It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Flavours’

I love Tea Forte. Every single tea that I have tried to date has been flavourful, without being overwhelming. I also quite enjoy Oolong Tea. To date, I have mostly focused on the darker, more oxidized Formosa Oolongs, and enjoy the robust flavours that they produce. With that in mind, I reached for the Tea Forte Silk Oolong this morning to give it a try.

First of all, Tea Forte has packaging nailed. The Chest that was sent to us contains the teas nicely, and the pyramid tea bags and wrapping are minimalist enough to let you focus on the tea, while giving you the impression that, even tho this is a teabag, you are about to embark on a high quality tea experience. In the past, I found for the most part the bags give enough room for the teas to expand, so I was not too worried about this here, even tho it is an Oolong that should expand enough to release all the flavours.

I have to say, that this is the first Tea Forte that has disappointed me. Perhaps my expectations were too high going into it. First of all, clearly there was not enough room for the tea to expand in the tea bag. After brewing it at about 195 deg F for about 3 minutes, the tea leaves were straining the confines of the bag. Usually, you can get a nice scent of the tea through the bag, and certainly once it has hit the water, but here, I found the scent to be very muted and almost undetectable.

The tea it’s self is nothing to write home about. It is very light, bordering on almost tasteless. It is certainly smooth as the name “Silk Oolong” implies, but has no interesting aftertaste that lingers, and is overall, unmemorable. Perhaps being used to stronger Oolong infusions I was prepared for a stronger tea, but this certainly is not that. It leaves me feeling indifferent enough to it that I am not even going to bother with a second or third infusion.

Maybe if you steeped it for much longer, you could coax more flavour out of it, or even cutting the leaves out of the bag, buy why do that when you receive it in a bag? You can purchase the loose leaves from Tea Forte directly, but for the price (Tea Forte teas can tend to the expensive side), I don’t see the value on this tea.

Overall, Tea Forte is a fantastic company producing fantastic teas, but in this case, it is one tea that I would remove from the lineup, as it does not seem to fit into the flavourful, memorable teas that I have come to know Tea Forte for.

You can purchase Tea Forte Silk Oolong directly from their 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!