RiverTea

This smells nice and fruity dry and lightly floral with a strong black tea base as it brews. I’ve never had a lychee tea before, but I love the fruit. I still can’t get over RiverTea’s packaging—clear expiration dates! Thank you so much!

This is definitely a floral lychee flavor. It reminds me of roses a little bit, but it’s also identifiable as the fruit. It has a juiciness to it that keeps it from being too floral. The base is there but doesn’t detract from the flavor, so it feels clean to me in the same way most breakfast teas do.

sample sipdown! I know Roswell Strange will be happy that someone else is joining her tasting notes on this one. The other half of this sample will be off to Cavocorax as well so that she can try it out.

I have to say that on the whole i am really enjoying River Teas. I think they have a good thing going here, and their service and packaging are excellent. So far, their teas are falling on the upper average side for me, which means that they will likely find themselves in and out of my cupboard :) None of the teas that i’ve tried yet from them have been BAD, which is great in my books :)

This tea? Well i have to say that i was intrigued by the peppercorns in this blend. It’s not often you see that in a rooibos blend. This tea needs more cherry! I brewed this for about 5 mins, which brought out the hibiscus and rooibos taste a little much. I think 4 mins would be the sweet spot here. Because there seems to be so much going on in some of the blends from RiverTea, i think that it might be tough to get everything in to the sample sizes in the right quantity. I’d be interested in trying a normal order of this one out in the future. overall though, i think this one shows promise :) it’s cherry and tart and tasty.

Another sample sipdown since the other half of this one is going to visit Cavocorax :) This is a pretty tasty black tea, and it makes me excited to try the assam from River Tea. There’s no bitterness in this cup, and while there isn’t any malt or sweetness either, it’s a good solid cup of black tea. I enjoyed it a lot this evening – it’s a good decent cup!

My RiverTea order came today! I can’t get over how good their packaging is: it’s clearly labeled with volume, steep time, ingredients, temperature, etc. on the bottom and the cardboard “tins” are really cute. I especially appreciate the volume because I tend to forget how much of each tea I have, pfft! I didn’t pick out the samples myself but they all seem like things I would choose myself. Don’t you love it when that happens?

I admit I wasn’t going to do an order but then I saw this while browsing through the website. Prickly pear? I love prickly pear! When I open the bag it smells like, well, prickly pears. I’m impressed. It also smells like rooibos but I don’t actually mind rooibos in most things so that’s fine with me.

The taste of this is heavy on the rooibos, but it does mix alright with the fruit. I definitely taste prickly pear and some of the kiwi. I think the fruit taste could be upped a little more, and it might need to be overleafed for that; I’m also missing the rose but since it’s not necessarily a rose tea I’m not heartbroken. Still, it’s a pretty good cup and a welcome non-caffeinated addition to my highly-caffeinated cabinet.

I had this again tonight since it’s an easy sipdown AND i want to go through my cupboard yet again this weekend to organise and clean things up. I desperately need to get things back in order since i have a ton of new teas from Dec/January that need other things to clear out so i can drink them haha.

Second time around this is a more tasty tea. I got more of the spicy flavour this time around, though i think i’ve figured out that it’s the chocolate i don’t like so much. I still feel there’s too much going on in this cup for me to REALLY enjoy it, but it’s a much tastier cup this time :)

My RiverTea order arrived today. SUPER fun to get in the mail! Grand total is 176 now before the weekend….

I needed to try at least one tonight so i opted for this one, mostly because it was in the database already haha. I have to say first that all the teas smell delicious…no really SOOO good. I’m especially looking forward to the orange puerh i picked up cause man that one is like fresh naval oranges or something. just wow.

