Review: Tiesta Tea Lean Green Machine

Overall Rating:

Taste: 4.25 of 5 leaves: Quite a good cuppa!
Steepability: 3 of 5 tea leaves – This tea is a bit delicate.

Abby says:

Tea Type: Loose Leaf
Temperature: @175 (below boiling)
Steeped: 2 minutes
Served: Nothing added

Here’s another one from Tiesta Tea! This time it’s a zesty green tea in their slenderizer line of teas. Lean Green Machine is a blend of green tea, lemongrass, orange and lemon peel, bergamot oil and natural flavors. Isn’t it so pretty, too?! I love all the big chunky pieces.

As this tea steeps it looks and smells very vegetal. The tea leaves and other pieces expand, taking up a lot of room in the teapot! The smell is very fresh, of lemons a grass. As far as taste, for me, the most prominent flavor is the bergamot. Maybe because I’m used to tasting it in black tea? Or maybe because the orange peel and lemon peel act to accentuate the flavor? No mater, it tastes good – flavorful without being flowery. On second steep I found the lemongrass much more noticeable than in my first cup. So, that was fun!

Taste: 4 of 5 leaves: Quite a good cuppa!
Steepability: 3 of 5 tea leaves –  This tea is a bit delicate.

Katie says:

Tea Type: Loose Leaf
Temperature: @175 (below boiling)
Steeped: 2 minutes
Served: Just a touch of honey

This is a delicious green tea. It has a clean, crisp, and just slightly green/earthy taste. For me the bergamot, lemon, and orange notes rounded out the green tea and softened the sometimes harsh taste of typical green teas. It’s a pretty tea that opened up to reveal big full leaves! I love when the steeped tea looks almost like fresh-picked picked leaves! This is a good choice to keep in the cupboard as a solid stand-by solid green tea.

Taste: 4.5 of 5 leaves: Quite a good cuppa!
Steepability: 3 of 5 tea leaves – This tea is a bit delicate.

Photos: katiering.com

*Note, this tea was provided to us free of charge by the supplier. We were not paid for the review, we simply received free product. We always review every tea to the same standard. If we receive free tea that we do not like we choose to not review it. (Who wants to read a bummer of a post?) If you’d like to submit a tea for review please email: delecteable@gmail.com.

Review: Republic of Tea Lemon Chiffon *Iced Tea*

Abby says:

Tea Type: Bagged – used three tea bags for iced tea
Temperature: Iced
Served: Nothing added

‘Tis the season for iced tea! With temperatures around here creeping toward 90 degrees iced tea is the way to go – even for me, the die-hard hot-tea girl! Traditional iced tea is great and I love it on a hot summer day, but this time around I wanted to try something a little different. I’ve had this container of Republic of Tea Lemon Chiffon (from the Cuppa Cake Tea line) in my tea cabinet for a little while now and every time I looked at it, I just thought – iced tea! I was right! It makes a great, light iced tea with terrific lemon flavor. It also has a little hint of sweet already in it, so I didn’t even have to worry about whether or not to add anything. I used four tea bags to make about three cups of tea. If you are making a bigger batch add one or two more tea bags. I steeped the tea for about seven minutes, let is sit (covered) in the fridge for about 25 minutes then pour over ice.

I really enjoyed this tea because its different from the typical iced tea. It has nice fruity, lemon notes without being tart or astringent and has a bit of sweet, but nothing like sweet tea. My favorite part is the coconut that you can taste with each sip. It really makes this tea taste like a treat. The lemon chiffon tea is a blend of green rooibos, apple, lemongrass, lemon, vanilla, and coconut. The ingredients don’t list a single sweetener added – love that too!

If you are looking to switch things up in the iced tea dept. or if you are looking for flavorful decaf option try this one out.

Taste: 4 of 5 tea leaves – quite a good cuppa!
Steepability: 5 of 5 tea leaves – this tea is easy to make!

 

Review: Finest Kind Tea Mixers & Modifiers *Giveaway*

UPDATE: The giveaway has now ended. A winner will be notified shortly. Thank you!

 
Finest Kind Tea Mixers & Modifiers Giveaway! Just comment for a chance to win. (see below)

Mandatory Entry:  (comment to tell us) This tea is a concentrated brewed tea to use hot, iced, or as a mixer 🙂 How would you take your Finest Kind Tea? Hot, iced or in a cocktail? (One Extra Entry for Each, please comment once for each entry to let us know!)

