When I scanned the list of teas we had to choose from to review, this caught my eye – strawberry cheesecake, one of my favourite deserts. It tastes delicious as a food, how bad can it be as a tea?

The aroma coming off the dried leaves from the bag smelled sweet and very appetizing; I wanted to eat straight from the bag, it was so good! Leaf contains Ceylon black tea, strawberry and cheesecake flavouring, and dried strawberry slices. Usually when I get strawberry slices in something say, cereal, when I eat them, they taste sour; but because these strawberry slices are infused in the tea, if there are and sour tastes, it’ll probably mostly be lost in the sweetness of the cheesecake flavouring.

I steeped it according to instructions 1 tsp per 8 oz of boiling water and took my first sip. Very nice, sweet with a tad bit of sourness at the beginning but finishes off like you are tasting a strawberry cream wafer. It is not for everyone like purists or people who don’t believe in drinking a meal / desert, but one thing I do have to give it is the Ceylon tea used in this flavoured tea is good black tea and you can tell that right away from tasting it. It is flavourful, no briskness or astringency, no spikes or unevenness in taste so very balanced, and carries the taste of the strawberry cheesecake very well.

The aftertaste and feeling I get from the tongue rubbing on the roof of the mouth is like I’ve been eating some cream wafers, there is a little bit of buttery smoothness to it. Actually it reminds me a little of milk oolongs.

After drinking a cup of this strawberry cheesecake tea, it makes me want to reach for the real thing! I need to satisfy my sweet tooth now. ☺

You can purchase the Strawberry Cheesecake directly from the The NecessiTeas website.

Usually I shy away from packaged tea. However, the word “Organic” on the front of the Mighty Leaf package got my attention. I’m also a fan of Earl Grey. I was curious about the “artisan whole leaf pouch”. The contents were just that – artisanal silk tea bag with fancy unbleached cotton stitching continuing into a long chain-stitched string. You can see the intensely large black whole leaf tea through the mesh bag. It doesn’t look like a lot but will soon be saturated with hot water and the tea will expand to almost completely fill the bag, elongating it to the shape of a diamond, providing visual interest.

This company has specific large print instructions on the package to steep their product for 4 minutes, yet doesn’t say what quantity of water should be used. I would assume this would be a single serving size and that would be 8 oz. I used a mug with a lid. You will lose a lot of the aromatics from the bergamot essential oil without a lid to trap the vapours. Alternatively, you could use a teapot and steep the tea in 12 oz water without losing too much as long as you use a tea light or a tea cozy to keep the liquor warm during this longer steep.

The blend contains golden tips organic black tea (doesn’t say where sourced) with first-pressed bergamot oil with a drop of jasmine essence. The tea is organic, but not necessarily the flavouring. When I opened the package, I expected to have my sense flooded with bergamot. They weren’t. So I wondered if the characteristic of the tea would be lost.

After the dutiful 4 minute steep, I sampled the tea. I could smell the bergamot in the stem. The drink was an orange-red. The flavour of the bergamot was not strong, allowing a natural sweetness of a good quality tea to come through with a fullness in the mouth. The bergamot flavour sat at the mid to back of the tongue and at the roof of mouth where the aromatics can be enjoyed. There was relatively low tannin and minimal astringency making this perfect to drink without milk.

While the flavour of jasmine is not really the feature of the tea, its effects are unmistakeable in combination with the bergamot. Combined, they provide a relaxing experience. One can mellow out with this tea. It de-stresses the body and the emotions and like the long steep, you relax into the experience. The smoothness of this tea tempered with jasmine provides a long satisfying drink. Each sip renews the flavour profiles even after 10 – 12 ounces. This is a long, slow drink. I would take this in the late evening. Its quite different, less edgy than a Twinnings Earl Grey. I may have found a new favourite!

You can purchase the Mighty Leaf Organic Earl Grey directly from the Mighty Leaf Tea website.

I have tried a lot of Rooibos tea. I have had a lot of Fruit Tisanes. Over time, they can tend to blur together into a single impression. For Rooibos teas, there is almost always a sweetness, no matter the flavouring. For Fruit Tisanes, tangy. So when we received a sample of Cranberry Crush from East Pacific Tea Company, I was anticipating that this was going to be just another flavoured Rooibos.

