Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Bitterness’

I may have mentioned this before, but one of my ever increasing number of hobbies* is researching and recreating Medieval cooking.  Much like today, medieval people were very into conspicious consumption.  They liked using expensive pricy ingredients to show off to their guests – “See!  Look how much money I can spend – just on dinner!”  Spices were always one of the most popular ways to show off wealth.  They were very expensive and very highly valued, and saffron was one of the more popular spices.

In the cooking I do saffron is mostly a coloring agent, as it turns the food a lovely golden color, and not used for flavor.  I find the flavor very light and subtle.  So I was very curious about what affect it would have on the tea.

The teabag smelled like generic tea.  Pouring water over the bag, it did turn bright yellow for a moment – then turned into a normal tea color.  The brewed aroma again smelled like a normal tea.  In drinking, I’m getting a bitter high note – like I over-brewed the tea, but it didn’t have the tannic drying effect that normally goes along with the bitterness.    I prefer my tea sweetened, so after a few sips of the tea unsweetened, I added my favorite sweetening agent.  It toned down the bitterness, and turned it into a very bright flavor.

Either way, I don’t think I like the addition of the saffron.  The tea behind the saffron tastes quite nice, and would have likely been a very nice cuppa on it’s own.  But as it is, it’s not really for me.

*My craft room is crying from from too much stuff and too many projects. You can almost hear it crying from the street, “no more stuff, take the yarn away!  I don’t need any more embroidery floss!”

You can purchase the BLACK SAFFRON directly from the Hampstead Tea website.

Hampstead’s Ginger Green detox tea follows the trend of recent Hampstead teas I’ve tasted – that being a softer flavour of the main ingredient coupled with a more noticeable base tea flavour. The ginger taste is not potent like ginger tisanes. Here the green tea involved softens the ginger taste and mellows the sting of the ginger. I like the grassiness but it is a tad dull. If you prefer tea tastes that are not too overpowered by the flavour element, then this might be right for you. But do not leave the teabag in too long as this could lead to a bitter, tiger-balm-like taste. I think this could have ruined it for me. I steeped it too long and did not have another sample to try again. Try a 2 minute steep instead of three.

I would drink this tea if there were nothing else around but I would not purposely choose it to drink.

You can purchase the Ginger Green directly from the Hampstead Tea website.

If anyone’s been following my reviews, they would have noticed a pattern by now. I tend to review teas with any or all of the following ingredients: lemon, ginger, and ginseng. Not to deviate from that trend, this review will be on Special Tea Brew’s Lemon Ginger Snap. Dry leaf is made up of Chinese green tea, lemongrass, lemon myrtle, and ginger. Upon opening up the package, the aroma was a piercing ginger smell. Ginger was the only ingredient I could smell. I steeped 5g in 600ml of hot water for 3 minutes. The aroma coming off the steeped liquor was now more lemony than ginger. Funny that the ingredient that is dominant for a chosen characteristic does not show up as the predominant ingredient in other characteristics. For example, although the dominant ingredient in the aroma is lemon, the taste is predominantly ginger. It was like a lemony swamp, like lemon mixed with muddy grass. It did not smell very appetizing. As for the taste, you are wham smacked in the face with ginger at every sip. It is very overwhelming. Then after you swallow, you can taste the lemongrass and lemon myrtle which in this combination makes it taste dirty. It certainly is more herb than tea. Ginger swamp are the words I would use to describe this tea.

However, having said that, I am glad I gave this tea a second chance by tasting it cold. It tasted much better, not like you’ve just had a face plant in a muddy soccer field of prior, but a subdued bitterness with a much more tolerable level of ginger taste. It is much more drinkable this way I found.

You can purchase the Lemon Ginger Snap directly from the SpecialTea Brew website.

2 minute brew time

Smell is vegetal with a slight hint of ginger.

Where is the ginger? I don’t know, maybe it is just me, but if the title of the tea has ginger in its name one would think ginger could be found. Not so. I adjusted the times, the temperatures. The green tea base is good and drinkable, but I am still left questioning as to the whereabouts of the ginger. I feel like a detective, looking and adjusting my tactics to see if I can reveal the missing component. Tea is a journey. Enjoying tea should not have to be interrupted with the particulars of a steeping perimeter to make the tea drinkable.

Again, I am left saying to you my reader, if this is the only tea choice in the house, by all means drink up! If you have another choice, take it and save this one for later if at all.

You can purchase the Ginger Green directly from the Hampstead Tea website.

I love chocolate and I (clearly) love tea so there was no way I could refuse when I was offered some tea infused chocolate. I’ve had tea with chocolate before but never chocolate with tea, I mean I’ve had chocolate with tea before but it was in a yunomi (the tea, that is) and the chocolate was in hand. Yes, I’ve already gotten in to the chocolate…. Both of the bars that I received are tea infused dark chocolate. The ‘guilt’ in the guilty pleasure (of sweets) is lower for me if I can convince myself that the treat is somehow healthy. I’ve heard that dark chocolate is better for you than milk chocolate – trying to justify my indulgence…

First up is the dark Belgium chocolate with organic raspberry black tea, and it is beautiful. Smells bittersweet with just a hint of raspberry in the blend. The texture is smooth and dark, can’t actually see any tea in it. The tea comes out when you bite into the bar, has an unusual texture to it… Smooth but with a crunch, kind of hard to explain but there is definitely tea in it. The bitterness of the chocolate overpowers the raspberry flavor a little bit but that’s okay. This is really, really good sweetness.

Now on to the Australian ginger black tea chocolate. Really dark, smooth texture, smells fantastic (as all chocolate should) with a hint of a ginger scent. Biting into it and it tastes rich and sharp but the wonderful ginger flavor gets stronger with every mouth-watering, melting second. Strong, lingering ginger aftertaste (I LOVE GINGER)! This is absolutely my new all-time favorite chocolate. You wouldn’t think that ginger and dark chocolate would be such a fantastic combination but they are. It’s now a proven fact.

You can purchase the Dark Belgian Chocolate with Organic Raspberry Tea and Dark Belgian Chocolate with Ginger Black Tea directly from the Tea and All Its Splendour website.