The name of this company drives me insane. I keep thinking I should say it 3 times and then get up and start dancing. And for all of those completely logical reasons, I have never bothered to sit down and try Numi tea before.

However, after pilfering through the Numi tea stocks at a friend’s corporate office, I have to say, I will never discount a brand based on its packaging of impressionist African wildlife ever again!

Numi Red Mellow (Rooibos) – The first one I tried, and got me back for more. Rooibos at it’s best; ever so slightly sweet.

Numi Sweet African Red (Green Rooibos) – So this was kind of weird. Very -very- light brew, basically flavorless. Reminded me a bit of white tea in a way? Probably would not try again.

Numi Bushman’s Brew (Honeybush) – Interesting! Never had this before. Relatively light, the flavour of the honeybush is released rather slowly in the brewing process. Its a tad sweeter than the rooibos, but otherwise tastes fairly similar (a taste, that I apologetically cannot find words to describe). Will definitely have to try more of this intriguing tea in the future.

Numi Monkey King (Jasmine Green Tea) – An extremely fragrant green tea. The jasmine comes out strong, straight from the tea bag, and stays there throughout the drink. The green tea, though, I think, brews a bit heavy. My mom liked it quite a bit, but I thought it was pretty unbalanced.

Chinese Breakfast?Yunnan Black Tea) - I doubt the authenticity of this… but I could be completely wrong and perhaps somewhere in China people actually do drink black tea for breakfast. Regardless, it tasted OK. Actually kind of like a heavier green tea that happens to be brown colored once brewed?

Simply Mint (Moroccan Mint) – its peppermint, not spearmint, and that makes it wrong in my book. but otherwise, its a fairly innocuous combination of mint and green with the right amount of mint (just enough to get a whiff) and a good heaping of gunpowder green tea. Sometimes I think the amount of gunpowder that people use in these pseudo-Moroccan mixes are too much, or at least, the type of gunpowder is too heavy, and this blend was no exception. Add one more to my list of Fail for American Moroccan tea.

All in all, I would say that Numi teas, based on the 6 I tried all yesterday (jeez i tried a lot of them), that they’re particularly strong on the African herbal teas/tisanes/teasanes (whatever makes your marketing director happy), and not tragic on everything else. I will definitely have to pick up more of their rooibos and honeybush teas in the future, though!

I had rooibos tea (pronounced roy-boss, or if you’re me, roo-bose) first during my grad school interviews (now that I think about it, that was a major turning point in my tea drinking habits…). Not actually from the tea plant, but instead the African red bush plant, grown in one small location in South Africa, this is considered an herbal tea.

The flavour is strikingly like a nuttier and lighter hybrid of black & white tea, but still yet unplaceably different. I’ve always had it in tea bag form, and my favorite brand of that is Twinings African Rooibos Red Tea (in fact, I’ve generally enjoyed everything from their Origins line, well, minus the Lapsang Souchong, but that’s really not their fault). I went through a half year phase where I had a cup of rooibos every night before bed, and knew I needed to run to the Upper West Side to stock up on tea whenever I got to my last box of rooibos.

So, of course, as part of my first order of loose-leaf teas from Adagio, I had to get a box of the rooibos and see how it compares. I tried it last, after I had tried the various green & black teas, nearly all of which had astounded me with their quality & taste. The rooibos? Not so impressed…

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gramstand http://www.gramstand.com/

214 Avenue A (btwn 13th & 14th st.)
New York, NY 10009
East Village

hours (their words not mine ;))
M-F: 7:30am until rather late
Weekends: 9:00am until rather late

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Happy lunar new year! Xin nian kuai le, gong xi fa cai, etc, etc. I have to confess — I am pretty terrible at being chinese (unless I’m awesome at being chinese, like… when getting food freebies in Costco). I decided I wanted a small little Chinese new year get-together chez moi and I ended up having to call my mother…

Me: “Mommy? What do chinese people eat on chinese new year?”
*Mother audibly signs* (some things you can only ask mothers)

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