A package from my Croatian friend

I have been exchanging tea and chocolate with my Croatian friend Enola for over a year now. I love having friends and family all over the world. And I love sending and receiving surprise packages full of vegan goodies and tea. Yesterday I received a package from Enola full of sweet surprises. She sent me vegan Nutella, baked apple flavored fruit tea, jelly pralines with cherries and chocolate, orange marzipan chocolate eggs, vanilla blueberry tea, Apple & Cinnamon tea, vanilla & chocolate pudding, Orange & Rum tea, dark chocolate with lavender, nougat wafers, hazelnut almond nougat candy, and Rum chocolate candy bars.

Do you have any international or out of state pen pal with whom you exchange packages with?

Stash Tea Review

STASH Tea company kindly sent me a few samples of three of their decaf and caffeine free teas to try. Here is my review:

Raspberry & White Decaf Tea

This tea is great! It smells like a raspberry jam and has a pleasantly smooth taste, with a beautiful raspberry aftertaste, and no bitterness. I really enjoyed this tea!

Lavender-Tulsi Herbal Tea

Tulsi is the most sacred herb of India. People also call it Holly Basil. It is a stress relieving, energizing tea that promotes healthy metabolism, boosts immunity and enhances stamina. In a combination with relaxing and anti-inflammatory lavender, this tea is a very healthy and holistic drink.

The aroma of this tea reminds me of my lavender bath salts. It has a very sweet, herbal taste with a slight minty aftertaste. However, the strong lavender aroma is a bit overpowering for me.

Red Berry Rooibos (Chanakara Tea)

This tea was inspired by Chakra 1. You can read more about Chakras and teas that help balance, energize and tune your Chakras here.

Uva Ursi is a wonderful herbal remedy for urinary track infections so this tea would be a good idea if you have problems with UTIs.

This tea makes a beautiful red brew with strong fruity aroma. It has a sweet berry, tangy and smooth taste.

STASH Tea company carries a wide selection of teas, teaware, gifts and treats. Learn more about their teas on their website, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter

Zhena's Gypsy Tea "Caramel Chai" herbal red tea

Zhena's Gypsy Tea is one of my favorite tea companies, so I was very excited to get a tin of their new Caramel Chai Herbal Red Tea in the mail last week. I just ran out of my other chai tea so this was a great timing :-)

This tea is packed in eco-friendly tea sachets for convenient brewing. It's organic, fair trade and vegan. All Zhena's Gypsy Teas are vegan which makes me very happy :-)

Most chai teas are made with black tea that contains caffeine so I usually buy decaffeinated black chai tea or Rooibos chai tea. This tea is made with Rooibos so there is literally zero caffeine. This tea is full of antioxidants and health beneficial herbs and spices.

My first impression when I opened the tin of Caramel Chai Herbal Red Tea and smelled the tea sachets was "Wow!" The strong, sweet and spicy aroma was overwhelming and I could not wait to brew a cup of that tea.

This lovely tea has a quite unique taste compare to other chai teas that I know. I added a splash of unsweetened almond milk which resulted in a delightful, creamy, sweet and mildly spicy cup of tea. I love the addition of caramelized brown sugar which creates a sweet, caramel flavor that beautifully accompanies the warm and spicy chai blend. The pungent crystallized ginger gives this tea a nice, warm touch. Whole bean Bourbon vanilla adds a beautiful taste that slightly mellows down the spicy cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg, cardamon and cloves, while the licorice root adds a touch of extra sweetness. The tea was sweet enough on its own, but a spoonful of agave nectar or other sweetener might be a nice addition, too. I loved that the tea was not overly spicy, but rather flavorful, creamy, and full of caramel taste.

*Check out Zhena's Gypsy Tea on their website

*Follow them on Twitter

*Like them on Facebook

I am crazy about tea!

Tea, tea, tea! As you can see from these pictures, I am a tea fanatic :-) This is the majority of my tea collection. As most of my readers know, I don't do well with caffeine (you can read my story here), therefore I mostly have fruit, herbal, Rooibos or decaf tea varieties.

