Hampstead’s Ginger Green detox tea follows the trend of recent Hampstead teas I’ve tasted – that being a softer flavour of the main ingredient coupled with a more noticeable base tea flavour. The ginger taste is not potent like ginger tisanes. Here the green tea involved softens the ginger taste and mellows the sting of the ginger. I like the grassiness but it is a tad dull. If you prefer tea tastes that are not too overpowered by the flavour element, then this might be right for you. But do not leave the teabag in too long as this could lead to a bitter, tiger-balm-like taste. I think this could have ruined it for me. I steeped it too long and did not have another sample to try again. Try a 2 minute steep instead of three.

I would drink this tea if there were nothing else around but I would not purposely choose it to drink.

You can purchase the Ginger Green directly from the Hampstead Tea 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.

My first attempts at this tea left me wishing that Ginger had not left the teabag. I was greatly disappointed that a tea with ginger in the name would not taste like ginger. Ginger is a flavor profile that is hard to forget once you have a good ginger tea, the bite on your tongue, the spiciness that fills your mouth like fireworks if you could have fireworks in your mouth. Ah, I am digressing from this review.

A few days ago, I accidentally let this tea brew for four minutes! Yikes! Bitter is what awaits me with this cup. I sipped “gingerly” (wait for it, the pun is upon us) and WHOA, I was blown away by the ginger blast that hit my mouth. I drank this cup and quickly brewed a second. Waited FOUR minutes and my mouth danced in excitement. Ginger had not left the teabag! She just needed more time to arrive in my cup.

This is an excellent tea. When you smell the dry teabag, you smell peaches, nice ripe peaches. A 2-3 minute infusion will leave you with a nice black peach tea. This is very tasty over ice on a hot day. A four minute infusion will give you a ginger blast that will knock your socks off and can cure a sore throat in just one cup.

You can purchase the Ginger, Peach and Apricot Black Tea directly from the Boston Tea Company website.

If anyone’s been following my reviews, they would have noticed a pattern by now. I tend to review teas with any or all of the following ingredients: lemon, ginger, and ginseng. Not to deviate from that trend, this review will be on Special Tea Brew’s Lemon Ginger Snap. Dry leaf is made up of Chinese green tea, lemongrass, lemon myrtle, and ginger. Upon opening up the package, the aroma was a piercing ginger smell. Ginger was the only ingredient I could smell. I steeped 5g in 600ml of hot water for 3 minutes. The aroma coming off the steeped liquor was now more lemony than ginger. Funny that the ingredient that is dominant for a chosen characteristic does not show up as the predominant ingredient in other characteristics. For example, although the dominant ingredient in the aroma is lemon, the taste is predominantly ginger. It was like a lemony swamp, like lemon mixed with muddy grass. It did not smell very appetizing. As for the taste, you are wham smacked in the face with ginger at every sip. It is very overwhelming. Then after you swallow, you can taste the lemongrass and lemon myrtle which in this combination makes it taste dirty. It certainly is more herb than tea. Ginger swamp are the words I would use to describe this tea.

However, having said that, I am glad I gave this tea a second chance by tasting it cold. It tasted much better, not like you’ve just had a face plant in a muddy soccer field of prior, but a subdued bitterness with a much more tolerable level of ginger taste. It is much more drinkable this way I found.

You can purchase the Lemon Ginger Snap directly from the SpecialTea Brew 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.

Alright, so I spent some time in the hospital and, as a parting gift, I woke up this morning with a nasty (hopefully not the flu) infection. Thankfully, I have one more cup of GingerLove Tea left and there could not be a better time for it.

I received my surprise package from them (all the way from Belgium) some time ago and I am thrilled to be able to share my new taste adventure with you. They sent a gorgeously bright and cheery cup and saucer with the tea – love it, thanks – it’s all warmed up and ready to go.

The tea comes pre measured in single serving packages and I’m honestly not sure what the ingredients are… thinking secret mystery ingredients because that just makes it all the more fun for me. The powder looks and smells a lot like Tang – it’s admittedly been years since I’ve had Tang but that scent/flavor kind of seems to have stayed with me.  Poured the powder into my lovingly warmed teacup then filled it with boiling water. It foams up instantly, perfectly, and the smell of ginger fills the air above it.  Stirred twice (per instructions), then sipped.

