Just discovered Teavana!

[Caligula1]

Think i'm going to Rep Anon for the second time in my life...

[jade408]

I like teavana, but as my friend mentioned "things don't taste the same at home." Because they have only recently started serving a single tea as a sample in the store. The default samples have 2 - 3 teas blended together!

There are a few blends I really like there, but the locations are pretty far for me in parts of the area I don't frequent, so I only make it a few times a year (20, 30, 50 miles away).

I love the white aryuvedic chai and the aztec fire at the moment. They are also a little pricey. There is a high quality tea shop about 1 mile from my house that I visit, and there is another premum tea shop nearby that makes teavana look cheap.

My default is Lupicia. They have a closer location to me, in a mall I frequent, since it is on top of a subway stop in the middle of downtown SF. They also have a second location near the Teavana, if I isit my friends on what feels like the other side of the world. I generally like Lupicia better, and they have a tea newsletter where they send out samples.

LUPICIA Fresh Tea (ok they only have 2 bay area stores, a socal store and one in hawaii.)

[jifwittle]

Originally Posted by AnonChick

Iced tea is something you would make, using their teas. Teavana isn't a restaurant/coffee-shop. It's a store that specializes in loose teas and related products (such as tea pots and cups/saucers and a variety of tea strainers).

You buy the dry tea leaves (or herbs, or combo) by weight, in a paper bag. You bring it home. You scoop a teaspoon of it into a tea strainer. You boil some water. You put the filled strainer into the cup, let it stew a few minutes, then pull it out and discard the wet tea leaves.

Same thing as if you bought a box of Lipton teabags, except, this stuff doesn't come in individual serving packets, and you have to use a strainer (or you can buy unfilled teabags and stuff them yourself but personally I find that too much trouble.

If you want iced tea, you'd do all of the above, and then dump the contents of your teacup over a glass of ice.

Thanks for the info. I wasn't sure if they had special blends specifically for iced tea.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by jifwittle

Thanks for the info. I wasn't sure if they had special blends specifically for iced tea.

They have lots of white teas and fruity blends that are perfect for iced tea, in my opinion. I had a blueberry, acai white that was great iced. There was an herbal blood orange tea that would be delicious iced as well.