Company Product Description:
A tea blended in honor of Malachi McCormick, that tea author of Irish blood. His out-of-print book “A Decent Cup of Tea” is small, but speaks volumes concerning the difficulty in finding well-prepared tea in hotels.

I start each day with at least 1 black or black flavored tea…my day “tea day” progresses from there…each day a new tea adventure.  BUT…I always HAVE to have some good, solid Black or Black Flavored Tea Favorites or Standby’s nearby.  With all the tea I drink I MUST have a HUGE variety in my stash. 

Recently I sampled Malachi McCormick’s Blend from Harney & Sons for the first time.  I received it from a friend in a tea swap!  Let’s just say it’s very satisfying and I am fairly certain that’s on its way to my Standby Pile…if not my “go-to” pile! 

It’s a medium strength Black Tea that is toasty yet sweet and oh-so-smooth!  It seems to be the perfect tea to sip or – if you are in a rush – gulp.

I don’t know what it is about this tea…but I think it’s a winner!

You can purchase the Malachi McCormick’s Blend directly from the Harney & Sons website.

Mighty Leaf is one of few popular Canadian tea companies. As a Canadian, I celebrate that fact, and always look forward to sampling a new Mighty Leaf tea. However, in this case, I am left with a bit of a *meh* feeling.

I picked out the Green Tea Tropical from the samples that Mighty Leaf sent us, anticipating visions and flavours of tropical vacations to Mexico and Costa Rica, and the initial scent of the un-brewed leaves gave me just that. It is of course, packaged in the signature Mighty Leaf stitched pillow teabag, and the leaf appeared to be fairly large and full, and as such, of seemingly high quality.

The first brewing was as suggested, 180 degrees for 3 minutes. As the teabag went in, the scent started to become more muted. After 3 minutes, I was left with a dark amber liquor, and mildly tropical scented water.

As I sipped, I noted that the tea was not in the least bit astringent (aka “bitter” for some), leading me to again, believe that the green tea was of good quality. However, the flavouring of the tea was strangely blended together, not really allowing me to sort out different tropical flavours, tho the scent was “Guava” like. I found overall, the tea not “incredible” – but a decent cup of tea, but yet, unremarkable, leaving me with that *meh* that I mentioned before – a take it or leave it kind of feeling.

As I make notes on this tea, the taste does slightly linger, while leaving my teeth feeling a bit fuzzy, and my mouth a bit dry, again, green tea characteristics. The problem I think here, is that the actual green tea flavour gets lost in the tropical fruit flavouring, never really rising to the top to be complemented by the flavours. The second steeping (4 min @ 180 deg) was even more unremarkable, with a little flavour, but less so that the original, and again, the green tea not coming to the fore.

So my overall impression of this tea is that it would be a good starting tea for a convert, someone that is not used to green tea and could get turned off by the earthier aspects of a straight green. This tea has maybe a wider appeal, but I am not sure if it is good enough to be called a “premium” tea or to charge premium prices for.

All that being said, it is not a bad tea, and Mighty Leaf produces some top quality teas, which is maybe why this one leaves me wanting more.

You can purchase Mighty Leaf Green Tea Tropical directly from their website.

EDIT: I was informed by an astute commenter that Mighty Leaf is NOT a Canadian company, and much to my chagrin, they are correct. My apologies for the mistake in this review!