So this tea. I don’t like it. I don’t dislike it either though. To me, this tea is trying to be too much. It’s not strongly chocolatey, it’s not really spicy, it’s sweet but not overly. In the grand scheme of things, this was a tea i drank without paying much attention to it because it was neither a BAD tasting tea, nor a Great tasting tea. I’m going to try this one again and see how it goes. I have a sneaking suspicion that i’m going to much prefer Rivertea’s puerh/Fruit and Rooibos blends..but that’s just my guess :) Either way still a really positive experience with this company :)

And this is the last cup of this! (215) The rest is going off to Terri so she can see what the fuss about RiverTea is all about!

I enjoy this, and I especially like the star anise, but I also have about… IDK… 6oz of Ceylon Star sitting in a tin at home, so I probably don’t need to restock this one soon. It was good though. Cake-like, and sweet, with a nice bit of baking spices.

Ok, first off, I have one small complaint with this – there’s TOO MUCH stuff to try to fit it all in 1 tsp, including some hefty and delicious looking chunks of chocolate! I solved that by making a 16 oz cup with 2tsp, but even then I made sure to get some chocolate in there.

Ok, on to the tea. The first thing I taste is star anise. Sweet anise. Then a little bit of rose and chocolate mixed together, and then a wash of spices. The mouthfeel is a little dense, like cake.

Now, I wish I’d had the actual Granny’s cake that this was named after!

Overall this is a very satisfying dessert tea! Kudos! (And I may raise this rating more in the future, but I generally tend to rate things too high when I’m excited and I’m trying to be a bit more realistic)

This is one of the more astringent Assam’s. And that’s ok, especially if you like to add a little milk or cream to help tame it, but I like to soldier on and drink it plain. It has a nice bit of malt, and the tiniest hint of sweetness!

I don’t regret drinking this over my Tiger Assam, but it does make me appreciate the Tiger Assam more. Sorry, Beast of the East.

I’m drinking this while I add the rest of my teas to the database. I’m using RiverTea as the name, but I think someone else has been adding them as River Tea (because that also popped up). :O

Well hopefully that’s something Jason (or whoever they hire?) can fix up if needed.

On to this tea! I like it? It’s rich and malty, and dark. It’s strong enough to help wake me up in the morning, but not quite enough to bother me on an empty stomach. It’s also not astringent which is a plus!

I should probably wax poetical about this, but truth be told I haven’t had an Assam in a month or so. I think Tiger Assam was my last, and it’s hard for me to say how good this is in comparison. I like it, and it gets a lot of extra points for the name.

Is it the best Assam out there? I’ll leave that for Sil to decide when she gets hers, which I hope is today!

(196) Goodbye cherry green tea…

Goodbye! This was a good tea, but I think I’d reorder something else for my next RiverTea order. And yes, there will be future orders…

Ok, lets see if I can give this a proper review.

I thought since I was home it’d be a good time to have a green and brew it properly with my kettle. I love how it smells – very simply I can smell cherry and grapefruit.

When I sip it I get blasted with the grapefruit, which is followed up by the cherry to sweeten things up, and a touch of rose at the end. I think that’s different than what I said before, but this is what I taste now.

It’s cooled a bit by this point bc the baby distracted me for about half an hour, but it’s still tolerably warm and very tasty. I would say it’s more cherry and rose than grapefruit once it’s cooled.

I heard it had grapefruit so I went from a sample to the whole 50g. Regrets? Nope.

More details next time, when I’m not in my cell.

I…. love…. this…. tea!!!

I joined TEAM MASON JAR when I went to DAVIDsTEA today. I’ve been thinking about it for a week now, and… well why the hell not? It’s not like I have a lot of tea-ware. I pretty much have one perfect mug and two timolino’s. This will be awesome for in the summer.

I wanted something awesome for my new jar, so I decided to drink this tea. I added a few dried mulberries into the mix afterwards for extra fruitiness, and it was great. I love how this tea is nice and mild, and fruity. It’s maybe not as awesome as I had originally thought now that I’ve had it a few times and gotten over my IT’S MULBERRY joy, but it’s still good. And I forgot how great it is to actually see the colour of my tea as I drink it.