– Share your idea for a cocktail using Finest Kind Tea Mixers & Modifiers !

-Follow @Delecteable on Twitter.

-“Like” DelecTEAble on Facebook

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-Share this giveaway via Twitter or Facebook. (Once Daily) Feel free to copy/paste: I entered the @Delecteable giveaway for a chance to win @FinestKindTea! You can enter too! http://bit.ly/1DYZAPb #giveaway

Remember, each entry must be left in a separate comment. A winning comment will be chosen at random. The winner has 48 hours to reply and claim their prize before a new winner is selected. Only U.S. residents can win but others are welcome to comment. Note this post is set to auto publish at noon on 4/19. The comments will be closed and a winner will be chosen at 9PM EST Tuesday 4/28

*This giveaway is sponsored. We were given enough product to sample & giveaway from Finest Kind Tea Mixers & Modifiers.

Our Review & Overall Rating: 1753 Green Tea, Hibiscus & a Touch of Honey

Overall rating:

Taste: 4 of 5 leaves: Quite a good cuppa!

Steepability: 5 of 5 — this tea is easy to make!

 

Abby says:

Tea Type: Bottled 
Temperature: Over Ice
Served: Nothing added

Finest Kind Mixers & Modifiers makes fun, stylish and tasty mixers and modifiers using a tea base. Sounds good, right? Yep. The 1753 is my favorite of the blends we tried. I love it because it isn’t sweet at all. This allows the mixer to lend itself well to a variety of different drink styles. I sampled this one just over ice because I really wanted to be able to taste the blend and all it has to offer. I liked it a lot and found it flavorful, tart and easy to drink. The hibiscus keeps it interesting without being too flowery or tasting like perfume. It compliments the green tea nicely. The honey is very light, thankfully! I didn’t taste it in every sip, but it keeps the mix from being too tart. Taste: 4 of 5 leaves: Quite a good cuppa! Steepability: 5 of 5 — this tea is easy to make!

Katie says:

Tea Type: Bottled

Temperature: Over ice

Served: as iced tea at first, added a touch of honey to sweeten more

I liked this tea, the hibiscus gives it a very unique taste. I did want it to be a bit sweeter so I added a touch of honey. The hibiscus flavor was nice, but I felt that it overpowered the green a bit. Like Abby I tried an iced tea version of this drink and found it very refreshing. I think this would make an excellent mixer with an herbal liquor like St. Gremain. Or, if you like cocktails, try it with this Elderflower tonic.

Since I am currently pregnant I didn’t test out the alcoholic cocktail recipe. If you do try it please let me know how it is!

Taste: 4 of 5 leaves: Quite a good cuppa.

Steepability: 5 of 5 — this tea is easy to make!

Our Review & Overall Rating: 1960 Black Tea, Lemon Juice, Cane Sugar

Overall Rating:
Taste: 4 of 5 leaves: Quite a good cuppa.

Steepability: 5 of 5 — this tea is easy to make!

 

Abby says:

Tea Type: Bottled 
Temperature: Over Ice
Served: Nothing added

The 1960 blend from Finest Kind is the most similar to what you would expect to find in an “iced tea” mixer. Don’t worry, it’s much better than what you typically find, but it’s a blend of the traditional black tea, lemon and sugar. After following the directions of 1 part mixer to 7 parts ice water, I found it a little too sweet for me. To even it out I added a touch of fresh lemon juice and it was perfect for me. If you like sweet tea, you’ll love it as is. Again, I sampled it over iced to get the full flavor. it was a bit too sweet for me in that form, but I suspect that the extra sweetness would work well when using this as a mixer for a tasty cocktail! The black tea, lemon and sugar match each other pretty well and a smooth blend of all three. On a side note: I just LOVE the tiny glass bottles our tea samples arrived it and have been trying to think of good ways to repurpose the bottles since all of the tea is long gone. Then I remembered Katie’s post about tiny tea-party flowers and found my use – tiny wild flower vases! Love!

 

Taste: 3 of 5 leaves: A decent tasty tea.

Steepability: 5 of 5 — this tea is easy to make!