In cas you had not guessed, this tea is a combination of Rooibos, Cranberries, Orange Peel and Hibiscus. When you look at this tea, you can see all of these ingredients mixed together. If I had not dug into the tea, and read the ingredients, I never would actually have noticed the Rooibos. There seems to be a very small ratio of it in this tea, leaning it more towards a supporting role in a Fruit Tisane, rather than the dominant role in a Rooibos mix.

The smell of the tea is strongly orange, with an undertone of Cranberries. With Cranberries, Orange and Hibiscus, I expected the tang that you get from a Fruit tea, but I was unsure of how the Rooibos was going to show up in this.

As it turns out, I need not have been afraid. This tea brings the best of a Rooibos, with an underlying supporting sweetness, and the best of a Fruit Tisane, with a tart fruity cranberry flavour. The Cranberry is most definitely the star in here, but the orange does not back down either. The Hibiscus plays a background role, which is just fine with me, as it is not my favorite addition to a blend.

Hot, I like this tea, but cold, I can see a whole new window of opportunity arise. I know even without making a cold version, that this tea will shine as an iced tea. Typically I make an “Arnold Palmer” iced tea, blending 50/50 with lemonade, but this one I think I will have to try as-is.

Overall, this is a great tea for someone that is not a Rooibos lover, but also may be tired of the typical Fruit tea. I enjoyed this offering from the East Pacific Tea Company, and I am looking forward to digging into some of their other samples!

You can purchase the Cranberry Crush directly from the East Pacific Tea Co website.

This Assam Reserve tea was a World Tea Champion in 2009 and was manufactured for SpecialTea Brew of Redmond, Washington. The 5.6 gram sample shows a golden tippy, beautifully curled and twisted loose leaf Assam. For a black tea, the leaf is large and typical of a good whole leaf black Indian tea. I can imagine what the panellists were expecting. I am expecting a mellow malt, dense texture and malty cup of dark brew.

I checked the SpecialTea Brew site but there was no further information given about this award winning tea. Usually when a tea manufacturer calls the tea “Reserve” it is for a reason. There is some special characteristic about the tea that is put aside and is in limited quantities and is usually set at as a premium tea on the market due to its rarity. Too bad we don’t know more about this tea. I’m assuming this is a newly started business and is still under development. So, let’s see what the tea has to offer.

For tasting, I used 2.5 grams in 5 oz for 3 minutes. Following traditional preparation for an assam tea, use one teaspoon per person (approximately 2.grams) in a teapot with 8oz.boiling water over it and steep for 3- 4 minutes.

The tea was clear and bright, not dense with spicy nutmeg notes. With a low astringency or low briskness, the natural sweetness carries well in a full liquor. The malt flavours held true even with added milk. I was thinking of the hot Ovaltine drink and memories of my childhood came back. I found the tea complex with many malt notes to explore. There was something comforting and yet invigorating about the tea. Most remarkable is the malt flavouring in a bright clear cup. That takes a lot of skill. Please try this tea if you like different assams as it is very elegant as assam usually know for more robust qualities. Maybe the lighter tone of the tea is a new direction for Assam.

You can purchase the Assam Reserve directly from the SpecialTea Brew website.

This tea smelled wonderful like fresh, fragrant peaches when I opened the little package. There was only one serving in one of those pyramid-shaped sachets – a big thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending it to me, BTW.

The taste is distinctly that of a dark oolong – bakey with a slightly woodsey note to it. Unfortunately I found that it tasted more than a little on the harsh side in the way you’d expect a lower-quality oolong to taste. The peach flavouring was nice – it wasn’t too artificial and meshed pretty well with the oolong like it belonged there, and I think made it less unpleasent.

Most of the harshness seemed to be gone when I resteeped it (@ 4 min) and enough of the peach flavour still lingered to make it interesting. So this tea is definitely good for more than one go.

You can purchase the Peach Blossom Oolong directly from the zhenas Gypsy Tea 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!