I love buying tea, exchanging tea with friends and getting tea as presents. I prefer tea bags since they are so much easier to deal with and more portable, but any good loose tea makes me happy, too. I drink hot tea all year long. I drink my black decaf and black decaf Earl Grey tea with a splash of almond milk. I also love my Pero and Teeccino coffee alternatives.

When I lived in Prague I used to hang out in Tea Rooms and Tea shops several times a week. Unfortunately in Atlanta I had to create my own Tea Room at home because there are no tea rooms around here.

Some of my favorite tea flavors that I have in tea bags are: Teekanne "Magic Moments" (fruit tea with rum-grape and orange taste), Teekanne "Raspberry Vanilla", Teekanne "Turkish Apple" (apple and fig tea), Teekanne "Peach and Passionfruit", Pickwick "Plum, cinnamon and vanilla", Teekanne "Granny's Finest" (eldeberry, vanilla and plum), Celestial Seasoning "Roastaroma" and "True Blueberry", Teekanne "Black Currant with lemon", Teekanne "Sweet Cherry", Loyd Tea "Mulled Wine", Twinings "English Breakfast Tea" and Earl Grey-both decaffeinated.

Do you like tea? What is your favorite?

Tiesta Tea Review

I have been exchanging tea samples with several of my Twitter friends and fellow bloggers. My vegan friend Jenn at Cookin' Vegan blog is an awesome cook who shares my passion for tea (or I would dare to say a tea addiction). We exchange tea samples and some of the ones I received from her were from Tiesta Tea company. She mentioned to me that they started their company after visiting Prague (the capitol of Czech Republic). That got me very interested in Tiesta Tea. I started following them on Twitter and recently won one of their Twitter contests. My lovely prize was a tropical rooibos tea "Beach Bum Colada".

Tiesta Tea was founded in 2010 in Illinois after a trip to Prague the previous spring. They loved the fairy-tale looking city. After visiting a Czech tea house they fell in love with fruit tea called Granny's Garden and bought a few bags to take back to the USA. They realized how important coffee and tea shops were in Europe and decided to start something very beautiful, meaningful and fun in the USA, they started Tiesta Tea company. They provide high quality custom-blended flavored teas with a purpose.

Based on the main ingredients and health benefits their teas are divided into 5 groups:

*Energizer

*Relaxer

*Immunity

*Slenderizer

*Forever Young

All their teas are vegan :-) Their teas are beautiful and flavorful. I love that they use real pieces of fruit, seeds, veggies and herbs in their teas instead of artificial or natural flavoring.

Here are the teas that I tried. I liked all the samples that I tried.

There are many teas that are on my wish list: Peaches n' Cream, Chunky Watermelon, Fireberry and Red Rose Rooibos.

Follow Tiesta Tea on Twitter for cool tea giveaways.

"Like" Tiesta Tea on Facebook and receive 20% on your first order.

Gojiberry Superfruit (Forever Young) is a green tea with an extra healthy gojiberries and pomegranate seeds boost. The tea is mildly grassy with luscious fruity taste and a mild astringent aftertaste. I could only have a few sips because I don't do well with caffeine, but I wished that I could have the whole cup, it was very good for a green tea.

Beach Bum Colada (Immunity) transported me back into summer with the first sip. The aroma is very tropical, almost intoxicating. I love the large pieces of banana, coconut, pineapple and orange slices. All these tropical fruits together make a lovely addition to a rooibos tea. The banana and coconut are the dominant flavors in this fun tea. The only thing that is missing is a tiny beach umbrella sticking out of my tea mug.

Kiwi-Cherry Bonanza (Immunity) is an irresistible, refreshing, herbal blend that bursts with flavor. This tea is full of kiwi and cherry flavor, with almost lemony aftertaste. Some cherry teas can taste like a cough sirup, but this tea does not have any of this weird, fake cherry flavor. This tea also has a very slight ginger kick. The pleasant sour taste is very refreshing. It makes an excellent ice tea.

Berry Pear-adise (Relaxer) is a very nice melange of pear, apple, papaya, hibiscus, raspberries and acerola. It's like a garden in a cup :-) Very sweet, berry experience! This tea also makes a great iced tea.