Tea Runners
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Cold Brew Sipdown (1377)!
Discovering this tea as a cold brew was both a blessing and a curse – as soon as it became a part of my stash it was out because it’s just damn good as a cold brew. Basically just straight up rootbeer, but with a bit of wintergreen poking through that delicious quality. Kind of wish I had more…
Cold Brew!
Decided to give this one another go, even though it lost its bracket in my sipdown tournament. I think it’s much better suited to this form of preperation, and I completely see the root beer comparison that Mastress Alita made. In fact, root beer was practically all I could taste: just this wonderful translation of the wintergreen, sassafras and other ingredients in the blend.
Dangerously enjoyable with this method!
Hmm. I love rootbeer and I love wintergreen. Even though the first ingredient is “Chamomile” and one the last in the long list is “stevia” (and those two are the bain of my existence) I may just have to see if this company does samples…
I loathe chamomile and don’t taste it in the blend at all.
I tasted the chamomile hot, but not at all cold brewed.
Even hot I don’t taste it. I just taste hot rootbeer, heh.
March Sipdown Madness
In my brackets, this tea was paired off against Kusmi’s White Anastasia.
This was actually my first time trying this tea, and based on the dry leaf aroma I had very high expectations for it. Despite an ingredient list featuring a lot of things that I’m not a fan of, the aroma of this tea is pure, robust and sweet wintergreen extract. Like, it goes HARD on the wintergreen. That seemed right up my alley!
Unfortunately, steeped the intensity just doesn’t match the dry leaf aroma. I could probably sit and smell the dry leaf for hours without tiring of it, but the steeped tea is just fine. Certainly not unpleasant, and most of those touchier (for me) ingredients don’t come out in the taste which is a relief. Just not nearly the punch of wintergreen I had anticipated. Not close.
Ultimately, I picked White Anastasia as the winner.
This is one of my favorite teas. I just get “rootbeer” from it; must be the mix of cherry bark/sarsaparilla/wintergreen. I recently sipped down my stash just because I’d rather restock fresher, but it was an enjoyable few months of evening cuppas.
I’m not all that familiar with Tea Runners. Do they blend this themselves? I ask because I was under the impression that it was a Montana Tea & Spice (in Missoula, MT) creation. It’s sold EVERYWHERE here under the MT Tea & Spice name but it wouldn’t really surprise me if they were trying to claim credit for someone else’s blend, honestly. Other MT Tea & Spice teas I’ve had are seriously underwhelming but people here rave about them because it’s a local company.
TeaRunners are out of Portland and wholesale tea from several different sources. TeaSource sells Evening in Missoula as well (which is where I get it) and they are out of Missouri. Considering Montana Tea & Spice has a pay-by-the-pound retail catalog on their website (and I don’t see anything else) that seems to indicate they are a wholesale supplier (that is, they sell their tea blend to other tea businesses/companies, who may resell in their own packaging, price points, and even rename the blends) which is very common in the tea industry.
Thanks, Mastress Alita. I get confused about the origins of some teas with the giant wholesalers and companies putting their own brand name on things.
I do too! It could also be that all three of those are getting the blend from yet another source… it can be hard to tell sometimes!
Grandpa Style!
I’m pretty sure this is wholesaled from Rishi – they carry a Tuo Cha style under this same name, and I recognize several of the other pu’erh blends on the Tea Runners site as Rishi catalog offerings, like the Pu’erh Ginger and the Vanilla Mint…
I only point it out because I actually tend to really like the pu’erh offerings from Rishi; they usually feel so well balanced and the quality of the tea leaf itself is really good for wholesale. I’ve not tried these tuo cha direct from Rishi, but assuming (and that feels like a safe assumption) this is the same… it’s not good, and that caught me off guard.
For starters, the leaf itself is so finely cut/mulchy and light that it didn’t actually sink in my mug when I attempted to brew it grandpa – something pretty shocking for a compressed style pu’erh like this. So, I ended up having to basically use my front teeth as the filter for the leaf as I drank – definitely annoying. The taste!? Not off at all, but pretty boring. Not the standard I’ve come to expect.
Yeah, this was a miss for me.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s the type of cinnamon that Tea Runners is using, or maybe just the quantity of it, but regardless NONE of the “cinnamon teas” I’ve tried from them thus far have actually tasted like cinnamon… it’s almost like they’ve forgotten it in the blend.
