Vanilla Citrus Spice

This one came from TeaTiff (again). I must say, it seems like the ratio of tea to other stuff is kind of off here. I’m not sure whether it’s just my sample or the tea in general, but there is a ton of coriander and citrus peel and stuff, and very few tea leaves. It smells sweet and citrusy in a pastry sort of way.

This one reminds me of Verdant’s Campfire Blend with a bit of black tea added. The flavors are pretty much exactly the same – vanilla, citrus, spices, and that pastry note. Definitely not complaining as I enjoyed Campfire Blend quite a lot, and I’m enjoying this one too. I do feel I should have steeped it a tad longer as the flavor is quite mild, and it’s basically an herbal anyway! Overall, yummy.

First try from the ample selection provided by Terri. Such a wonderful teabox full of goodies :)
The name of this blend caught my attention, however the flavour was not what i expected. I envisioned a tea mor “citrusy” indead i was welcomed in by the spicy warmth of this tea. I tasted mostly cinnamon/cardamon, reminded me of christmas :)

Lightyears ahead of any swedish blend i´ve tried. Seems i have a new world of tea to explore! Thank you Terri Harplady!

There is no doubt this is beautiful leaf. The flavors are well blended. I would think with vanilla as the first word in the name that this would be far more vanilla. To me it was only a subtle hint of creaminess. Mainly this is ginger, orange, and cinnamon. The black base peaks out occasionally. I think that is my main complaint. I want less stuff and more tea. Good but not my thing.

Thank you, ashleyelizabeth for sending me this sample in our swap!!!

(While I am on the subject of swaps, for those I have promised to send tea to, I apologize for the delay! I’ve been having things come up every time I plan to go to the post office, but everything should be in the mail soon.)

It’s fun to get samples of things that aren’t available for sale. It makes me feel very lucky! :-) I brewed this up per Verdant’s instructions. The aroma was wonderful, but the flavor was a bit thin. I think I will do 3 minutes on the resteep and see how that turns out. My allergies have been kicking my butt recently, so maybe I didn’t get as much out of this as I would otherwise. I’m taking a non-drowsy allergy medication, but I definitely still had to take a nap at work today…

I feel like I’m on a mission to try all of the teas with the purpose of establishing a permanent collection of my favourites, and that I won’t always have 120+ teas in my cupboard, that eventually I will narrow it down to about half that. But sometimes I am honest with myself and realize I will never be done trying all the teas.

I almost didn’t include this in my Verdant order. I am not at all a fan of citrus spice teas, but seeing all the glowing reviews (mainly from Sil) made me want to at least give it a try, plus I had to spend the $50 to get the free shipping. But man am I glad I purchased this, especially because they are out of stock now!

This is the most perfect citrus spice tea I’ve ever tasted! The flavours are so wonderfully balanced. I think the inclusion of the vanilla really made this tea, it just gives it that creamy sweetness that balances out the bitterness of the citrus and the spice. I am genuinely in awe that I love this tea this much. This tea would most definitely be a part of my hypothetical permanent collection. I will try to keep it around as much as possible, but I only ordered an ounce and that won’t last me long. I hope that Verdant restocks this soon!!!

I’m trying my little sample packet of this in a bit of a rush to see if I want to add an ounce of it to my Verdant order. I didn’t use nearly as much leaf or water as Verdant’s directions state and winged it with the steep time, so my brew probably isn’t ideal. I don’t really care for it by itself, but it’s pretty good sweetened with agave.

There’s only one ounce left! Should I buy it? I don’t know! Help! Aaaaahhh!

ETA: I bought the very last one. It was either this or the Yu Lu Yan Chai, which I haven’t tried yet & don’t think would appeal to me as much. I would’ve gotten them both, but ugh, customs. My cup tastes nice now cooled to room temperature, which leads me to believe it would be good iced, so I’m happy.

Wow. This is the first time I have had to use Steepster to look up the ingredients in a tea since the big change about a month ago and I was really disappointed. While most of the issues others have mentioned haven’t bothered me yet, I had an unreasonably hard time finding the vendor’s information about this blend amidst all the Steepster promotional info, snippets and tasting information contributed by users. Arguably I could have gone straight to their site but since I use Steepster as my tea journal, I didn’t think it would be unreasonable to look here for ingredients and brewing guidelines from the company.

