Tealightful Treasures Sweet Cherry & Tealightful Afternoon Tea Review

My personal package from Tealightful Treasures

Lisa from Tealightful Treasures of Rochester, New York sent me this adorable package in the mail.  She tucked the tea samples into an adorable hand written card.  I absolutely love personalized things and attention to detail so they get brownie points for this.  Tealightful Treasures is actually a home party company.  Meaning they can help you organize your very own tea party in the comfort of your own home complete with fine china and scones.  This company has been featured in USA Today, Parents and Rochester Healthy Living magazine just to show you how popular they are.

The two samples I received were Tealightful Afternoon, a black tea, and Sweet Cherry, a rooibos tea.  Black teas and rooibos should be steeped 2-5 and 4-6 minutes in boiling water respectively.  I used two T-Sac’s two hold the teas and started with the black tea first.  I figured I would end with the dessert tea!

Ceylon tea and Rooibos tea

Tealightful Afternoon is a Kenilworth OP (Orange Pekoe) Estate Ceylon (Sri Lanken) Tea.  I’ve had many Sri Lanken Teas and I love them so I’m looking forward to this.  The smell of this black tea is very mild and the tea is very light.  It’s body is comparable to a green tea.  It’s not bitter at all.  I’m guessing there is a lot of caffeine to this tea, as I’m feeling the effects of it even after a few sips!  If you want a tea with a caffeine kick and like a tea with a lighter body, this is the tea for you.  Side note:  If you prefer teas that are lighter in caffeine and you adore a black tea, go organic.  Organic teas actually have less caffeine.

Next is the Sweet Cherry Tea.  The ingredients are: rooibos, flavoring, heather petals, and freeze dried sour cherry pieces.  I love roobios and all things cherry, except for artificial cherry pieces because of all the food coloring!, so I’m bias to this.  This cherry tea is light and delicate on the palate.  The smell of the cherry notes are very subtle.  If you like rooibos tea and only a hint of cherry, then this is the tea for you.  This would be a very good dessert tea after a heavy meal.  It would also make an excellent iced tea in the summer with some agave or honey.

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Design A Tea – 3 Cups of Fabulously Yummy Tea

The slogan at Design A Tea is where Tea Leaves Dream.  How cute is that?  It’s actually very fitting because the man who found this tea company opened it based on a dream!  Brian used to be a paramedic until one night he had a dream in 2006.  This is how the dream goes

I was walking down the rural road I grew up on. I passed an elderly lady who was cooking something on a small fire in the ditch. As I approached her she asked me if I wanted some apple tea. An odd question I recalled, because I seldom drank coffee let alone tea, but being polite I reached down and took the cup. I drank it and told her, “This is great tea.” She replied with, “Of course it is, you created it.” Thinking she was a crazy old lady, I handed her the cup back. As I did this the dream slowly started to turn from black & white to color. I turned and continued to walk down the dirt road. Soon after I awoke.

I love this story because I’m always encouraging people to follow their dreams and this is a literal example!

The concept behind Design A Tea is very simple.  You choose your base tea, pick your favourite flavours and they send you your custom blend!  How cool is that!  Each person is entitled to 2 free tea samples as long as you pay the small ($1.00 or so) shipping cost.  Brian was kind enough to send me my two tea samples and a bonus sample that he concocted.  My two teas were A Rooibos Tea with Caramel & Pecan and a Rooibos tea with Zabaglione & Cassis.  The rooibos were organic grade from South Africa.  Bonus!  When I picked the second tea I had no idea what those things were at the time and I thought why not try the most outrageous thing possible and see if it can taste good.  We’ll shortly see.  Brian also sent me a Green tea with Pina Colada & Chocolate.  Dessert teas galore!

The first tea I tried was the rooibos with caramel pecan.  OMG it smells like sweet sugary caramel popcorn.  I wish the internet would hurry up and invent something that will transport smells from peoples computers.  Yum yum.  You can see the beautiful hue that came out after steeping it for about one minute.  Wow.  I’m speechless.  If candied popcorn was a tea this is it.  Holy crap.  I created candy caramel popcorn in a tea.  I should patent this and sell it to Kernels.  Anyways on to the next tea.

As you can see Brian packages the tea samples in individual tea pouches.  T-Sacs I’m assuming.  The next one I’m trying is the Zabaglione & Cassis.  Cassis as I explained in another post is the same as blackcurrant.  Which I am a huge fan of!  Okay this tea has completely different characteristics.  It smells like someone just crushed a bunch of berries with their fist.   I smell a bit of apples on the nose.  The color is a lot darker and redder in tone than the last tea.  Let’s try it.  I love it.  I can’t believe it.  It tastes even better than the last tea.  I wish everyone could taste and smell this.  It’s very fruity but not overpowering.  I can’t believe I made this!

last tea, Brian’s pick.  Green tea with Pina Colada & Chocolate.  The green tea is actually organic sencha from Japan.  The yellowy liquor smells like pineapple yogurt.  Holy crap.  This is good too.  The tastes soo much like pina colada.  I’m not picking up any chocolate notes in the nose, but when you drink the tea the chocolate follows the pineapple.   Wow.  How can something without any sugar in it taste sweet?  Think about that for a second!  I highly recommend these to people who enjoy strong dessert teas and like experimenting.  You definitely have to steep these teas for 5-7 minutes though to get the full flavouring.  Check out their website and Happy blending!  Oh FYI don’t copy me and let the TSac hang off the side, the tea will get on your table!  =)  Cheers.

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