Teeccino

I really thought I would hate this one, but I was buying all their flavors in order to reach the free shipping minimum, so I went for it anyway. I’m happy to say that I actually like it! I had it with almond milk, and the fruitiness is pretty refreshing cold. It’s super peachy! I couldn’t imagine having this one warm. The coffee flavor is thankfully more mild here than in some of the other blends. It’s just that fresh authentic fruitiness with a bit of coffee-like base below.

#SVTTB Round Two – Tea 5/???

Sipdown (2226)!

When I placed my Teeccino order last year I didn’t see this flavour available, so I had to take the opportunity to try it. I have to say, this might be one of the rare Teeccino flavours that I don’t actually like. I thought the presence of licorice root was unpleasant in contrast to the deeper and more bitter roast notes. It clung to the back of my palate in a sickly sweet way. Worse was the fact the turmeric erred very savory to me. So this was a little more like drinking a very dark, roasty broth (like some shou) but with the unpleasant sweet finish.

Glad I tried it, but very happy to not ever revisit this particular flavour.

The base is milder than in some other Teeccino blends, which I like here. I definitely taste the bright mint along with a bit of chocolate plus the toasty base. It all works together quite well with some soy milk. It’s bright and pleasant.

Sipdown (2165)!

So, right before the database crash I was looking for something in my tea cupboard and I saw that this was added into it… which was weird, because I was pretty sure I had finished the one teabag sample I had of it almost a half a year ago.

Of course it was when I clicked on the tea page to see if I’d just forgotten to remove it from my cupboard that I realized all the tea pages were down. So that whole crash I had the annoying back of my brain feeling of not knowing what the fuck was up with this tea. Turns out I just fully forgot to log it, so oops! Hard to remember everything I thought about this because, like I said, it was about a half a year ago that I tried it. I do remember wishing for more vanilla, and if I can recall correctly I think I also observed that the almond was the same sweet almond that’s present in other blends (which does taste nice).

Overall I don’t think I necessarily had a strongly positive or negative experience with this blend.

The base here tastes a little too much like bitter coffee, but it still tastes good with some extra sweetener and soy milk. I also taste a bit of dessertiness, but it’s not very specific. I can taste a little nuttiness, but not the maple mentioned on the bag. This did grow on me over the course of the 1 oz bag though.

This sample was gifted to me by AJRimmer, thank you!

We are still getting intermittent snow in my neck of the woods, so I brewed this up as a warm thermos. Has that same dark, rich, roasty and slightly nutty coffee flavor as the other Teeccino flavors I’ve been able to try, but I find the pumpkin spice a bit lacking. I really only taste the nutmeg, and it is a strong nutmeg flavor, which I find rarely stands out in spice blend tea mixes I’ve had. It is a nice flavor and I like seeing it shine, and it compliments the coffee notes really well, but I don’t get even a hint of cinnamon, ginger, or clove, so it doesn’t really make me think of “pumpkin spice.” If they just named this “Nutmeg Coffee” it’d be spot on.

It’s good and I’m enjoying my thermos, but I liked the French Vanilla and Chocolate Raspberry flavors a bit more.

I received a sample of this from AJRimmer, thank you! I only have three flavors of Teeccino available to me locally (French Vanilla, Hazelnut, and Mocha) so I’m happy to get to try some others!

I brewed this hot this morning, and just left the fillable teabag in the cup as I sipped, letting the cup get very dark and rich. It had that same roasted coffee flavor and aroma as the French Vanilla Teeccino I’ve tried, with a bit more of a super dark, bittersweet chocolate note and a hint of raspberry toward the end of the sip and in the aftertaste. I imagine adding sweetener might amplify that note a bit, but I enjoyed the cup as is, strong, dark, and coffee-bitter.

What I really like about the Teeccino I’ve tried thus far is that while actual coffee gives me terrible GI problems (which is why I stopped drinking it) I haven’t had any of those same issues with these herbal alternatives, and I still get to scratch the itch for the coffee flavor.

Calling this a sipdown because this is the last bag in the variety sampler I ordered with the advent calendar. I haven’t been making tasting notes for most of them, but wanted to for this one a) because it’s the last one in the sampler and b) because I wanted to remember my thoughts about it.

So this is the last bag for a reason: I thought it would be terrible and kept putting off trying it until I was out of other coffee-alternative teabags. Orange and coffee just seems like a really weird combo! While this isn’t my favorite Teeccino blend, it turned out not to be as awful as I expected, especially as an oat milk latte. The oat milk smooths out some of the sharper parts of the orange and chicory, and the end result is something not altogether unpleasant.

This one is named pretty accurately. The main flavor is the coffee-like base that’s a little too strong/acidic for me. On top of that, I taste a zingy fake raspberry. I don’t really love the raspberry flavoring they use – maybe it’s too acidic with the already acidic base? But with enough soy milk, this blend is decent enough, and it tastes even better after resting 24 hours in the fridge. I didn’t really enjoy the resteep – too heavy on the coffee.

This tastes really nutty from all the almonds in the blend. I might get a little vanilla too, but definitely some general dessertiness. This is different from other Teeccino blends I’ve had, and I might prefer this milder seeming base to the other one. I like having this one with almond milk to accentuate the nuttiness. I’d consider buying a larger bag.

For a while everyone on here was on the Teeccino train and I was admittedly curious, because I actually like coffee, but the acidity of it gives me GI troubles so I rarely drink it these days. I really love mugicha (roasted barley) tea because it tastes like coffee to me, so I figured these would be up my alley. Sadly, this is not a widely available brand in my area; there were no teabags at my local grocery, but I did find three different flavors in a coffee grounds style bag over in the coffee section, and I grabbed the French Vanilla one. It really does look like coffee grounds inside the bag, too.

