Product Review: NINA's Paris Teas

     First, let me apologize for the long delay in posting this review. The fine people at NINA's (www.ninasteastore.com) sent me a selection of three teas to sample some time ago. By some, I mean a long time ago. The delay in review was inexcusable. Mostly because I cheated myself out of some absolutely fantastic teas. The time has come for an honest, unbiased review of these teas. The Wife helped out with two of the reviews and her comments will be included. I figured two reviews at once!

Marie-Antoinette

Type: Black tea
Flavored with: Ceylon, apples, rose petals and roses

This was the first tea I tried. At the time I was being very selfish and did not afford The Wife the opportunity to try this. On opening the bag of tea, you are met with notable aromas of the ingredients. You get definite notes of apples and roses over a nice Ceylon.  We followed the brewing instructions and...

     The tea has a lovely color. The aromas of apple and rose really come out. I decided all the teas would be sampled as is. No sugar or cream. I wanted to taste it totally on its own.

The verdict

        This tea is absolutely wonderful. Floral and fruity, this tea stands completely on its own. This could easily be an any time of the day tea for me. I can easily see keeping this one in the regular rotation.

The des Muses

Type: Green Tea

Flavored with: Sunflowers, rose petals, cornflowers, lemon, grapefruit, strawberry 

When you open the bag, you are met with distinctive fruity notes. This is a fresh smelling tea that hints at natural sweetness. The Wife and I were very excited about this.

Tea for two!

          The Wife leaned in for an over-enthusiastic sniff of the bouquet of the tea:

And managed to stick her whole darned beezer into the cup.
Once she stopped laughing and dried her nose,
 she declared the tea's bouquet to be "flowery."

The verdict? We both loved this tea. As we expected, this tea had a natural sweetness. Neither of us felt that adding anything was necessary. The Wife declared this to be a great, "relaxing tea for just before bedtime." I agree totally. I don't see myself starting the day with this tea, but I can certainly see me finishing the day with a nice cup of The des Muses.

Scorpio (Scorpion)

Type: Rooibos Tea

Flavored with: Peach, apricot, cream

It turns out rooibos is a member of the legume family! What does that mean? Well, it's caffeine free, so if you have an issue with caffeine, this is right up your alley. When we opened this bag, The Wife and I got slightly different interpretations of the tea. I thought it smelled slightly vegetal, almost nutty, which isn't a bad thing. The Wife said it smelled almost of cherry, reminding her of pipe tobacco.

The color of this tea is absolutely fantastic.

     Once the tea was brewed, we were immediately taken with the striking red color of the tea. We both held to our original interpretations of the bouquet. We each sampled the tea.

Since The Wife can't drink tea without sticking her nose in it,
I figure I'd regale you with another picture of me.
You're welcome.

The verdict? We both like this tea, as well. We both got definite flavor of peaches. The Wife still clung to her cherry theory. She really enjoyed this tea. The caffeine free was a bonus for her since she's breast feeding and would rather not have a potentially jittery baby.

We were both very pleased with the tea we tried and would certainly not hesitate to keep these teas in regular rotation. The prices are a shade above my middle class budget, but that wouldn't stop me from treating myself to  a tin or two. For the quality of the product, the price is still reasonable. If you're a tea drinker, you should do yourself the favor and head over to their site and take a look (www.ninasteastore.com). They also sell a selection of jams that look quite good. Give them a try!

Product Review: Wise Company Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini

     Given the weather lately, the idea of keeping emergency rations in your home is not a terrible idea. The area where I live is prone to some violent outbursts of weather, most of which will knock the power out. If you don't have the luxury of a Generac system to back-up the power to your home, eventually you're going to lose the food in your refrigerator and freezer. Your options become a bit limited at this point.

Well, yes. Technically this is always a possibility. 

     You could go with canned goods, but they are bulky, heavy and won't keep for a super-long time. The cans could rust. You could lose your can opener. What I'm talking about is honest-to-goodness survival rations. There's always the old standby of military MRE (Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Or as my military friends would call them: Meals, Rarely Edible). I'm going to take a look at the emergency rations from Wise Company. Why? They sent me a free sample, to be quite honest. If you check the site you can request a sample, too (fair warning, it's going to require you to talk to a live sales person). The two advantages to Wise Company food that I saw was that they only require water to make and they have a 25 year shelf-life. Let us get started with the review.

Well, the packaging is nice. That's a good start. Made in the USA, too!

     They sent me Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini. First off, the title is both redundant an incorrect. Rotini pasta is redundant. The alternative is there was vegetable rotini in the bag. There was not. I'm going to overlook this goof since if I were starving to death, I wouldn't even care if it was spelled phonetically. Theoretically, this bag is supposed to feed four adults. Let's flip the bag over and take a look at the back for some nutritional information!

Seems legit.

     210 calories a serving isn't too bad. This isn't really a calorie powerhouse unless you eat the whole bag and you're still 1200 calories shy of average daily intake. However, remember you're just looking to survive. You won't do that if you eat the whole bag because one serving is 800mg of sodium, 33% of your suggested daily allowance. For the most part the ingredients aren't too horrifying.  Let's tear open the bag and see what it looks like.

I thought the silica packet would add a nice bit of flavor but the wife made me take it out.

     The wife and I took a whiff of the contents and both reached the same conclusion that it smelled quite a bit like Ramen noodles. That's not a bad thing at all. There seemed to be a goodly amount of carrots and peas in there and the noodles looked decent. So far so good. Next we needed to prepare it. This couldn't be easier. All you need is a pot and 4 cups of boiling water.

You more than likely won't have access to an electric kettle to boil your water in an emergency.
In that case all you need is a pot, water and fire.

     We boiled up the water, dumped it in and gave it all a stir. The initial impression was that we had just created soup. However, we needed to put a lid on it and let it sit for 15 minutes, presumably to soak up all the water.

Theoretically, this will become creamy in around 15-20 minutes.

     After 15 minutes we took the lid off, and as per instructions, let the pasta sit for a couple more minutes. Creaminess was not achieved. We had vegetable soup. Now, if you're looking for survival, this may not be a bad thing. The broth will certainly fill you up. As it was not an emergency, we drained off the excess water and were left with the Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini.

4 servings, my ass. Somebody is going to have to starve to death.

     If you drain the water, there's no way this is four servings. We were able to put together two shallow bowls. In fairness, this is for survival, not for luxury dining and we did drain the water. The final test remained. We needed to eat it. The carrots still had a bit of snap. The peas were a bit mushy but that was to be expected. The pasta held up well and wasn't too mushy. The flavor? Not bad. Kind of like high end Ramen with a thin cream sauce. If this was the only food we had available, I wouldn't be put out at all to eat it for a few days. It looked and tasted real. This is not something that can be said for many emergency rations or MREs. If you've ever had the tuna MRE you know what I'm talking about.

Final Review

Product: Wise Company emergency ration 

Cost: A bucket of 60 entrees (enough for 1 person for a month) is $134.99. If you're splitting this two ways, it's only about $1.13 per person per meal. That's reasonable enough considering the type of food you're dealing with.

Flavor: Not what you would call "flavor-packed," but not too bad.

Appearance: This is actually some good looking emergency food. 

Would I Buy It?: I can't justify buying the year package, no matter how cool that would be. However, for under $150 I could have 1 month of emergency food that will keep 25 years. That's not terrible. The wife and I are strongly considering getting a single case for the next weather-related calamity. I'd certainly be happy to throw these in my pack if I were camping.

Good times!