Tea Revv

#adventageddon Day Sixteen – 4/6

This was nice! I was worried the caramel/toffee wouldn’t come through but that flavouring was actually pretty strong, so the sips were like a sweet and slightly acidified apple note backed by a sweet caramelesque undertone that creeped into a nice, silky and lingering taste in the finish that almost left a sticky residue on the bed of my tongue. Not quite a super rich and high quality “toffee” (in my head a toffee is dense and has a deeper sweetness) since the caramel landed on the palate a little high/sharp and more like the thinner and more butterscotch-y caramel syrup you might have on a sundae. It still works with the blend though overall, but since this is an acidified apple it’s a little tart by the end of the cup and it would feel more balanced either with a deeper caramel note or a less acidified apple/rosehip/hippy combo.

Keep your steep shorter though, and I think you’ll be rewarded with a nice caramel apple!

12 days of (Christmas) tea (Tea Revv) – Day 2
“Stack the pancakes high to the sky”, that´s how Tea Revv describes this black tea blend. I´m not sure whether the tea is supposed to match the taste of pancakes or whether it´s only a nice drink to go with pancakes. Anyway, in nose I get floral tones, but in mouth it´s mainly black tea…and in the back somewhere a sweet touch which might well come from the real maple syrup, but very subtle it is! I admit I left the tea steeping for 1-2 minutes longer than it should have, and there was indeed an added bitterness to it, but this only confirmed the blend not being that balanced, I think.

#adventageddon Day Fifteen – 1/6

So, I think this is the same tea I had as this morning’s advent selection – it looks like the same ingredients, though the name is slightly different. However, I’ve noticed more than one inconsistency with Tea Revv’s blend names since starting this advent calendar. So I’m like 90% sure!

I… actually liked this one!?

It wasn’t really anything special and the quality was pretty average but the mix of tickly ginger notes and deeper stonefruit (plum?) notes combined really worked for me. There was some bitterness and astringency coming from the black tea base and the flavours were a little muddy, but it felt like a wintery, Christmas themed mug of tea and it wasn’t too spicy, tart, or sweet. It was just… a warming, tasty good time.

Huh.

12 days of (Christmas) tea (Tea Revv) – Day1
About the only white chocolate tablet I like is the one with popped rice in it, and this tea reminds me a lot of that chocolate : very sweet and popped rice! Tastes as if made with rooibos as well, but it is really black tea based.
I wouldn´t buy this tea to have on a regular basis, but as a special festive treat it´s more than OK.

#adventageddon Day Fourteen – 3/6

Deeply feeling like maple just isn’t this company’s forte right now – but the tea did taste leagues above the other maple blend from earlier in the calendar (Maple Kind). It doesn’t land the maple flavour, but it does have some sweetness and body that’s kind of loosely in that vein!? The weirdest part though, and this is something that probably only people who’ve been on Steepster for several years now will relate to, was that the black tea had that really bizarre but striking (not in a good way) taste that all of Frank’s black teas – back when he was still running 52Teas, seemed to have. That kind of bready/starchy note that was so hard to describe but so easy to identify.

It gave me one hell of a sense of nostalgia!

#adventageddon Day Thirteen – 5/6

This wasn’t a terrible tea by any means but I also don’t think it was my thing either. I was pumped to see the tulsi though, and I liked that the blend really embraced those herbaceous/basil notes. So far I have to say that more herbal/savory blends seem to what Tea Revv’s strong suit based on the teas in this advent so far! What I disliked was just the spices; they were a bit abrasive/strong for me – especially coupled with tulsi, which is already a strong flavour. However, someone more into chai blends would probably enjoy this one.

#adventageddon Day Twelve – 3/5

This was a bad cup but this time I definitely only have myself to blame for that. It was a chaotic morning at work today and I thought it would be best to to try and sneak in as many of today’s teas into the morning as possible (which wound up only being two). However, I forgot that I’d left this steeping while setting something up, and when I came back the mug had been steeping for easily twenty minutes. It was SO bitter, and I only have myself to blame for that. I have no clue if this would have been enjoyable under normal brewing parameters or underwhelming, and it kind of sucks that I wont have the change to find out…

#adventageddon Day 11 – 2/5

Not sure how I would have felt about this tea if I didn’t already have such a stuffy nose and hindered sense of taste, but I actually found it pretty nice this morning. It was peppery and gingery enough that I was able to get the flavour from the cup, and the warming spices actually helped clear my sinuses a fair bit – so it was pretty feed good for me today. Happy to have broken the streak of bad teas from Tea Revv, as well.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings though.