That said, the orange in this blend is divine. Very sweet and juicy, with a natural brightness to it that coats the whole palate following each sip. It tastes familiar, and I can’t put my finger on exactly why – but whatever the reason, I was very into that quality of the blend. It was especially nice with the sweet notes of the honeybush, too. I can’t even picture how it would have tasted with cinnamon though; that feels like it would have been a really weird juxtaposition if the cinnamon notes had come through for me.
Cold Brew!
Sipping this one currently and not totally sure what to make of it. The dry leaf smells delicious; very “pastry raspberry” with a bright sweetness and hint of honey/nutty aroma from the rooibos with undertones of lavender. The taste, however, is very lavender forward. It initially compliments what is a well rounded, sweet red fruit note and a nutty and mineral note heavy rooibos profile. It’s very “Rooibos de Provence” in its flavour profile, just without the typical blueberry in that composition. However, while the taste starts quite delicious it finishes a bit too lavender heavy for me – it lingers on the back of the throat, and is a smidge perfume-y.
My gut tells me it might work a bit better hot.
Ah, I didn’t know Tea Runners sourced from TeaSource. I always really liked this one. I’m really crazy for lavender, but unless they’ve changed their ratios, my warm cuppas always tasted “too light” on the lavender to me and more like strawberries ’n cream.
It gets a bit weird in terms of tea sourcing, because there’s definitely SIGNIFICANT overlap between TeaSource and Tea Runners. One possibility is that Tea Runners is buying from TeaSource, but I think the more likely is that both Tea Runners and TeaSource are buying from the same wholesaler; at least partially, anyway. I only say that because I know that, for sure, some of the TeaSource blends are catalog – but I’m not well enough equated with the entirety of what TeaSource carries to know if it’s all coming from that wholesaler or just partially. Tea Runners definitely uses at least two wholesalers that I know of though – and one overlaps with the same one I know TeaSource is purchasing from.
April Sipdown Alphabet Challenge: “V” Tea
Short tasting note on this one since I’ve already written one on this tea. It’s a nice basic black tea that takes milk well. There is a bit of a flavored sugar taste as well but it just adds sweetness mostly. For a Valentine’s Day blend it’s a little bit disappointing.
This tea came in my first Tea Runner’s February 2021 Classic Subscription Box that was a gift from a family member.
This one is somewhat underwhelming it’s not what I was expecting it to be. The name and description of the tea don’t really fit the tea itself.
It just tastes like a nice and smooth malty assam. Similar to that of Steven Smith’s black tea offerings. While the dry leaf does have some pretty rose petals, and rose hips added it doesn’t come through in the flavor. According to the website there are also supposed to be some heart-shaped sprinkles but I dug around in the pouch and didn’t find any. I don’t think that would necessarily change the flavor though. It’s a nice black tea if a bit simple but not something that makes me think of Valentine’s Day. It’ll be nice to have another plain black tea to drink in the mornings.
Preparation
This was a late night cuppa while working on some podcast outlining this past weekend.
I keep seeing a ton of posts on instagram about Tea Runners that are raving about their tea blends, but in my experience the blends have been pretty flat (with a couple exceptions). I do enjoy their straight teas quite a bit – but things like this blend!? I mean, it didn’t taste unpleasant but it’s such a mild and flat/muddy flavour that you can’t really tell this is supposed to be cinnamon. It’s just, like, standard breakfast tea with a bit of “something something” that’s sweet but… abstract.
So, I don’t know…
A coworker gave me a bunch of teas from Tea Runners this week that she didn’t want, so I’ve been trying my way through some of them over the course of the week. I’ve got a handful of teas from Tea Runners from a group order with VariaTEA but this has really been my first exposure to their flavoured teas and blends…
I like the idea of this one a lot – a bold breakfast style black tea with a subtle flavour addition sounds nice! There’s roses in the blend, which I’m into, and even a few cinnamon heart candies scattered sparsely throughout. The taste though!? Underwhelming – to put it sharply. The black tea itself isn’t actually bad, though it’s not exciting either, but there’s really just no flavour to the cup – and while I wasn’t expecting a lot I was expecting some. It’s just a touch sweet, and maybe a fleeting hint of cinnamon in the top of the sip. Sadly this just felt flat.
