Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Flavours’

Ah, the pleasure of a good smelling tea. Often the dry leaves, as-of-yet un-infused, reveal a lot about the tea that is to come. The spicy and sweet notes of the dry leaves of this herbal tisane blend in an attractive melody that promises a deep and possibly heavy drink.

Utilising a Tea Forte Café Cup, I steeped this pyramid infuser for four minutes using just-boiled water. Smelling the infusion, it is clear that cinnamon is definitely what lends much of the spiciness to this tea’s aroma. However, with the first sip, it becomes immediately evident that cinnamon is not all that is in Tea Forte’s Flora. The sweetness of liquorice root melds with the explosion of flavour from the hibiscus in this blend. The hibiscus adds a lot of body to this tisane and sweeps through one’s mouth, filling it with flavour.

A re-steep of this herbal blend offers a much weaker version of the first cup, but with the same balance of flavours. This is one blend that is worth trying and might make a tasty chilled drink as well. I would give Flora an 83/100 on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase the Flora directly from the Tea Forte website.

The dry tuo cha smells of a smooth, cooked pu-er, but after rinsing this mini tuo in my gaiwan, the aromas of rice start to come out. Using just-boiled water, I prepare the first steeping. Light, golden-brown, the liquor is a bit cloudy and mingles a faint hint of rice with tea. The taste of this first steeping is not a flavourful as the aroma would suggest.

The second steeping gives off a darker brown infusion. This time it is hard to distinguish whether the tea is just very smooth or whether it lacks a lot of flavour. I suspect this is on account of the intense rice flavour, which seems to camouflage a lot of the pu-er nuances. Hopefully the rice flavours will give way soon and let the tea itself shine through.

Finally, with this third steeping, I am getting more of the flavour of the shou pu on which this tea is built. It is good, though perhaps not as amazing as I had hoped. I go ahead and put this tea through a couple more infusions. It is good, but I am left with the impression that it is lacking something. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would give it a 75/100.

You can purchase the Rice Shou Pu-erh directly from the Tao Tea Leaf website.

The first thing I noticed was the beautiful blue flowers interspersed into this tea. They definitely added an enjoyable element to the presentation. Following the suggestions of the package, I steep this tea for two minutes, using three teaspoons of leaf (in a two-cup teapot). The water was heated to the point where small bubbles were forming on the bottom of the kettle.

I am really impressed by the aroma of this tea. I have drunk a few blueberry white teas before, most of which tasted immensely of blueberries, but in an almost-artificial manner. This tea is different. The blueberry flavour does not jump out at the drinker. Instead, it meshes well with the flavours of the Pai Mu Dan base. The blueberry flavours are everywhere throughout the tea, when it is first sipped and in the aftertaste, but the flavours do not dominate. Thankfully, they also do not underwhelm. It may sound like this is a lot to say to merely describe the way in which this tea is well-balanced, but it is my opinion that this tea deserves the accolades. I really enjoyed drinking this tea. It is indeed worthy of the 93/100 I give it on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase the Blueberry White Tea directly from the TeaFrog website.

The smell from the dry teabag is medicinal.

Brewed for 2 minutes, lifted out the tea bag, took a sip and immediately slipped the teabag back into my cup.

I left the teabag in my cup as I drank this herbal tea.

I could taste the ginger more predominately than the lemon peel. As I neared the bottom of my cup, my mouth was alive with ginger!

This tea would be nice drank at bedtime. It is soothing and calming, but not much on taste. This one fell flat for me. I liked it ok, but I would not choose this tea again.

You can purchase the Lemon Ginger directly from the Hampstead Tea website.

Although I normally cut open teabags and steep them loose, I decided to steep this tea in its own bag and why not, Tea Forte has one of the most attractive teabags in the industry. I kept the teabag in for the full duration of my drinking the tea. Steeped leaves show broken green leaves, stem, ginger bits, and white flower petals. Infusion is a yellowish colour. Although the leaves are not small enough, I did notice a little bit of dust components, pekoe?, that made it through the teabag and sat on the surface of the tea. Aroma is heavenly, sweet from the pear.

Unlike with many teas with ginger as an ingredient that I have tasted recently, the ginger here is surprisingly soft. Sweetness came predominantly from the white tea and pear and the ginger played the supportive role. The resulting taste of the balance of these three flavours is one similar to bubble gum. Funny, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pear bubble gum flavour before, but the combination of these three ingredients was spot on like bubble gum. Don’t get me wrong, I like bubble gum but like with bubble gum I can’t chew more than one piece at a time. I don’t think I can drink more than one cup of this tea at a sitting. I can’t see myself drinking a lot of it.

You can purchase Tea forte white ginger pear directly from their website.