I made one hot cup and was very surprised how much it did remind me of coffee. It was dark and roasty and had a very coating mouthfeel. The French Vanilla flavor reads as coconut to me, though; thankfully I like coconut, so I’m not particularly bothered by that.

Now I just use this for cold brew, which I like even better because instead of having that coating mouthfeel that makes me feel like I need an accompanying glass of water with my tea, it goes down really slick and smooth and refreshing. I can also get a lot of use out of the “grounds” as well; two full teaspoons in a fillable teabag left in a liter of cold water overnight creates a strong dark roast sort of brew, and I usually reuse the bag for another liter, which creates a light roast style brew.

I will likely try out the other two flavors available to me next time I’m at the store and need a restock.

I think I enjoy Teeccino blends more with soy milk than with skim because the soy really helps to cut the acidity of the base. This one tastes pretty rich and chocolatey. It also has a strong supporting coffee flavor. The resteep tasted mostly like coffee. I prefer other Teeccino flavors, but this one is pretty solid. Apparently this one has hot pepper in it? I finished my sample (three large mugs plus resteeps) and never noticed a hint of spice.

This one tasted very similar to some of the other Teeccino blends. I still prefer the Mocha blend over this one. I didn’t taste anything in this blend that made it more “java” or “coffee” flavored than some of the others. Overall, it was tasty but didn’t stand out from others I’ve tried.

Sipdown (2113)!

Admittedly found myself underwhelmed by this one. It definitely didn’t taste unpleasant though. Like pretty much all the Teeccino blends it had the same strong roasted foundation, though it did seem less sweet than most of their formulations. I think the let down was that it wasn’t spicy/chai-like enough. Most of those flavours only kicked in at the tail end of the sip and it was a somewhat vague and non-descript “spice” note. A hodge podge of cinnamon, clove, ginger and other shit, if you will. No real clarity and not intense enough to hold up to the already full bodied and bold flavours of a Teeccino blend. They could have (and IMO should have) gone way stronger.

This does taste like pumpkin spice, but unfortunately that flavor is mostly covered by the bitter coffee flavor. I don’t like coffee, but I wasn’t too bothered by its presence in the other Teeccino teas I’ve tried. I guess it’s too strong and bitter for me here. It took me four days to finish one cup of this, so I’d better pass the rest along.

I can’t remember who wrote it or about which tea specifically, but someone recently wrote a tasting note about a chocolate mint tea and it made me want one today. So I was pleased to find this teabag in my stash! The coffee base flavor is pretty weak but the chocolate and mint are really nice. Made as an oat milk latte, it tastes like a minty hot cocoa. Not really a tea or a coffee substitute but it is delicious and hitting the spot.

Ashmanra’s Sipdown Challenge | January 2023 | It’s National Coffee Break Day! Take a break today with a coffee-flavored tea!

I loved this reminder to break out the Teeccino! I used to drink it fairly regularly, but I got out of the habit. With only two bags of the Hazelnut flavor in my tea chest, I figured it was ready for a sipdown!

I’d forgotten just how coffee-esque Teeccino is! This one in particular is so roasty and rich, with a really great mouthfeel and body. It sashays right up to the edge of bitterness without going over the line, the same as a good coffee does (to my tastes). And then a whisper of hazelnut comes through on the back, just enough to add a smidgen of nuttiness. Yum.

There’s also a bit of sweetness from the dates and figs. This is where it diverges from coffee (for me, at least, because I drink my coffee black 95% of the time). But not in a bad way! It’s its own thing, and it’s good.

Now I want to buy more Teeccino…

2023 sipdown count: 11/75

Day 24 of the Teeccino advent calendar, and here endeth this particular advent-ure. I’m glad that I did this one, as it allowed me to sample a wide variety of Teeccino’s offerings, but now that I’ve done it I don’t really feel the need to do it again. Especially tasty were the Maple Pecan, Candy Cane, Hazelnut, Maca Chocolate, Dandelion Coconut, Vanilla Nut, Chocolaté – and this one, the Dandelion Caramel Nut! I made it as an oat milk latte. It’s got notes of caramel, chicory, carob, dandelion, and a nuttiness that I can’t place but the wrapper says is almond. Extremely solid entrant in the flavored coffee dupe category, and an excellent end to the advent calendar.

Day 23 of the Teeccino advent calendar. The dark chocolate flavor of this one is spot on. It’s specifically dark chocolate, too, with that hint of bitterness. I would have loved to try this as an oat milk latte, but, alas, did not have any oat milk available when I drank this.

Day 21 of the Teeccino advent calendar. This tastes like something I had earlier in the calendar… not quite as chocolatey as the Chocolaté, but very similar to the Maca Chocolate. I described that one as having “big mocha latte vibes,” which this blend does too (made as an oat milk latte). Short of a side-by-side, I’m hard pressed to find a meaningful taste difference between them based on memory alone. This made for a very tasty latte, delightfully enjoyed in the evening!

Day 20 of the Teeccino advent calendar. I accidentally overbrewed this by half an hour, but that doesn’t seem to have done any harm to the flavor. There’s no astringency or bitterness here. I’d have to do a side-by-side comparison to be sure, but this tastes to me a lot like the Turkey Tail Astragalus from a couple of days ago. It tastes like coffee, but thin, weak coffee. Drinkable, but just not as robust as the classic Teeccino base.

Teeccino Advent. Usually when I want a cup of coffee, I want a real cup of joe. This really does smell and taste like a good colombian dark roast, I like the other teeccino flavors with more sweetness from the dates, or the peppermint that nearly overpowers all the chicory flavors. I would drink this again, just don’t think I need it in my cupboard if there are other tastier flavors.