Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Dry Tea’

I’ve never had a plain Assam before. The closest I’ve come is the Irish Breakfast by Twinings which is a blend of Ceylon and Assam. I’m always fascinated by the string of letters found in the names of many teas, but I really have no clue what they were supposed to mean for me. I did a bit of research and apparently STGFOP stands for “Special Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe.” Since that still doesn’t tell you much, I continued to peruse the internet looking for more information and from what I have read the letters refer to the leaf size. With STGFOP being the second largest leaf behind the FTGFOP designation.

I expected the dry leaves to be plain black leaves, but there is a fair amount of golden hay colored leaves as well. The scent of the dry tea is earthy and malty. While steeping, the aroma takes on a heavier malty aspect which I love. The brewed tea is a medium-brown in color.

I tried the tea plain at first and was surprised to find a very robust cup with little astringency. The additions of milk and sugar were handled nicely and encouraged the malty aspect of the tea to shine. As the tea cools, a slightly sweet honey flavor creeps in for a pleasant surprise.

This is a great example of what a plain black tea should taste like. Smooth and bold with a bit of sweetness thrown in.

You can purchase the Rani STGFOP 1st Flush 2010 Assam directly from the Lochan Tea website.

Black tea with Madagascar vanilla and coconut slivers? hmm, hmm, hmm. Now we’re talking. The dry tea pyramid smells fantastic, can’t really make out the coconut smell, reminds me more of hazelnut for some reason.

Steeped for four minutes in boiling water. Can smell the coconut and vanilla now and it’s killing me to have to wait for it to cool (debating whether or not it’s worth the risk of a burnt tongue). Decided to wait – last two minutes. This yum in a cup. Rich and full bodied, smooth with a coconut twist, and sweet enough on it’s own.

Made it through three steeps with this one before it fizzled out. Ripping the pyramid bag open with the next one, thinking I might get one more good infusion out of it if the leaves are loose.

You can purchase the Orchid Vanilla directly from the Tea Forte website.

This is another tea that I’ve been enjoying for ages and appreciating more with each cup, but keep forgetting to review.  It’s poor man’s tea, rumored to have been created out of necessity during a time of tea rations… it makes me feel rich. Genmaicha, roughly translated, means brown rice tea in Japanese, and this one is absolutely the best I’ve ever had.

The dry tea looks a little odd (and gets some odd looks when people see me making it) but I’m happy to explain what it is and to refer people to TeaFrog to get their own.  The Sencha is delicate, like tiny needles, and a smooth dark green color when it’s dry.  The dry rice looks like puffed brown rice – not sure how else to describe it.  Can’t really smell the rice when it’s dry but the Sencha smells grassy and fresh.

Steeped it for four minutes in boiling water and it brews up really clean but with a bit of dust from the rice. Smells like roasted popcorn with a bizarre twist of fresh cut grass.  Tastes like smooth and buttery popcorn but still light and refreshing like you’d expect from a Sencha.  This is one of my favorite daytime teas, especially when I’m running late in the morning (most days).  It’s strangely filling yet light, hard to describe exactly (guess that’s why I’ve struggled to review it).

This Genmaicha should be a staple in everyone’s cupboard, wouldn’t (and haven’t) hesitated to recommend it.

You can purchase the Genmaicha Organic directly from the TeaFrog website.

I gave this tea two tries before I wrote up my review because the first round was rather rushed and I felt I could have gotten a better feel for the tea.

The dry tea is an interesting-looking dark-green/grey colour, shot through with silver.  It has a scent sort of like fresh hay with a bit of nuttiness.  But wow, does it ever change drastically when I add the water!  The smell morphs into something that I can only liken to dried seaweed – some people have called it ‘fishy’ but it’s not really that – to me it smells like the nori used to wrap sushi.  It’s a surprisingly pale-looking tea for all the scent and flavour that it has – a light, clear yellow.

Initially I followed Adagio’s steeping recommendations and steeped it for three minutes, but the second time I drank this tea I backed off on the steeping time a bit because I’ve noticed that Adagio tends to set them rather high.  Despite people’s opinions of the scent, the tea doesn’t taste fishy (thankfully).  It does have a savory note to it that gives the tea more body – this isn’t a fresh, light, delicate-tasting green. It has a nutty quality to it and a sort of green sweetness as well and it actually reminds me of some Dragonwell (Lung Ching) teas that I’ve tried in the past.  There wasn’t a huge difference in taste that I noticed between the first and second time I drank it, however the quicker steep the second time seems to have done this tea some good as the flavour is more subdued, but not dulled and I can still taste all the various nuances of the tea.

The tea seems to resteep well (@3:30 min), but it lacks much of the flavour profile of the original steeping. It has sort of lightly nutty, sweet flavour with little trace of the earlier savory notes.

I’m not sure what I think of this tea – I don’t love it, but it’s isn’t gack-worthy either. I think I’d have to be in a particular mood to drink this tea – I don’t think it’ll become my go-to green or anything like that.  Steepster Rating: 71/100

You can purchase the Xue Ya Ballad directly from the Adagio website.

Ginger Peach is a popular flavor combination.  It’s also a very difficult one to pull off.   Too much ginger and the peach will disappear.   Too much peach and any discernible ginger is gone.  Sometimes popular dessert combinations do not translate well to tea blends.   Red Leaf does a better job than most with their Ginger Peach offering.

The dry leaves have a distinct peach aroma and it’s very difficult to pick up traces of ginger.   But that’s a good sign:  the ginger should not overwhelm the peach in the tea liquor.  After a three minute brew, the leaves looked bright green and I wondered if Red Leaf had mixed some green in with the black tea.   The underlying tea is certainly black, but the short, choppy green leaves were attractive.   The dried peach and ginger bits had expanded, of course, and looked quite nice.  The scent of the steeped tea proved a contrast to the dry tea in that the ginger stepped forward and claimed its primacy.  It was not a very strong or tangy ginger.  The aroma was more subdued and not at all piquant.

The tea is a pleasure to drink.  The ginger and peach seem to be engaged in a stately gavotte in which each flavor takes the lead by turns and then politely turns over the position of primacy to the other.  I’ve never experienced a ginger peach that was as successful in allowing each flavor to shine so distinctly.  

I recommend this tea for a quiet afternoon drink or as an accompaniment to a meal that includes some ginger components.  It would also be a great choice to serve as a dessert tea and would be brilliant for a themed dessert.  Whip up some Ginger Peach Pandowdy or Ginger Peach crumble and serve this tea with it.   You will have a sensational hosting moment!  The tea does not need sugar, but I added some for my second steep and the sugar did not overcome the tea at all but enhanced it nicely.   Red Leaf has another success to add to its already impressive resumé of teas.

You can purchase the Ginger Peach directly from the Red Leaf Tea website.