'm a bit of a chocoholic to begin with, and spicy chocolate just sends me over the edge.  Knowing that I had this tea in my cabinet, waiting for a review, I couldn't pass up a bar of chocolate at Wegman's. Not just any bar of chocolate. A 55% cacao dark chocolate with Mexican ancho and chipotle chilies and ceylon cinnamon.  Just reading the box made me think of the movie Chocolat and the delicious hot chocolate that Juliette Binoche whips up for her customers. This particular bar is called "Red Fire Bar" from Vosges Haute Chocolat. It even comes with directions for "how to enjoy an exotic candy bar."  

So here comes The Tea Scoop's first ever Chocolate and Tea Tasting.  

Let's start with the chocolate while my tea cools to slightly less than scalding. 

I feel a little like Charlie Bucket pulling the candy bar out of the wrapper, only the golden ticket for me is the chocolate itself. Mmm there is just nothing like the smell of dark chocolate in the morning. The label tells me to look for a dark glossy shine to indicate good temper, which this chocolate definitely has, with just the slightest little flecks of chili. 

You can't tell by reading this, but I just took a very long pause, closing my eyes and savoring the melting chocolate on my tongue. The chocolate is cool and smooth, and then just the slightest bit of heat plays across, lingering softly.  I know, I know, I start writing about chocolate and it turns into a romance novel. And that was just the first bite.  

Now for the tea. 

The liquor is a deep gold with the scent of chocolate and chili wafting above.  Like wine, slurping the tea across the tastebuds brings out more subtle nuances of flavor, bringing the strawberry slightly more to the front. Sometimes I add a little milk and sugar for a Mexican hot chocolate type treat, but with the dark chocolate on the side, I am content to drink this as is. When paired with the chocolate bar, the chili plays out more than when the tea plays by itself. 

Please excuse me while I close my eyes, submerge myself in visions of chocolate and Johnny Depp as a gypsy. 

Sweet Oolong Revolution from Teavana

We had a recent run of cool, fall-like days here in Northern Virginia,  but now it appears that Summer has returned to finish out her term. Until Fall is allowed to take her place, I will be left craving sweaters, pumpkins, and steaming mugs of hot tea to warm chilled hands. Meanwhile, I'm satisfying my fall pumpkin cravings a little early with Sweet Oolong Revolution from Teavana. This oolong is blended with pumpkin, cloves, papaya, and cardamom. 

The papaya definitely adds something a little different to what would otherwise be a fairly ordinary spiced tea, although you see fewer spiced oolongs than spiced black teas.  But the smell of papaya filled the room as I waited for the tea to cool enough to drink, like a last whiff of summer before the crispness of autumn. Papaya is also the dominant flavor, bringing out the peachiness of the oolong, for a fruity first taste.  If you slurp the tea, allowing air to flow over the tea in your mouth, the flavors of cloves and cardamom become more prominent, while the pumpkin remains a very subtle background flavor.  

While tasty, I feel that too many flavors may be competing in this tea so that no single flavor really gets to shine.  The overall effect is that of walking into a Yankee Candle shop: it smells really good but you don't have much of an idea of what you are smelling because so many conflicting scents are mixing together. 

Haute Chocolate from Teavana

If you walk into Teavana and order a hot chocolate, most likely you are going to be disappointed. But if you order this drink without a fancy French accent, it sounds pretty much the same. Tastewise? Something completely different.  Teavana's Azteca Fire, while spicy, definitely has the sweetness of chocolate. But this particular rooibos is a much fuller bodied blend and not too much sweetness. Like I said, this is no substitute for hot chocolate. Please don't stop reading, because this tea is so much more. Full-bodied, spicy, rich. Utterly moreish. 

The great thing about rooibos is that it blends with anything.  In this case, rooibos is blended with chicory, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and cacao. The hearty flavor of the tea comes from the chicory which has been used as a coffee substitute when coffee was unavailable or too expensive. The spiciness from the ginger and cinnamon kept me sipping and lingered well after the tea was gone. 

This is a great after dinner tea, especially as a replacement for caffeinated coffee.  

Darjeeling Tasting

Teavana carries three types of Darjeelings: Makaibari, Puttabong, and Margaret's Hope. These names distinguish the various estates on which the tea is grown, and all three are fairly well-known estates. The Makaibari garden in particular is famous for its organic tea. It is important to note that not only are there many Darjeeling estates, each estate puts out several flushes. At Teavana, the Makaibari and Margaret's Hope are second flushes, while the Puttabong is a first flush. The first flush is the highest quality produced by a garden, the first leaves harvested in the spring.

Darjeeling Makaibari: (Organic)
The leaves were small, rolled, and dark. When steeped, the liquor was a terracotta color, and the leaves opened wide, and were mostly whole leaves. The taste was very light, and slightly sweet.

Darjeeling Margaret's Hope:
The leaves were very similar to the Makaibari, but the liquor came out as a much deeper reddish brown. This one was a little more full-bodied, and a little nutty, much more like a traditional black tea than the other two.

Darjeeling Puttabong:
As the "champagne" of teas, I must say I expected more, but it might be a matter of personal taste. These leaves are much greener, and bigger, and the liquor was a golden color much closer to a green tea or an oolong than to a black tea. It was even lighter than the Makaibari in terms of taste, and was slightly floral. Despite it's lightness, it wasn't as grassy as a green tea, but did have some similarity to an oolong.

The Margaret's Hope, from one of the most famous gardens, was my favorite, most likely because of my preference of black teas over anything else rather than quality. I was surprised to find such a different between the different Darjeelings, although true experts can distinguish even more. The best tasters can tell not only the garden, but also the elevation, when it was picked and what the weather was like.

Lavender Dreams

This afternoon being rather snowy and dismal, I thought a nice cup of tea would do it, so I meandered over to the local Teavana to have a cuppa. They recently put out quite a few new varieties, one of which I was eager to try: Lavender Dreams, which is a lavender scented white tea.

I love the scent of lavender, and my only experience with it in tea was with Revolution Tea Company's Earl Grey Lavender

In that case, the scent is light enough that it enhances, rather than overpowers the black tea.

Perhaps it is just that white tea is too subtle a flavor in the first place, but the lavender flavor in Teavana's Lavender Dreams is absolutely overwhelming. It smells amazing, but taking a sip, I rather felt as though I was drinking lotion or soap, as the tea flavor was nowhere to be found. The description also includes candied violets as an ingredient, but I was completely unaware of those as I sipped.

Taking a second sip, I found it not at all improved from my first impression. I kept giving the tea another chance, and it kept disappointing me, for all my eager waiting.

Price? $15.00 per two ounces. Not worth it.