Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Flavours’

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.

This being the first Tea Forte tea that I have tried in quite some time, I decided to go all out. I am using my Tea Forte Cafe Cup, Tea Forte Tea Tray, and the Tea Forte Tea Timer app for iPhone. The instructions, acquired from the application itself recommend 2-4 minutes of steep time. For a happy medium, I choose three, using just-under-boil filtered water.

I have a decent amount of experience with oolong teas. As this tea is steeping, I cannot help but wonder if the tea is being restricted from expansion by the pyramid in which it rests, as most oolongs like this one do a decent amount of unfurling while steeping.

The colour of the tea is a brownish yellow; the smells wafting from the cup are smooth, mellow, with perhaps a faint hint of spice. After a couple of small sips, I determine to put the pyramid back into the cup for another minute. The strength is okay but not quite as strong as I like. (If you like your oolongs light and mellow, three minutes will probably suffice.) Another minute, and it is back to tasting. Pleasantly, I can still taste the buttery aftertaste of those couple sips, with hints of vegetal flavour. The taste of this tea reminds me a lot of a Ti Kwan Yin.

In my opinion, four minutes was a prime amount of time for this tea. The flavours are much more full-bodied and literally burst in the mouth. There is a bit of vegetal bite on the sides of the tongue, as with a slightly-oversteeped green tea (like a gunpowder), but this is hardly noticeable, and probably due to my long steep time.

Overall I really enjoyed this tea. It was a very pleasant cuppa, and I do not think I have any complaints with it, other than a bit of lacking in the flavour department. I would perhaps be interested to know if this was due to the pyramid or the tea itself. 85/100 is what I would rate this tea on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase Tea Forte Silk Oolong directly from their website.

Chocolate with tea in it…it is a delicious concept. Much better than most tea with chocolate in it, as my past experiences have told me. Before I started reviewing this chocolate by Tea and All Its Splendour, I “cleansed” my palate with a sip of some Fujian black tea. I then tasted each of the various chocolates, giving a bit of time in between each one to allow my taste buds to clear a bit.

The first chocolate was Milk Chocolate Passionfruit Green Tea. This chocolate was very fruity tasting. I did not noticed much tea flavour, but I do think that chocolate and passionfruit is an excellent combination.

Next up was the Milk Chocolate Earl Grey Tea. It certainly had more tea flavour than the Passionfruit chocolate. The typical Earl Grey bergamot flavour was not heavily present, nor overwhelming, for which I was grateful. I have tried other Earl Grey milk chocolates, and they all seemed to have far too much bergamot in them.

The third chocolate I tried was the Milk Chocolate Chai Tea. The flavour of this chocolate was very creamy, but not very chai-tasting. The tastes of cloves and peppers, especially, were fairly prominent.

Dark Chocolate Ginger Black Tea was next. Wow. I could taste the flavour of ginger before even biting into it. The flavours of ginger and dark chocolate combined to create a very sharp taste with a ginger-like lasting burn at the back of the throat. Surprisingly though, despite the description I just offered, this chocolate really was quite tasty.

The last chocolate included was Dark Chocolate Raspberry Black Tea. This one was very smooth and creamy in texture and in flavour. The fruit flavour was not as strong as the passionfruit chocolate. However, the subtle raspberry flavour complemented the dark chocolate quite well.

I would definitely recommend these chocolates to any chocolate or tea lover. These are delicious treats and the tea added to them complements them excellently.

You can purchase the Tea Infused Chocolates directly from the Tea and All Its Splendour website.

Wow. The aroma of the dry leaves, an intensely sweet and grassy smell, was incredible. I opened the package and it wafted instantly to my nose from a foot away. That, I must say, was impressive. I went ahead and steeped two teaspoons in one cup for a little over 2 minutes.

The aroma of the steeped liquor retains some of the same sweetness, but it is also much more mellow. The flavour suprises me. It comes out much more light and subdued that I had expected. I think that perhaps the second steeping I shall try for three minutes to see how it changes the flavour. There is not much aftertaste, but the small amount that lingers on the tongue is soft, and not overly vegetal at all. Traces of the original aroma of the dry leaves hang for a moment in the throat before they are gone. It is time for the second steeping.

The leaves dance about in the tiny glass pitcher for three minutes more. These leaves are beautiful, tiny buds with the slightest small hairs. The aroma of this second steep seems to be thicker, somehow, yet not stronger. The flavours remain much the same as they were in the first steeping.

While this tea was good, I am left with the impression that my taste buds missed something significant that this tea had to offer. It certainly is a tasty green tea, and I would recommend it for fans of more delicate greens. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would give it an 80/100.

You can purchase the Snow Buds (Xue Ya) directly from the Canton Tea Co. website.