I’m drinking this again! It’s so great. Just make sure you have at least one mulberry before you steep it or it loses all the magic.

This has lots of magic. It smells delicious from across the room, but didn’t stay that far for long as I’m happily sipping away.

It’s so cool and refreshing (while hot) that I strongly suspect it would be nice iced.

YES! My order came in today, and instead of leaving it at the office, I brought all of it home, aside from the 3 little samples. I need to try them immediately, especially after swooning over the packaging and smelling all the bags.

I’m happy Roswell Strange reviewed this one earlier because their comments helped point it out. I don’t normally buy white teas, but I DO buy white teas with mulberries in them. Let’s just say I’m a big fan of Gold Rush, but I could never justify the price to have it often enough.

Now this makes it not an issue. This tea is much cheaper, and it’s quite nice. It tastes like a white tea, without being heavily flavoured. I can definitely taste the mulberries, and a bit of sweet fruits which I guess are the papaya and apple. It’s just very smooth and amazing.

I don’t know. I’m not doing this tea justice in my description, but I really love mulberries, and the juiciness of this tea. I’m on my second steep and I’ve only noticed a slight loss in flavour.

I brewed this in my 16 oz mug for 3 min at 160F for the first steep, and 4 min for the second. I used about 3 heaping teaspoons because of the bigger cup.

GCTTB Rd 3:

I have tried this before and really enjoyed it so I took the opportunity to get reacquainted and experience it in a new way: iced. Honestly, hot or cold, this tastes the same…delicious! It has notes of caramel from the mulberry that pair amazingly with the other fruits present in the cup. Really, really good and I am grateful to Christina for the chance to try it again :).

ETA: I am getting a lot more base as I drink this iced so in future, I may stick to hot brews. Though, for those who enjoy the taste of the white tea base, iced may be the way to go.

Sipdown!! (160)

I was not planning on drinking the whole sample in one shot but my roommate and friend chose the tea and this is the one they went for. Sipping on it now, I am sad to see it go. It has a nice fruitiness that borders on the line of caramel (I know that doesn’t exactly make sense but go with me on this). It is also not a particularly dense tea while still maintaining to be flavorful. Consequently, this is DEFINITELY something I will be restocking when I do (eventually) place a RiverTea order. Thank you Roswell Strange for introducing me to this amazing tea and sharing samples so I didn’t have to go without it.

Sipdown!!

Don’t you hate when you are about to click on a tea and the drop down list just changes? It took me like three tries to finally get to this page but I did it so yay!

Anyways, this is a tasty, tasty white. Thank you Roswell Strange for sharing. It really comes off as though I am feasting on some delicious berries. It is sweet, but with just the right amount of berry tartness. The white base is the perfect match to highlight the mulberries and the flowers add almost a butterscotch note to the whole cup. I am sad all the leaf was gone with just one (very large) cup. You shall be missed Mulberry White, until we meet again.

Sipdown!! (222)

Thank you Roswell Strange for the opportunity to try some RiverTeas. I have been quite impressed with the ones I’ve had thus far. I am really like the combination of flavors I am getting today. This has less cinnamon and more fruit. I upped the rating a bit. This is like a surprise tea where each cup is a slightly different experience.

Thanks to Roswell Strange I get to try a RiverTea and I am definitely very excited. I reached into her package and decided to make the first black tea I pulled. I was glad to see it was this one. I was a tad bit worried as there was a whole piece of cinnamon in the blend and I feared that would get sweet in the cup but there was also cranberry pieces among other stuff so I figured it would all balance out.

I get vanilla for sure. Cinnamon is there. Mango and banana are also hiding in this cup. There is definitely a lot going on in this cup but I think it works. I also get a slight bit of astringency but nothing too over the top. This was a nice introduction to the company so thank you Roswell Strange for sharing this with me :)

ETA: As I continue to sip, this is actually getting better and better. The mango and banana are becoming more prominent and the astringency died down. Weird. I upped the rating :)