#adventageddon Day 10 – 3/5

Ugh, I don’t even want to waste my time writing about this tea – it was so bad. Really Tea Revv is just on a really crappy streak right now, and I’m hoping they have a tea this week that turns things around for them but I’m not holding my breath at this point.

Didn’t taste like it had any time of added flavour and didn’t even remotely resemble any type of cookie; just tasted like VERY stale black tea.

#adventageddon Day Nine – 1/5

I don’t want to say that tea companies outside of Canada shouldn’t take a crack at maple teas, but well, I kind of feel like tea companies outside of Canada shouldn’t take a crack at maple!? This tea was honestly foul, and on a couple different levels!? For starters, for a tea that apparently has “real maple syrup” in it, there is nothing maple tasting about the tea unless you maybe want to count a strong woody note that you could creatively call “maple wood”. However, it’s a stretch to say that.

The other thing is that this is apparently green tea, and visually the loose leaf looked like some type of strange Chinese or alternative growing country (not Japanese) green tea. However, the taste of the steeped tea is REALLY sheng like. Bad sheng though; bitter and astringent and kind of funky/rubbery with a prevailing smoke note. I honestly can’t tell if it’s just bad sheng or BAD green tea but it’s very strange.

I don’t know – ultimately nothing about this tea works as it’s meant to and it’s really gnarly…

#adventageddon Day Eight – 3/5

This was boring and safe – it’s literally just a chocolate rooibos, and not a bad tasting one but it really did feel like the safest, most basic formulation of a chocolate rooibos that the company could have possibly gone for. Also just tasted like the mint chocolate from earlier in the month, minus the mint – and it’s kind of weird to have two teas that are so similar so close to each other in the advent.

This is one of those cup that I drank, and felt ok about but a week from now I will have completely forgotten about it. It’s just so… Well, boring.

#adventageddon Day Seven – 5/5

Firstly, why is there a pumpkin tea in a Christmas themed advent calendar!? That just seems like a bizarre choice for a flavour option. Secondly, I really thought after the last four teas that I was going to have a day composed of all advent teas that I enjoy but that’s definitely NOT the case…

There’s just something really foul about this blend, and I’m struggling to put it into words. It’s lightly spiced, and the spices are probably the best thing about it. However, it’s also kind of musty smelling and it tastes a bit like what I think licking the floor of someone’s dusty attic would be like. What in here is creating that awful dusty/dirty kind of flavour!? The worst part though is that on top of the dusty quality it finishes sort of sour – and not like “tart” sour but more off milk sour.

It’s a nightmare of a tea, and I think the worst thing from ANY of my advents so far. Not finishing this mug; sorry not sorry.

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challengeThursday, November 25th: Thanksgiving Tea #2

additional notes:  I wanted chai to go with my pumpkin pie breakfast, so this wintery chai was a good fit.

Thanks so much for these teas from a while ago, TreeGal!  I’m always up for a good chai, especially in the colder months.  This one is soothing, warming and calming on this blustery day.  This is a lovely mix of ingredients.  I’m surprised at the lower Steepster rating.  I can tell this one definitely has pepper, as it almost makes me sneeze upon opening the bag.  I love that this includes all the typical chai ingredients, but also some white chocolate, both white and black pepper and nutmeg!  Chai is worth some extra points for including nutmeg.  The flavor is good mix of all these ingredients, though I think I should try brewing it at least once with two teaspoons, as the black tea isn’t as deep as I’d like it to be and with two teaspoons I might get a better mix of the spices.  The majority is black tea but is somehow a lighter brew anyway.  The second steep seems to lose MUCH of the spices.  That’s too bad.  It’s a perfect blend for today though. Chai is essential in winter and I’ll have plenty more to enjoy of this one.   I’m always thankful for all these teas I’ve been able to try all these years from Steepster tea buddies. :D
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // 6 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // 2 minutes after boiling  // 5 minute steep

I enjoyed this tea so much yesterday, I steeped it up again today, using the excuse of testing it with two teaspoons.  It was a little bit deeper, but the pepper really takes over the other spices which is more noticeable with two teaspoons.  So it’s not fair to the other spices for the pepper (x2) to be so prominent. I don’t taste nutmeg at all. The second steep somehow got very astringent while still having a light brown brew… wasn’t paying attention to how long it was steeping but I certainly didn’t expect astringent! I’d say it was better yesterday with a teaspoon and a half but this is still very delicious on a cold day. 

