Topic: Michi's Tea House

[Nadir]

I found a site, Teapigs, that seems to offer a range of tea like your TeaCo, which makes me effing excited. I'm going to explore them most rabidly.

[Jag]

Oh, Eden, that's a wonderful find. Their Smart Tea Set with the candle warmer is so...sexy!

*makes grabby hands*

[Jag]

Blueberry Cheesecake Green Tea

Ingredients: Dried blueberries, Green Tea Leaves, Cheesecake Flavoring

I got a sample pack of this tea a few months ago and it got buried in my tea bowl (yes, I have a big bowl of tea). I found it while I was digging around in the bowl for something to drink a few nights ago. I saw the little, gold, TeaCo sample pack sitting near the bottom and decided it was high time I brewed some of it.

Upon opening the bag the first thing anyone should notice is the smell of blueberries. If you pick through the leaves you will find whole, dried blueberries. There are plenty of advantages and disadvantages to dried fruit. When it comes to storage or travel, dried fruit is the better way to go. It's easier to carry around with you in a baggie or container without having to worry about it spoiling or going bad. A disadvantage, and a big one, lies with the nutritional values of dried fruit. The heat involved in drying out fruit decreases some heat sensitive vitamins...such as Vitamin C. What it loses in vitamin C, it retains in being high fiber. Dried blueberries, specifically, are approximately four times higher in antioxidants than their fresh counterparts.

Now, since we're not going to be actually eating these blueberries, the question might be is the goodness in these dried blueberries released into tea? Yes and no. Tea will never have all the benefits that eating a handful of dried fruit or fresh fruit will. Many of the vitamins, minerals, etc are put into the tea when you brew it.

For this tea specifically, there are no secondary players in this tea. It's all about the blueberries. Blueberries are wonderful. The little dark-blue balls of joy. Seriously, they are. The Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry has linked wild blueberry juice in helping with the symptoms of depression in adults. There is little these berries can't do. From being linked with helping depression to Alzheimer's disease to urinary tract infections. It's just fantastic what the things grown in nature can do.

This tea is just everything good about blueberries. It's flavorful and it smells like sticking your nose into a blueberry bush. From the moment you open the sample bag/canister to the last drop of tea, it's all blueberry. I only put two dried blueberries into my tea ball and that seems like more than enough. It blends so nicely with the green tea. There is no bitterness or dry mouth feeling like you get with most green tea. Even after steeping it for 5 minutes (which average is 3-4), it's not bitter at all.

Now, this tea is called Blueberry Cheesecake Green Tea, not Blueberry Green Tea. So where is the cheesecake?! Unfortunately, as much as I hate to put down a tea that tastes so good, there is very little that is 'cheesecake' about this drink. There is a hint of something sweet that is obviously not blueberry that runs over your tongue and it does have that sweet smell of cheesecake behind the berry. It's a creamy flavor and smell that is definitely not blueberry. I really think they could have done better with the cheesecake flavor. Maybe add some cream bits like they do in the Orange Cream tea. Or even find a way to put actual cheesecake bits into it (I'm pretty sure it can be done these days!) to add a more cheesecake flavor to it.

This will never replace real blueberry cheesecake and I would never want it to. It's a wonderful blueberry tea that happens to have a sweetness to it. Even the color is nothing much to write about. It's a green tea. It's good, flavorful, and light. Very nice for an after meal drink, maybe lunch or breakfast. While I don't plan on buying a canister of this one, I do recommend it to people that like blueberries, green tea, and lighter teas.

This is another one of these teas that you're not likely to find on your store shelf, but here are some nice alternatives:

Republic of Tea Blueberry Tea
Bigelow Green Tea with Blueberry
Celestial Seasonings Green Tea Blueberry Breeze

If you want this exact tea, you can purchase it from TeaCo: TeaCo's Blueberry Cheesecake Green Tea.

[crystaltears]

I love this blog. Every entry. This last one has me intrigued. Blueberry Cheesecake Green Tea will go on my list of things to try if ever presented the opportunity.

[Jag]

Strawberry Daquiri Green Tea

Ingredients: Strawberries Pieces, Green Tea Leaves, Natural Flavorings

Okay, not even going to mess around with the benefits of green tea or strawberries for this one. There really is no point to it in my opinion. There are better teas to go to than this one.

For the first time, I'm highly disappointed in a TeaCo tea. Normally I'm like their unofficial spokes woman. They are a wonderful company that takes time, research, and care into crafting their teas. Not just flavorful teas, but beautiful ones with bits of fruit and perfectly green dried leaves and the most aromatic scents I've ever had the pleasure of partaking in a tea.

Sadly, this tea hit none of those buttons with me. It was bland, plain, and I'm considering tossing the lot of it out. Thankfully, I didn't spend any money on this one as it was one of my free sample packs. I'd be very upset with myself if I had spent a penny on it.