 

Katie says:
Tea Type: Bottled
Temperature: Over Ice
Served: As directed, diluted with water over ice

I think this tea is fabulous! I tired it iced, loved it, and must acquire a big bottle ASAP. Since my sample bottle said it makes 2 servings I let my co-worker Justin try some and he also thought it was delicious, no modifications needed! I find the strength of the black tea to be perfect with just the right amount of lemon and sugar. This iced tea is perfectly yummy! Also, do note that Abby and I have very different tastes when it comes to the sweetness of tea. While this is a sweetened iced tea I did not find it to be overly sugary. It’s a New England version of sweetened tea. If southern sweet tea is your thing your thing then you’ll want to add a bit more sugar.

*Please note that we are just as critical of free teas as the ones we purchase. If we get a sample we don’t like we won’t include it on our blog.

Review: Yogi Lemon Ginger

Overall Rating:

Taste: 3.5 of 5 leaves – A decent tasty tea.
Steepability: 5 of 5 leaves — this tea is easy to make!

Abby says:

Tea Type: Bagged
Temperature: @Boiling
Steeped: 6 minutes
Served: Nothing added

Lotta ginger, not much lemon! Because I let this tea steep as long as I did the ginger was strong. Thankfully it wasn’t too spicy, just the right amount of bite. The scent of lemon is there, but I didn’t taste it. Maybe if it steeped for five minutes or less the lemon might come through a bit more. Though I didn’t get lemon, I still enjoyed this tea. For me it makes just the right cuppa for cuddling up with a good book or movie after a long day. Flavorful and comforting. Also note that it’s made with organic ginger though it is not a certified organic tea like some of other Yogi teas.

Ginger is known to settle the stomach, so it’s nice to have a stash of ginger tea in the box just in case. I prefer loose ginger tea, but this works well in a pinch. Especially if you don’t feel well, and don’t feel like preparing loose tea.

Taste: 3 of 5 leaves – A decent tasty tea.
Steepability: 5 of 5 leaves — this tea is easy to make!

Katie says:

Tea Type: Bagged
Temperature: @Boiling
Steeped: 6 minutes
Served: with honey

If you are looking for a tummy-taming tea this is really fantastic. I may not choose this spicy for my daily morning cuppa but its a medicinal tea that still tastes yummy. I really like the spicy flavor of real ginger that I got from this tea. With the addition of honey it has a similar flavor to ginger candies. Nice flavor and it makes indigestion oh so much better. I’ve tired other teas with blends of chamomile but for me, the predominately ginger tea with a touch of lemon has much nicer taste than more blends of more ingredients. I particularly recommend it to anyone suffering from the many unpleasant symptoms of pregnancy, but (of course) check with your doctor or midwife first!

Taste: 4 of 5 leaves – Quite a good cuppa.
Steepability: 5 of 5 leaves — this tea is easy to make!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Delecteable!

Today is our third birthday! Wow, that time has passed quickly.  Just think of all the tea we’ve tried and written about over the past three years. To celebrate, we’ve made a delicious black tea cake with lemon buttercream frosting! Happy birthday to us! To give credit where credit is due, we found the recipe for this awesome cake over at Freutcake! Follow the link to get the recipe for yourself and to see the beautiful photos of Leah’s version of this tasty cake. Or, just look at the sweet photos I took, though they aren’t nearly as cool.

The ingredients! I was skeptical about how much tea flavor would come through in the cake, but the cake REALLY tastes like tea – I promise!  The frosting is bursting with lemon flavor as well.  As we all know tea and lemon are great friends, so this works so well!

The batter was much thinner than I’m used to, but it turned out just fine. I tried the batter before it went in the oven, it tasted great!

The bottom of the first cake coming out of the pan – looks like a bear print! Fun!

Make sure the two cakes are COMPLETELY cooled before trimming and adding the frosting, otherwise the cake with  tear and the frosting will separate and melt – no fun 😦

Before we sign off to go enjoy our birthday cake, we just wanted to shout out a huge THANK YOU to all of our readers, supporters and tea companies who have kept us going all this time.  We love our blog and have so much fun adding to it, but it would be nearly as much fun with out all of you!

 

Review: Rishi Summer Lemon Organic Iced Tea

This tea is USDA Organic & Fair Trade Certified!

Abby says:

Temperature: Cold, over ice
Steeped: 5 minutes
Served: Nothing added

Steep-your-own iced tea is great for serving lots of people and for tea fanatics like us! It is great to make-ahead so it’s always ready. For me, being without iced tea in the summer is a crime! Lucky for me, with this oversized Rishi Summer Lemon Organic tea bag, I can make 32 oz. of iced tea in a snap! What could be better than a tasty USDA certified organic and fair trade iced tea on a hot day in July?