#adventageddon Day Six – 4/5

This is a really weirdly composed blend and by all accounts I feel like it shouldn’t work, and yet I could NOT get enough of this mug of tea! It’s very herbaceous tasting and a little bit savory, with a nice gingery peppery taste. However, it also has the sweet strawberry flavour of of those little strawberry hard candies everyone’s grandma always seemed to keep in their purse. It’s incredibly weird to be tasting those flavours together, but it somehow worked!?

I have one last advent tea to steep up for the day, but so far this has been my favourite today!

#adventageddon Day Five – 1/5

So, I just got home from celebratory drinks out with coworkers – more on that later, and I am so tired but I also don’t want to fall behind on advent calendar reviews so I’m gonna write my five for the day super quickly in jot note form!!

- Really excited for this tea since it seems like a really fun and creative concept
- The visual is a lot more plain/simple that I would have expected & doesn’t feel fun
- The taste is very light and mild with a mellow sweetness
- I get A LOT of roasted rice notes which I imagine are intended to be the “popcorn”
- The mint is creamy and smooth like DT’s Santa’s Secret
- However I find this lacks sweetness and intensity that I’d have expected/craved
- But if I accept it as a light and mellow blend I enjoy it a little more

#adventageddon Day Four – 3/5

I think this is maybe my favourite tea from the day!? It’s a pretty simple blend and there’s not really anything interesting in the ingredients list or unique about the composition but it is tasty for what it is! Very bright, juicy and acidic/tart with a little sweetness. The immediate flavour I get is a sharp (but not acrid) hibiscus with an undertone of cranberry – I can see why you’d go with a hibiscus heavy mix to get that sharp cranberry note and it mostly pays off in my opinion but it does feel a little more like hibiscus than cranberry. I think what I want is a little more “crispness” to the finish or a little more sweetness to give more of a jammy cranberry; not both but just one or the other. The apple is nice; it’s the main source of sweetness in the blend, I’d wager, and after the bright notes of hibby/cran I think that sweeter/juicier apple note at the end of the sip is a really strong way to finish the cup.

I described it to a coworker today as “the perfect tart drink when you want a fruity tea you don’t have to think about” and I stand by that. I think it’d be great iced, too.

#adventageddon Day Three – 5/5

This is the last tea today and I’m actually just finishing the mug off right now as I write about it. I don’t like the idea of having a “losing” tea each day, but I guess if I was going to have one it’d be a tie between this and DF’s offering…

I mean really this isn’t bad but I’m finding it pretty flat and lifeless and while I get a lot of cinnamon in the flavour I really get hardly any orange at all. I just want some more heat or juiciness; just a bigger “oomph” factor to any of the flavours would do!

I guess maybe that’s because I’m mentally comparing to DT’s Spice is Right Blend which is REALLY strong – and perhaps that’s not a fair comparison, but it’s the one my brain just naturally wants to make and in a side by side of the two teas this is just worse.

#adventageddon Day Two – 4/5

This was a new to me tea as well – but I felt like, after reading the ingredients list, I knew exactly what to expect for it and I was really spot on in my assumption of what it would taste like. It certainly wasn’t unpleasant – in fact it was a very smooth and rich tasting combination of milk chocolate and cooling peppermint notes with a little bit of a honeyed rooibos base that poked through just enough to be present but not enough to feel invasive or descrating. Very well rounded blend overall and not jaw dropping but safe. I appreciated that among the other weirder new teas I tried today and the green tea that wasn’t majorly my thing I had something that felt familiar and reliable.

#adventageddon Day One – 4/5

I have reach peak caffeine levels – I can literally feel myself vibrating right now and my eyes are bouncing around my room like mad. This is gonna be a fun month!

Tea Revv/Yawn Brew is a new (to me) tea company; I wanted to include at least one advent in my selection where I’d never experienced the company before. I know several people on Steepster have done their calendar in past years with mixed reviews – I’m excited to form my own opinion though!

I love the concept of this tea – and sure enough when I opened the little packet I was greeted with a rich and very sweet smelling mix of cream, vanilla, and cinnamon! I totally got, right away, that this was intended to taste like a Cinnamon Bun!

