Green tea w/apple and cinnamon

Since I'm also in an autumn mood I decided to try this tea I found at a local coffee shop, Coffeeberry.

The label is in norwegian, but I'll translate as best as I can: "Green tea w/apple and cinnamon. Green tea from Japan and India. The tea is light in colour, with a delicate and soothing taste of apple and cinnamon." The brand is Solberg&Hansen, a brand I never had heard of before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. 

It smells really good, maybe a tiny bit too sweet, and makes you contemplate just putting the tea in a bowl in your living room, just for the sent. It was a bit tricky to get in the infuser without some of the longer leaves sticking out, making it harder to close it properly, but this was not a major problem.

The taste makes you wish for stormy weather, a fireplace and huge blankets. It just reminds you of autumn! It also reminds me a little bit about chai - probably because of the cinnamon - but I love chai, so I don't mind that at all!

The only thing that put me a little bit of was the colour. It's light, just as the package promised, but in my opinion it looks wrong. It's just too light. The colour is not appetizing! 

But the taste is still amazing, and I'm looking forward to enjoying this tea on the next cold, stormy night (and where I live, the next will probably be tonight)!

I hope you enjoyed this! Enjoy your tea!

Cinnamon Apple Spice

I have decided that one of my first reviews will be of one of my favourite tea during this time of autumn. This tea is:

Cinnamon Apple Spice from Celestian Seasonings

This is an absolutely superb tea for those moments when the rain is pouring down an you are sitting cozy with blankets and candle lights. From the instant you open this package a rich scent of Cinnamon and Apple finds it way to your nose, and you can just feel the cozyness of a fluffy blanket by the fireside. 

Celestian Seasoning make ecological tea with eco-friendly packaging, so as you can see, the tea bag is without a string. For those who are picky, this can become a problem if you don't want to leave the bag in the tea. But if you are like me, you'd want to keep the bag in the hot water until the last drop of tea is gone. 

Another brilliant thing about this tea is the fact that you really don't need any sugar. Because of the great taste of cinnamon and apple you do not have to enhance it with sugar. From the volume of one cup, to the volume to about 3 cups, no sugar is required and you get absolutely fabulous tast. 

Now, even tea can't go without any faults, but this fault is not as great as you may think. The slight problem of the tea is that some of the taste will easily gather at the bottom of the cup, this can easily be fixed by stirring the tea as you are drinking it. That way you'll get the proper taste with every sip. 

Some may also find the taste to be a little intese, which can easily be solved by not leaving the tea bag in the water for more than a minute.

So because of the impressive rich taste, and brilliant eco-friendly tea bags, this tea really brings out the good feeling of warmth during the cold and rainy month of autumn. My advice is to light some candles, huddle up with some cozy fuzzy blankets, and drink this delightful tea. And I promise you an autumny feeling!

Tomorrow I'll be going to the big apple (ironically), for my autumn vacation! I'll be trying to locate different coffeeshops so that I have lot's to blog and review about when I get home, or perhaps when I'm there. Hope you enjoyed this review! 

About the girl.

Now that Audun has introduced him self, it's time to bring the estrogen!

My name is Karoline, and I'm 20 years old.
I used to study acting at the same performance arts school as Audun, but I graduated in 2011. That's actually where we met, when he was a first year and I a third. We clicked almost instantly.
I'm currently studying nordic literature at the local university, but I'm contemplating switching to physiotherapy or ergotherapy next year. I work at a bookstore, which has nothing to do with coffee or tea, but maybe I'll review a book about coffee or something.

But enough about the non-beverage stuff!
Unlike Audun, I don't have a tea table, or any nice decorations to use as a background for my photos. But not to worry! I'm moving in about a month, so all my stuff is currently in boxes or on the floor. When I get settled at my new place I will make the perfect tea/coffee/photo decorations! For now you will just have to do with this:

This is all the tea I haven't packed yet. You see a pattern? I like things with funny or interesting names, and that includes tea. I also have a lot of pretty tea and coffee cups, but as you might gave guessed, they're packed already.

