My world was once dry and flaky, encased within sad little packets of filter paper, fit only for turning water brown and tastebuds off. Then along came the magic of Teavana and its wonderful selection of fine teas and suddenly I’m in a heaven all of my own.
Although no longer picked by monkeys, this Monkey-Picked Oolong from Teavana’s store of happy stories is one of the top oolong teas you can buy these days, and for a pretty price. Nicely enough, my kind step-sister&brother got me 2 ounces of it for Christmas. I tried it for the first time tonight — AMAZING.
I didn’t know about Teavana until my wife and I were wandering around Jordan Creek Mall in Des Moines and happened upon the store while simply browsing around. The idea of tea enticed me (I’ve always been fond of green tea in particular) and so I went in to take a look at the pots and offerings. Little did we know that we would spend the next 45 minutes while the saleswoman, a lovely person, spent a huge amount of time explaining all of the different pots, infusers, cups, and teas. I think she probably let us smell 30 different containers before we finally made our selection, which was only about $34 worth of tea in the end. A wonderful employee and equally wonderful tea. We’re now fully biased against regular old tea bags for just about anything.
(I have no connection to Teavana nor am I getting compensation for this; I simply like their product, that’s all!)
What does it taste like? I’ve been drinking fruit teas lately… by Celestial. Bag tea and cheap, but a little Sweet N Low and it’s pretty good—keeps me warm anyway, that was the main reason.
It tastes lovely! The Monkey-Picked is mellow yet has that distinctive green tea flavor of leaves and herbs with a slight bite but a nice, easy finish so it’s not harsh. Actually, Teavana does an awful lot of herbal teas, completely natural (the saleswoman said people often eat the tea after brewing it, as it’s just things like chopped & dried fruit pieces). The strawberry and peach mixes are very much recommended. Stop in at Jordan and check them out; the woman was a nice, 30-something gal with a very bubbly personality.
I will have to pop in there. I would totally dig the strawberry and peach. Which store? I was just at the mall yesterday (with Belva, Mary, LeAnn, and Joy!). Since I live only a mile away I guess I could go again… quit twiting my arm!
Main mall, bottom floor, to the left of Yonkers. Here’s a link to it: Teavana is section D
Tea is like wine for some people. They show it off, taste it, love it, brag about it, and in order to get the good stuff-much like anything else-they pay a lot for it.
Those leaves up there look wonderful. 
!! I bet it tastes amazing.
At work I got used to drinking two or three cups of it because I’m bored and it’s better than eating. Right now I can only afford Lipton in it’s pyramid-shaped infuser. I read up a bit on it because I wanted to find a tea with actual larger chunks of tea leaves, rather than fannings, and supposedly the Lipton I have is decent for what you pay, which is around $4 a box here. It tastes a helluva lot better than the little tiny bags. I tried a different brand of tea the other day, Teaforte, given to me by my boyfriend’s grandmother, and it was insanely expensive but really good and flavorful. I wish I would have helped myself to more of them.
There is a tea store like that at the malls around here that I’ve been dying to try. I wonder if it’s the same store or something very similar. They had all kinds of fun tea pots and tea.
At any rate, a cup of tea is wonderful and soothing, no matter what the price.
Well, you’re right. Tea is like wine insomuch as it follows the, “anyone can obsess about it”, mantra. Some things are definitely worth the money — fine tea, in my opinion, is a far cry from less-fine tea. That isn’t *always* the case — a $14/glass wine may be only incrementally better than a $1/glass wine, yet it costs 14 times the amount. Is it worth it? If you like wine, I suppose it is.
(Having had $14/glass wine, I can verify that it’s truly wonderful. But not 14-times wonderful.)
I definitely recommend using whole-leaf tea when you can and loose leaf when possible. The nice thing is that Monkey-Picked is very expensive, but most of them are not. The last Teavana oolong I had was only $4 for 2 oz and it was very, very good. So you can drink nicely AND on a budget!
Check out Adagio online. Great teas. I like the white blueberry, m’self.
Yup, I’ve tried (and have on hand) some Adagio teas, but…these are better. Not that Adagio is bad. But these do seem to be “fresher” if you will.