Where to start, where to start...oh, I know, the dry tea itself. Normally when you open a canister or bag of TeaCo tea you see lots of nice little curled leaves. Instead of that pretty sight, I see a bunch of twigs. Now there is nothing wrong with tea twigs, but they simply aren't the best part of the plant to use, nor are they very attractive. Instead of a dried green color, they are more brown and it's very unappealing. The small sample bag really doesn't let you see this.

It would have been a saving point with the strawberry pieces to put off those ugly twigs, but there was like one strawberry bit in the whole 10oz package. I had to dig to the bottom to fish it out just so I could toss it in the tea ball with my sticks.

At this point I proceeded with standard tea making procedures. Also known as 'drop the ball of twigs and my one, half a centimeter strawberry bit into hot water and steep for 3-4 minutes in my tea pot'. Now, whenever I make a pot of tea as opposed to a cup, I always make two tea balls with 1 tablespoon of leaves in each ball. One would think this would be enough flavor, but no! After 3 minutes my tea water still looked like plain, clear water. So I swished the balls around a bit and put the lid back on for another 3 minutes. Pouring a cup I noticed the water is still hot-warm, but still very clear. Not the color you expect from a green tea. No pretty yellowish color or anything.

I know this is disgusting, but it's the best way to describe the color...it looks like someone who was very well hydrated emptied their bladder into my cup. That very, very pale color and the whole time I'm wondering why I can't smell anything. I don't smell the green tea or the strawberries. So not only does it look like piss water, it doesn't even smell like strawberries!

The taste was like drinking really iron-filled tap water. If you've ever tasted really bad tap water, then you know what I'm talking about. I was raised in a house with that kind of water and I have no desire to ever taste it again in my life. So I did what any good woman should do when they get something bad tasting in their mouth when they'd been expecting it to be good...I spit.

I will admit that this is not the first time I've had this specific tea, but I wasn't exactly in a good state of mind to really enjoy the tea that first time. I'm not sure how I managed to choke this down last time. No matter what the reason, I'm not drinking it again.

Sorry, TeaCo, but you all need to take this one back to your kitchen and do something, anything, to fix it. I'm so disappointed in it that I didn't even waste my photobucket space for pictures and I'm not linking it to your site.

[Jag]

Went to TeaCo yesterday with my best friend. I got a 12oz, iced Lemongrass and bought two things...One is a canister of Magnolia Oolong and the other are these neat little filters. They slip onto a stick (that came with them) and you put the leaves into it. Then you use the stick to hook it on the cup and slowly pour the water through it. Once it's brewed, you just lift the stick and slide the filter onto either a napkin or into the trash. You can get about 3 uses out of a filter (using it with the same tea each time) if you don't tear it.

I plan on using these only for my Rooibos since that stuff seems to make it through even my mesh tea ball. The Lemongrass, by the way, was effing awesome. ^_^ My friend got herself a sample pack of Gunpowder Tea. I can't wait to try it.

[crystaltears]

Went to TeaCo yesterday with my best friend. I got a 12oz, iced Lemongrass and bought two things...One is a canister of Magnolia Oolong and the other are these neat little filters. They slip onto a stick (that came with them) and you put the leaves into it. Then you use the stick to hook it on the cup and slowly pour the water through it. Once it's brewed, you just lift the stick and slide the filter onto either a napkin or into the trash. You can get about 3 uses out of a filter (using it with the same tea each time) if you don't tear it.

Do you by chance have a picture of the... filters (one of your own or one you could link to)? I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around what they would look like and it's got me curious now.

[Jag]

TeaCo doesn't have them on their site, but here they are:


Mini-minit Coffee/Tea Filters

[Izzie Aditi]

Love the blog Michi, thanks for pointing me to it!

So many teas to try..so little time..

[Jag]

Thanks, Izzie. ^__^

Also, I was befriended by a tea maker in Utah a while ago and I've been itching to get some samples from her. Since I can't go to her store like I can TeaCo, I just want to get samples instead of whole canisters to start with. I can only get 3 for now, but I'm having a hard time choosing which teas to get, so I want everyone's opinions! Here are the options:

Cherry Chocolate Marshmallow Black Tea
Orange Marzipan Rooibos
Raspberry Jasmine Green Tea
Strawberry Lemonade Green Tea
Hojicha La Creme Green Tea
Cherry Colada Green Tea

So, which three would you all like to see me write about? They all just look so good and I can't decide on my own! Help!

[Silverfyre]

First off, I have been reading this all morning and I love it.  Thank you so much for posting what you post, Michi.

I am inclined to say the Orange Marzipan Rooibos, Cherry Chocolate Marshmallow Black Tea, and the Hojicha La Creme Green Tea for your samplers.

[Izzie Aditi]

Only..3? Ugh, decisions, decisions..

I would be interested in reading about the Cherry Chocolate Marshmallow Black Tea, the Strawberry Lemonade and the Hojicha La Creme Green Tea

[Ryven]

This is too cute not to necro this thread back.  It's a Fred & Friends creation.