Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Black Licorice’

There are over 5 million ways to divide the world into two groups. Licorice is definitely one of them. People either adore black licorice or hate it. I personally fall into the “love it” camp – unless it’s salt licorice. Because it’s just.. odd. Blea.

There are a few ways to get licorice-like flavors. There is the traditional licorice root, but anise, star anise, and fennel all contain similar flavoring agents. All these plants contain the chemical compound anethole which provides that signature flavor. And while all are similar, there are subtle differences. Licorice root is sweeter, anise is more aromatic, fennel is milder, and star anise has a bit of a bite.

This tea uses star anise to get it’s licorice flavor. On first sniff, the leaf smells very much like standard licorice. But once it started to brew, the notes of star anise come out much more strongly. It develops into a very light yellow brew – likely due to the white tea. On first sip, the licorice is very mellow, soft. Almost more plant-y than standard licorice. The hay-like features of the white tea blend well with the plant-y features of the star anise to merge together into a nice mellow cup.

Of all the various plant anethole-delivery systems, star anise is my least favorite. I don’t like the small, strange bite it delivers. I like all the others (I even have this amazing bread dip recipe that uses fennel*) much more, but even with this mark against it, this tea does not disappoint. It’s mellow, smooth, and yummy. Because it’s not so strongly licorice-y, even those who fall into the camp of licorice hater may like this tea. Good blend.

*G’s amazing bread dip
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp salt
4-5 turns of fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp chopped garlic
Olive Oil

Take the first four ingredients, grind in a spice grinder until they’re a fine powder. Blend with the chopped garlic in a mortar and pestle until you get a nice paste. Blop the paste into the center of a shallow bowl or deep plate. Pour olive oil over the paste, stir slightly. Serve with fresh bread. And drink with strong tea – because any other type will be overpowered by the dip.

You can purchase the White Licorice directly from the Golden Moon Tea website.

When I was contacted and asked to try the Celestial Seasonings Fast Lane Black Tea, I readily agreed. Celestial Seasonings was the very first company to respond to our inquiries when we started IAATL, and sent our very first batch of teas for review, something for which I will be forever grateful. Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime tea is also the tea that started it all for me, back those ummhurummph years ago, when I was but a wee child of 5 or 6.

Apparently, Fast Lane Tea was, a number of years ago, a tea that Celestial Seasonings discontinued. Since then, the legend goes, fans of this tea have petitioned sufficiently to have it return, albeit for a short period of time! This tea is ONLY available online (at http://www.fastlanetea.com or from Celestial Seasonings Tea Shop in Boulder (see the website for details).

Now, to the tea. This tea is a caffeine packed punch in the gut. With a black tea base from Indonesia, we get cinnamon, eleuthero (a variety of ginseng), licorice, nutmeg, and an EXTRA shot of caffeine! This is the very first time that I have see caffeine actually listed as an ingredient!

The smell is spicy/sweet. I can detect the cinnamon and licorice for sure, not so much on the ginseng or nutmeg however. Brewed up, you get what you would expect, a dark liquor, and almost Christmas Spice-like scent to the tea.

It tastes pretty much what you would expect – not particularly strong, a very middle of the road, spicy with sweet notes of the licorice. It is not an amazing, blow me away Darjeeling/Assam/Ceylon single estate loose leaf tea flavour with complexity, but it is also not a bitter, pour it on the neighbors weeds to get rid of them tea. Pleasant and non-offensive, a little passive for my personal tastes, but certainly of higher quality than you would expect from a bagged store shelf tea!

As for kick? Well I wrote this review in 5 minutes at 3:00am, after drinking the tea at 3pm – what do you think? Seriously tho – I can sense that it does have more caffeine than I am used to in a black tea, but I don’t get the frenetic mind warp and massive crash that I get from a triple espresso either – this would be a great tea to study with – students take note!

Bottom line – while it is not a “don’t miss this tea” it is well blended and will appeal to a wide range of people – keep it in the cupboard for when you need a boost.

You can purchase the Fast Lane Black Tea directly from the Celestial Seasonings website.

Recently we received a shipment of teas from Distinctly Tea, a company in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. I exchanged several emails with Distinctly Tea, the net effect being a very interesting assortment of samples being sent for review. Among these, one caught my eye personally – the Lapacho Vanilla Chai.

We are always asking the tea companies to send something different – there are only so many “Silver Needle” teas that you can review, and Distinctly Tea has definitely come through on that front. The Lapacho tea was something that I have never before seen, and I have seen a LOT of teas! So I decided to give this one a try.

The primary ingredient (base) is Lapacho Bark – something I have not encountered before. Usually that leads me to do a quick bit of research – but I was looking for something to go with my morning eggs so I grabbed this to try. The scent was distinctly cinnamon and vanilla – two things I enjoy. The sweet vanilla scent was so subtle as to almost not being detectable, but that made it more intriguing, so I brewed up a quick cup using boiling water, and steeped it for 6 minutes.

The liquor was a clear golden flavour, and the scent of the brewed cup was subtly spicy, with no hint of the vanilla after brewing. It smelled vaguely like a spiced indian chai, and indeed, most of the ingredients reflected this, but it was not an overly strong smell, which I believe is a reflection of using the Lapacho Bark as a base.

The taste was very pleasant. Not a hint of bitterness anywhere, and a sweetness from the spicing. Anise stood out to me, with a sweet black licorice undertone, but not so present to turn off anyone that does not like black licorice. All in all, the cup was very enjoyable, and I found myself relaxing into it, and enjoying every drop. I could not identify anything that I could particularly attribute to being the taste of Lapacho Bark, so I got curious and decided to check out exactly what it is.

It turns out it is the inner bark of a tree used by Incas for many different types of ailments. It is used as an antibacterial, antiviral, anti-fungal and anti-many other things. It seems that in great quantities it may have some undesirable side effects, however, in small tea quantities, no problem.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable tea, and I would recommend it to someone that is looking for a alternative to a black tea chai – it is subtle and relaxing with no bitterness or drying in the mouth – I would imagine it would be a great finisher to a Yoga session or Meditation!

You can purchase the Lapacho Vanilla Chai directly from the Distinctly Tea website.

The dry leaf smells like cinnamon and star anise, though predominately of star anise. Through the bag I could distinguish long black tea leaves mixed with small bits of what appeared to be the ginger and cloves. I’ve never had a tea with star anise, but apparently it is a licorice type flavor, so here goes.

I brewed this tea using 6 oz. of almost boiling water for 4 minutes as suggested on the package. Taken plain, the tea tastes unsurprisingly like black tea flavored with licorice. If you like licorice, then you will like this but I’m not a licorice fan. I added milk and sugar to make it more chai-like which seemed to even out the licorice slightly. The cinnamon was also more noticeable but I could not distinguish any of the other chai spices that were included in this blend.

Overall, this is a decent tea for licorice fans who like black tea but is not my idea of a chai since the majority of the chai spices aren’t present in the taste.

You can purchase the Bombay Chai directly from the Mighty Leaf Tea website.