Ok, ok, now you want to know how THIS is tastes. Of course. More good news – its tastes great! As a black tea, it has a nice robust earthy flavor with just a touch of lemon. Even cold, you can detect a hint of both smokiness and sweetness – not something you typically find. It is a unique, delicious tea that although it has its own strong flavor would go well with just about any summer food. I, for example, was eating a tasty piece of baklava from the Portland Greek Food Festival in all of its over-the-top sweetness glory while sampling this tea. It was a prefect combination! The earthy black tea cut the very sweet honey nicely, while the hint of sweet and lemon in this tea allowed for a nice mingling of flavors instead of just two harsh contrasts.

Taste: 4.5 of 5 leaves – Quite a good ICED cuppa!
Steepability: 4 of 5 leaves — This tea requires very little effort

Katie says:

I suggest sipping your iced tea in these adorable bee glasses that I photographed for Stonewall Kitchen.

Temperature: Cold, over ice
Steeped: 5 minutes
Served: Nothing added

I share Abby’s enthusiasm about this tea. There are several things that made me choose to give it a very high rating.

1) This tea is both fair trade and organic. Those are two good things that for me boost the rating of any tea.

2) This tea is strong enough to make a whole pitcher quickly! You brew the tea in 16 ounces of boiling water, then after 5 minutes add 16 oz more cold water. At that point the tea is about room temp so when you add ice it doesn’t melt quickly like if you try to ice hot tea. Even when after a little ice melting this is still a strong & tasty tea.

3) This tea includes lemon right in the tea bag. You can enjoy the fresh taste of lemon iced tea even if you are without fresh lemons. Bonus!

Most of all, I enjoy brew-your-own iced teas because I like just a hint of sweet. I do enjoy the occasional glass of sweet tea. However, to drink it all day long (as is my style) I like to have just a hint of honey or agave nectar. The rich somewhat smoke taste that Abby was talking about really works well with just a hint of honey to make a nice complexly-flavored tea. If you like to make your own iced tea without waiting for sun tea or refrigerator tea then this should become one of your summer pantry staples.

Taste: 4.5 of 5 leaves – Quite a good ICED cuppa!
Steepability: 4 of 5 leaves — This tea requires very little effort

Review: Sweet Leaf Half & Half Lemonade Tea

Overall Rating:

Taste: 4 of 5 tea leaves
Steepability: This tea is bottled!

Abby says:

Temperature: Cold
Served: Over ice, in a glass

Now that summer is unofficially here, Katie and I are excited to review some iced teas!  We both continue to regularly drink hot tea, but surprise, surprise, we both love iced tea too!  This week we reviewed Sweet Leaf Half & Half Lemonade Tea.  I like Sweet Leaf because they don’t use an artificial ingedients in their bottled teas and are USDA certified organic.

Okay, so most of you probably already know that I am typically not a fan of tea that is sweet.  In fact, I usually drink my tea with nothing added.  However, that goes out the window somewhat when it comes to iced tea.  When it comes to the cold stuff I like both sweet and unsweetened varities.  This tea is definately sweet!  In fact one 16oz. bottle (two servings) contains 48g of sugar. That is sweet!  But this IS Half & Half we are talking about here.  To me it tastes good and really reminds me of summer!  The balance of tea and lemonade is just right.  I found it refreshing, tasty and easy to drink – maybe too easy to drink! 🙂

Taste: 3.5 of 5 tea leaves – A decent tasty tea.
Steepability: This tea is bottled!

Katie says:

Temperature: Cold
Served: Over ice, in a glass

Abby & I realize that although we drink hot tea year round, all day long in-fact; that’s certainly not the case in for many of you. As we welcome June we thought it was certainly time for some iced tea reviews.

From the name of this tea, sweet leaf, you know it’s going to be sweet. Abby doesn’t love sweetened teas. I am an admitted sugar addict. What I don’t like is the fake sugar “sweetener” taste. I’ve had sweetened iced teas in the past that have been ok, but I find to good ones to be few & far between…with many being sickeningly sweet. This tea uses real organic cane sugar. While it is sweet, I’d say pleasantly so.

I’m always looking for a hint of sweet after lunch like a small bite of candy. This tea is a nice change to fill that sweet craving. I love that the makers of this tea, Clayton & David, say “Clayton’s grannie ‘Mimi’ taught us never to use ingredients that you can’t pronounce.” I like that policy when it comes my food!