Now that I’m drinking it, I think it’s pretty nice – maybe the nicest flavoured advent tea of the day!? However, it’s not nearly as sweet and creamy tasting as the dry leaf smelled and the cinnamon is a lot more forward/pronounced. Aside from that just slightly drying cinnamon note, I get a strong bread-y quality from the black tea that plays well into the Cinnamon Bun profile and then just a bit of cream and vanilla on the back end.

It’s definitely a cinnamon bun – I just want more of that creamy, sweet icing flavour!

Thanks so much for these teas, TreeGal!  It’s always a great opportunity to sample teas I otherwise probably wouldn’t try.  I had been meaning to drink this one soon for a few days and then felt a sore throat happening anyway.  Gee, what perfect timing for Achoo. sigh.  I was a little wary of this one… it looks like mostly lemongrass in my sample!  No matter how much I try to mix it in the pouch.  But the flavor is very good.  Lots of lemon and I don’t think it’s just the lemongrass that is making it taste like lemon.  More like a lemon donut than overly herbal.  And the licorice is helping my throat.  A pleasant blend and better than expected.  I wouldn’t mind having a blend with this mix of ingredients in stock in the cupboard. The second steep on the second night: sore throat gone.  I have an awesome immune system. :D
2019 Sipdowns: 77 (TeaRevv – Pumpkin Pie Chai)

So, I ordered an advent calendar from Tea Revv this year and it’s already arrived at the office! As excited as I am to dig in, I’m going to do my best to wait patiently until December hits before I dig in. That said, they did include a free sample of this tea in with the package so I couldn’t resist steeping that one up right away!

I’m honestly surprised how much I enjoy this tea given that it’s a green tea. I suppose that’s because the herbaceous notes and citrus elements are so well balanced and smooth! I really get a nice mix of the rosemary and sage, and while it does add a herbaceous quality to the tea it doesn’t really come off as savory – in fact, it’s more warming and cozy than anything else! The citrus is brilliant; very crisp and sweet without a lot of acidity, more of that dense/full of depth kind of citrus that you see in citrus oils and citrus rind – but not bitter.

I see a lot of people who’ve tried this got bergamot from the taste and I too kind of get that distinct bergamot note from both the aroma of the tea and the taste. Bergamot is not a listed ingredient, which really makes me believe that what’s happening here is one of two things. The first is that the “natural flavouring” listed in the blend is either bergamot oil or, more likely, bergamot flavouring (yes, there’s a difference). Bergamot is actually really expensive, so it’s more common for EG type blends to use either bergamot flavouring or a combination of bergamot oil and flavouring to save on costs, but bergamot flavouring doesn’t look as good on an ingredient’s list so it’s possible Tea Revv is using it but opted not to call it out.

My other theory is similar, and that’s that the bergamot note is coming from the tangerine in the blend or some type of tangerine-like flavouring. Like I mentioned above, bergamot oil is expensive so another alternative that companies sometimes do is use tangerine oil or flavouring in combination with bergamot oil and/or flavouring to reduce their cost. It a weird way, it sort of makes your brain associate that tangerine note with bergamot because you’ve been tasting it alongside the bergamot. The brain is weird like that…

I’m not saying that’s definitely what’s happening here, but that would be my guess. Regardless of what’s causing the bergamot note, I like this blend a lot and I don’t really care where it’s coming from one way or the other.

Thanks so much for sending this, Tree Gal! I’m happy to try any tea… however this is…
turmeric…. and turmeric…. and turmeric….
with hardly notes of anything else that happens to be in the blend. The green tea/ black tea combo is also a bit odd, as I had to steep it cool for the green tea, so how much did the black tea really appear in the mug? Not sure, as all I could taste was TURMERIC. The color of the brew was also the color of TURMERIC. So I’ve found I’m just not a fan of turmeric… it’s just bitter and blah to me, therefore not a fan of this blend. Again, happy to try it though, even just to see that I don’t like turmeric.
2019 sipdowns: 37 (52Teas – Candy Cane marshmallow treat genmaicha)

additional notes: Sipdown. Thanks again TreeGal! Sipping it again… it kind of just tastes like old coffee…. which it is. It’s probably just too aged by now. I’m not a fan of actual coffee grounds in tea anyway, so it is what it is.
2019 Sipdowns: 80
I’d love to make 100 sipdowns by the end of the year!