Tea Club Round One–Nourishtea

I started at my new office 3 months ago. It was weird getting back to the 9-5 grind after being away for more than a year. I had ONE whirlwind day of training with the girl who had been in the job before me (for 7 years) and then I was on my own.

At my old office, I had sat in a cube with my bosses to my right and directly across from me, with the VP on marketing to my left and the President right behind me. I often felt segregated from the rest of the office, but usually I was okay with that! I got along really well with my bosses and it just became normal to me. In my new office I was seated with a group of awesome gals and on day 1 I knew I was going to fit in, thanks to a gift from my super special friend Becki.

I learned really quickly that my cubemates were obsessed with tea. And they all had matching tea mugs and I had one too. #winning

At least once a day we all gather in the kitchen for tea time, sharing our various teas and raiding one another stashes. There all had lots of teas from David’s, Tea Emporium, Herbal Infusions plus a whole lot of chocolatey chai. The girls were also really excited when I received an extra special David’s tea gift from a cute boy for my birthday.

One day I made a joke about having tea companies sponsor us and the gals started talking about their dream tea list. We talked some more and somehow my blog came up and then BAM

Tea Club was born.The idea is that each month we’ll feature and review teas from one company and in some cases (like this one!!) do a super fun giveaway so that you can try the tea goodness too!! The tea testing is very serious and scientific around here; There may or may not have even been a spreadsheet created!! There’s 5 of us testing the teas pretty seriously and a few others in our office who join in sometimes. We’ve all got different tastes so between us you’ll get a pretty diverse group of opinions.

NourishTea was amazing for being the first tea company to get on board.

We were so excited when they sent us a HUGE variety of their teas including ones we had requested and others that they surprised us with including: Midnight Campfire, Canadian Breakfast, Cresting Cranes of Legend, Sky Flies the Bird, Minty Igloo, Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearls, Warming Camomile, Emerald Path, and Rose Pink.

We were all really excited for Midnight Campfire when we read the description on the website. We were less excited when we opened the tea and took a whiff – it really smelt like a campfire!!

Amanda (who is also blogging about tea club on her amazing illustrated blog from time to time): Woah bonfire. It smells like the title says… and it is so pungent that it has stayed in my nose and made me paranoid that I smell like smoke. It's like drinking a pot of burnt rice. Which is fine. I do voluntarily do that on occasion.

Luckily things got better after the campfire.

Many of us loved the Canadian Breakfast tea. It’s a really classic black tea with a lot of warmth and body.

Kayla said: Smooth and very flavourful! Tastes as inviting as it smells. I love English breakfast teas, and I think this one is  going to be a favourite.

Amanda’s tea descriptions started to get more ridiculous as we went along but this one was probably one of my favs: It's like wearing a tea cozy as a hat and cuddling with a good book by a fire after a terrible day.

We came to love the simplicity of the NourishTea brand. Many of teas in our collections are fancy-pants with lots of components, but NourishTea sticks to the basics and does them well. Minty Igloo is a lovely, refreshing mint blend (that we decided should have been our next choice after the campfire disaster) Alessandra said: It's like a fantastically amazing winter storm is in my mouth!! I feel my insides are being cleansed! I like that it's a simple peppermint. Not peppermint mixed with pears, or chocolate, or nuts. Just simple peppermint. I'm totally on board.

The green teas were pretty awesome. We all really enjoyed Sky Flies the Bird (a genmaicha green tea with such a fabulous name) and the Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearls (we’ve become a little bit obsessed with Harney & Sons Jasmine Pearls around here after I received some as a gift). We lovingly refer to the jasmine pearls as the jungle tea.

Tea is not only delicious, but it can also be really pretty.

Overall we were fans of NourishTea! Yummy, accessible teas that are pretty and delicious. Love that they’re Canadian and it makes me excited that I’m seeing them in more and more stores in Toronto including the Big Carrot, Whole Foods, Sobeys Urban Markets and Fortino’s. They also donate 5% of their proceeds to Actions Against Hunger which  is an “international network committed to saving the lives of malnourished children and their families, while ensuring access to safe water and sustainable solutions to hunger”. All kinds of awesome.

Would you like to be a part of our Nourishtea tea club?

I’ve got 4 Nourishtea prize packs to give away!

I’ll be giving away 2 via the giveaway blog and another 2 for my Twitter followers today and tomorrow. Be sure to check it out so you can enjoy the NourishTea goodness too!!

Nourishtea giveaway