Part of the beauty of the Steepster database is that the companies provide their info, and the users expand upon it in their reviews. Especially for older teas that are discontinued, re-blended or otherwise unavailable on a company website, it is great to have the info here in the archives. I appreciate that the Steepster overlords need to find a way to profit from the site, but it seems to be at the hands of the tea companies and reviewers right now which is frustrating. It would be funny if this paragraph were chosen as a snippet for this tea though…

Anyway, personal complaints aside I am excited to try this one. I had accidentally stored it with my herbals when sorting tea in our new house and had to confirm that it is in fact a black blend. I have been drinking nothing but black tea for the last month and was proud of my selection of an herbal – until I proved myself wrong. Ah well. It smells amazing, mostly of ginger and orange to me without being too pungent. It is rich with full leaf, herbs and light ‘dust’ from the black tea. I took a deep scoop out of the bag and ended up with a lot of herbs and little tea. It seems to be a 2:1 ratio of additions to tea in my ounce of this so I am plunging ahead. Hopefully I got a good balance of all the parts, that can be tricky with Verdant blends.

Steeped at 95 degrees for four minutes (kinda forgot a bit) this smells lightly of ginger with a bakey aspect, reminding me of Christmas gingerbread. First sips echo that taste strongly. Ginger, but sweetened by the vanilla and citrus so it doesn’t burn like fresh ginger. Hot, I am loving the blending of the ingredients. My favourite spice teas echo gingerbread and this is the closest I have had one come in a long time. It reminds of 52Teas Gingerbread Chai which I loved.

The black base is very light here, and completely without bitterness. I can’t say I notice the vanilla here but I do get citrus in the aftertaste. If this holds up well while it cools as well as it does hot then it will be a re-stock as soon as it’s available again. I rarely do this but I think this would be interesting with a bit of rock sugar. I might try that some day. As yummy as it is, there is something a little flat about it that I would like to fill out. Steeping it a bit less time, with a bit more citrus in the scoop would probably do a lot for that!

For now, this is a yummy blend that I will have to play with a bit. Glad to have an ounce to enjoy. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming!

I picked up an ounce of this when my sister took me to the Verdant Tasting room. It wasn’t one I was expecting to buy, but man I am glad I did. For me it is a tea that came with no expectations which I am finding can be a very good thing. This is such a comforting and warming tea. I get this feeling that I am eating a nice dessert next to the fire. I can’t even describe the flavors of this one. Bread/cake are some of the words that come to mind with a hint of vanilla and citrus. I like! I hope this one stays around. Looking at some of the tasting notes I am going to have to try steeping this for longer next time.

This was an okay blend. I only had a sample, and I would not buy more, even if it were in stock.

My boyfriend was the first to open the package. He took a big whiff and turned to me with huge eyes. “It smells like Christmas!” He was right! It smelled amazing, and like delicious Christmas spices. He’s not a big fan of taking the time to look up the steeping directions online, so he steeped it without rinsing the leaves. That was probably a mistake. The spices were too strong and didn’t meld together nicely. Instead, it just tasted like a flat mixture of spices. Nothing stood out, nothing was of note. He dumped the leaves without resteeping it.

I tried this again the other day. I have some notes that I wrote, though I didn’t get to log it right away because our internet was out. I looked up Verdant’s directions and did two quick, 1-3 second rinses. The first rinse smelled so amazing, I had to take a quick sip. It tasted like gingerbread! Mmmm. I then steeped the leaves, I think for 2 min, as per the website instructions. Hot, there is a ton of cinnamon and ginger flavor. I can feel the cinnamon, slightly gritty in the back of my throat. As it cools, the vanilla comes out more. For something that is called a citrus blend, I’m really not getting any citrus at all. I have written down, “It’s like a spice cookie.” It’s a fairly creamy tea, though it still doesn’t stand up to the amazing smell of the dry leaf. I put in white sugar with the last half of my mug, in the hopes that it will help me distinguish between flavors, but it doesn’t really improve things. It’s not bad but also not exceptional.
Second steeping: It’s very flat, like dried, ground spices in water. I’m not getting any of the creaminess of the previous steeping, and not very much tea base. I added brown sugar and milk after just a few sips, because there wasn’t anything really going on with the tea. The brown sugar and milk help, it becomes a little richer and more like a winter dessert.

Overall, it was a decent tea. However, it was lacking that “Wow” factor that I’ve come to expect from Verdant.