Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Agony’

My old friend Zealong, I’ve missed you.  Thrilled to receive some Zealong Pure from Tula Teas, it is one of my all time favourites.  The dark, tightly curled leaves make my heart sing.  Wild thing (sorry, had to say it, apologizing in advance if that song gets stuck in your head).  I think I love you, but I wanna know for sure…

Ripping open the package, unbelievably quick rinse, then a fast 45 second steep.  Now I sit in awe waiting for it to cool enough to taste.  The dry leaves had hardly any scent to them and absolutely no dust.  They relax and start to unravel, floating at the top of the water for the first few seconds before they start to dance to the bottom, releasing tiny little air bubbles in their path. You have to try Zealong to fully appreciate the agony of the leaves, the clearness of the brew allows for a perfect show.  It has a really light taste, not even slightly bitter. Clean with a level of complexity that is hard to find in other teas.

I’m onto my fifth steep with this one and the leaves are completely open.  The taste changed with each steep, it didn’t fade away though.  Ranged from a bit flowery to a bit nutty to a beautiful note of purity.  This is a great tea for the summer because it is so light. Not sure that the flavour is full enough to be nice as an iced tea but I’m definitely going to try it…

You can purchase the Zealong Pure directly from the Tula Teas website.

I was surprised at the size of this infuser. It is small. When you see it online, it looks really big. Filling it to the brim gets 16 ounces in the infuser. In reality, you are only making 12-15 ounces of tea with this infuser.

Now, I have water and tea leaves in the infuser. I wait the prescribed amount of time depending on the type of tea. A word of caution here, make sure the cup you intend to use is large enough to hold 12-16 ounces of tea and that the brim of the cup is as wide as the bottom of this infuser. When the tea is ready, place the infuser over your cup and gravity does all the work. Thank you Sir Isaac Newton! When you lift the infuser off your cup, the mechanism closes. No drips.

Here are a list of pros and cons to help you decide if the IngenuiTEA is right for you:

Pros
It is clear, you can watch the agony of the leaves as they unfurl. And with it clear, you can easily get it clean.
With it being gravity fed, it is effortless to pour a cup of tea.
The IngenuiTEA is microwave and dishwasher safe. I personally would never put it in either appliance, but you could if you wanted.
This is great for using loose leaf tea to make iced tea. It fits right on top of my iced tea pitcher.

Cons:
It is plastic.
The lid does not come off, so it sits at an angle in the drain board.

I would recommend this to any tea drinker. It makes the using of loose leaves easy and fun. This is great for anyone who travels or wants to make great tasting tea at work. The IngenuiTEA is smart looking. It would certainly start a conversation about tea.

You can purchase the IngenuiTEA directly from the Adagio website.