Overall I find this to be a very good bottled iced tea. No strange ingredients, plenty of tea flavor (the lemon doesn’t take over), and quite sweet but no where near the sickeningly sweet taste of some iced teas. (The sweetened diet kind are my least favorite!) If you prefer less sweet in your iced tea you may want to opt for a lower sugar or unsweetened tea.  If you like sweet tea give Sweet Leaf a try, it’s a good one! And…check out their website, it’s quite spiffy!

Taste: 4.5 of 5 tea leaves – Quite a good cuppa!
Steepability: This tea is bottled!

Adventures in Baking: Lemon-Earl Grey Squares

My husband loves to bake and is kind enough to tackle any recipe I throw at him.  So when we got our latest issue of Cooking Light in the mail I wasted no time in asking him to whip up this tasty looking summer treat for me.  I mean, it has tea in it, how could he refuse.  In this recipe he used Twinings Earl Grey loose tea, even though it called for tea bags.

These little beauties are similar to traditional lemon squares, but with the added element of Earl Grey tea to pump up the sophistication and flavor!  These squares are no one-trick ponies – they’re sweet and lemony, but also have a savory side thanks to the tea.  They are so good.  I ate two before I even realized I had finished one, they are just THAT good.

If you are looking to impress at the cookout this weekend, or the bridal shower, or the grad party, or the whatever check out the recipe here and try it out for yourself.  Total time is about 2 hours, but actual hands-on time is only 25 minutes. Easy. Did I mention I didn’t bake these and my husband did all the work? 🙂

Just look at those big flecks of tea!  This summer, remember that tea isn’t just served hot or even in a cup.  There are so many different ways to enjoy tea when the weather warms up!  Do you have a favorite tea-in-food recipe?  If you share it with us, we might make it and then we will give you props for sharing!

Review: Stash Guayusa Tea – Final Four Edition

As you may know, March Madness is once again upon us and has taken over the sports community.  While basketball fans around the country were filling out their brackets, Katie and I were, as usual… drinking tea!  I decided that I wanted to get in on the action too.  So, when Stash Tea was kind enough to send us samples of their new line of Guayusa tea to review I decided to make it a bit of a competition!

They sent us five teas to review: Pure Guayusa (which we will review separately) and four Guayusa blends.  In this review each of the four tea blends will be matched up against one another for comparison, until, ultimately, I come up with the Guayusa tea winner!

In the first matchup we have Guayusa tea with lemon

matched up against Guayusa with mint

The winner of this matchup is the Guayusa with lemon, although I must say it was a close battle!  The Guayusa with mint was a strong and tasty combination.  You often find mint flavored teas as decaf, so it was certainly nice to have a caffeinated tea with a bold mint flavor.  Although the mint blend was good, the overall winner here is the lemon blend. The bright lemon flavor balanced so well with the earthy and hearty Guayusa tea.

Next up we have Guayusa with yerba mate and ginseng

matched up against Guayusa with Chai

In this battle, the Guayusa with yerba mate and ginseng was certainly the underdog given my love affair with chai.  This tea was a little too pungent for my taste, thought I did enjoy the bold flavor.  I must say that even with the interesting and earthy flavor it provided, this tea was not able to beat the Chai with its perfect blend of exotic tea and sweet and spicy flavors.  In the Chai blend notes of the Guayusa tea can be tasted, but it is also familiar because of the blend of Chai spices.  The winner of this match up is the Guayusa with Chai!

Finally the two winners of the previous competitions will match up and the overall winner will be named!  The Guayusa with lemon will match up against the Guayusa with Chai.  This was another close call, but for me the Guayusa Chai blend wins the day!  This tea was really a pleasure to drink and I can already see myself drinking cup after cup of this tea in the future.  The lemon blend provided a nice bright tea which I throughly enjoyed, but the spicy Chai flavors squeaked out the win this time.

WINNER: GUAYUSA with CHAI!

Have you tried any of these interesting new teas?  Have you done any comparisons of these different blends?  If so, which came out on top in your opinion?  This was such a fun way to incorporate the excitement of March Madness into my love of drinking tea!  Thanks so much Stash Tea for so many great new teas for comparison.  Certified USDA Organic and hailing from Ecuador all of these teas are really a treat and worth a try.  Look for our upcoming review of the Stash Pure Guayusa tea for more information on this wonderful tea!