Green tea with lemon is my all time favorite, next to chai latte. Sadly I couldn't make a decent cup of chai latte if my life depended on it, so when I'm home I usually turn to my beloved green. 

Unfortunately neither my wallet nor my schedule allows me to travel as much as I want to, so there won't be many reviews of exotic, foreign beverages (unless Norway is exotic and foreign to you). 

And now for the big, shocking announcement. Drum-role please!

I don't like coffee.

"But how can you write a blog about coffee and tea if you don't like one of the beverages?" you might ask.

Well, have you seen the amounts of different types of tea there's out there? It's a lot! So don't you worry, I wont run out of things to taste. And of course I will try drinking coffee sometimes.

So, yeah. I think that's about it. I'm really looking forward to more blogging. Be sure to check back soon!

About the guy.

Now that the first post is past, I'm making a new one to present myself a little better, with pictures!

My name is Audun, and I'm... 18 in 19 days...
I'm studying acting at a local performing arts school, so basically I love anything performing related. I have passion for theatre and acting, and do some freelance acting jobs occasionally. I'm also a salesman at a kitchen store, which is really fun. And there we have some coffee machines which I'll probably review some time.

But that is all the boring stuff, the interesting stuff stand in the corner of my room. My tea-table. Here's a photo:

At the moment my table is in an autumn mood, just like me. So the napkins are very autumny (if that's a phrase).

On my table I have a handpainted chinese tea set, and around 20 varieties of tea. I have all the needed equiptment, my waterboiler and three mugs. Most of my tea is ecological and some is loose/retail. I do indeed have a tea for every occation!

Here is a picture of my big cup, which can hold quite a lot of tea (perfect if you are sick and in need of a lot of tea). It is sort of my pride. In the background you see a "Z" which I'll explain in a minute, as well as a buddha statue holding a tealight (haha, tea.). That statue will be one of my models when I take picture of the tea I drink at home. There will also be a bigger buddha in the picture at times, a big silvery one. 

This picture makes me look like a buddhist, I am not, I just like their art and culture, and some of their thoughts. But this is where I'll be taking most of my pictures. By the Z mostly, probably, maybe even the E. I just combine tea a lot with Asian culture, so i figured it'll be nice to bring by the tea. 

So that is a little about me, and I can't wait to start some proper blogging! Stay tuned!

A new beginning

Hello and welcome "From Leaves to Beans" a blog made and operated by me and my best friend Karoline. My name is Audun and I am a student, a freelance actor and I work as a salesman at a kitchen store.

I have always wanted to make a blog, but never found a proper theme to write about. Usually I end up with just a few posts about things that anoy me. But now I have decided to make a proper blog which I hope will turn out useful for people. I am making this blog to honor something people takes for granted and to help people with tastes and what is good for different occations. Hopefully there will be practical guides aswell, and I make a promise about lots of pictures. The theme of my blog is about:

Tea and Coffee

Yes, that is right, I am making a blog about tea and coffee, from leaves to beans. This will also probably become a place for other posts about movies and other fun stuff, but the main subject is different reviews of tea and coffee, from all around the world.
As well as making this blog for others, but I'm also making this blog for my own benefit. I want to get an overview over tea, tastes and travels, as well as the other things we decide to write on the blog. I have made a promise to myself that when I travel I'll do my best to find tea and exotic coffee shops where I can review coffee and tea. Of course this goes as far as my wallet streches, but I'll do my best. And perhaps a few times each months we'll try to review a "budget" tea where we'll go to the normal supermarket and by tea that is viewed as "common".

We hope that this blog will be an inspiration for people, become useful, as well as entertaining. We'll do our best to write the reviews and articles interesting so that they may catch your eyes easily. We promise pictures, funny moments and make it easier for people to find good beverage and practical ways in making tea and coffee.

My co-writer is my dear and best friend Karoline. She is a couple of years older than me and is a wonderful writer. Whenever we meet we always have some kind of hot beverage, so she was definitely the perfect co-writer for this blog.

We certainly hope you'll enjoy our blog, and comments, critic, ideas of teas, places, coffeeshops and so on.

Enjoy!