The foam is a light orange color and it tastes like a Creamsicle to me (yes, another childhood reference, I get those a lot when I’m feeling meh sick).  Taking a bigger sip and the ginger hits me, soothing and warming on the back of my irritated throat.  Have to admit that it’s way better than the ginger tea I’ve made for myself in the past.  The ginger taste is balanced nicely with a smooth taste of orange that seems to be a combination of Mandarin and Sanguine.  This tea is a difficult one to explain because I don’t remember ever tasting anything quite like it. Definitely a burn of ginger, definitely an orange taste, but there’s something else in the flavor that I can’t make out.  The only logical conclusion that I can come to is to say that, with 100% scientific deduction, the mystery ingredient has to be magic.  Seriously though, Sting drinks this and he’s magic…

I sat down to have this tea this morning with my throat on fire and my stomach dancing some sort of hybrid Polka.  Now the fire has been doused and my stomach has settled, feeling better save the fact that I am now officially out of GingerLove… Calling Belgium….

You can purchase the Ginger Love directly from the Ginger Love website.

Product Description:
Golden Moon Tea delicately blends hand-plucked white loose leaf tea leaves and exquisite Yin Zhen buds with freshly dried ginger root to produce a sweet and enlivening cup. Ginger, treasured by traditional herbalists for its strengthening and digestive properties, lends a spicy and aromatic note to the clear infusion. White Ginger, delicate yet vibrant, serene yet sensuous, warming yet refreshing. Ingredients: White tea, ginger root

Tasters Review:
When I first sampled this I noticed many other reviews online from others that didn’t particularly like this. I, however, didn’t think it was all that bad. I don’t think I would purchase it for myself in large quantities but I gave it a little more credit than others seemed to have given it. This wasn’t very gingery – which is fine by me – I do know that White Ginger is supposed to be mellower than regular ginger – but I think this is regular ginger and it’s in white tea…so…perhaps the white tea toned down the heavier ginger flavor. Regardless – the ginger isn’t harsh. It’s a bit chewy for a white tea but the flavor overall isn’t very memorable. The taste of this flavored white is not bad…it’s just not what I would call stunning either! Perhaps people were looking for that stereotypical ginger taste – I guess I can understand their confusion because this flavor isn’t your typical ginger taste. I, however, am grateful it wasn’t overly gingery…that factor I will say I enjoyed about this offering.

You can purchase the White Ginger directly from the Golden Moon Tea website.

2 minute brew time

Smell is vegetal with a slight hint of ginger.

Where is the ginger? I don’t know, maybe it is just me, but if the title of the tea has ginger in its name one would think ginger could be found. Not so. I adjusted the times, the temperatures. The green tea base is good and drinkable, but I am still left questioning as to the whereabouts of the ginger. I feel like a detective, looking and adjusting my tactics to see if I can reveal the missing component. Tea is a journey. Enjoying tea should not have to be interrupted with the particulars of a steeping perimeter to make the tea drinkable.

Again, I am left saying to you my reader, if this is the only tea choice in the house, by all means drink up! If you have another choice, take it and save this one for later if at all.

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

I love chocolate and I (clearly) love tea so there was no way I could refuse when I was offered some tea infused chocolate. I’ve had tea with chocolate before but never chocolate with tea, I mean I’ve had chocolate with tea before but it was in a yunomi (the tea, that is) and the chocolate was in hand. Yes, I’ve already gotten in to the chocolate…. Both of the bars that I received are tea infused dark chocolate. The ‘guilt’ in the guilty pleasure (of sweets) is lower for me if I can convince myself that the treat is somehow healthy. I’ve heard that dark chocolate is better for you than milk chocolate – trying to justify my indulgence…

First up is the dark Belgium chocolate with organic raspberry black tea, and it is beautiful. Smells bittersweet with just a hint of raspberry in the blend. The texture is smooth and dark, can’t actually see any tea in it. The tea comes out when you bite into the bar, has an unusual texture to it… Smooth but with a crunch, kind of hard to explain but there is definitely tea in it. The bitterness of the chocolate overpowers the raspberry flavor a little bit but that’s okay. This is really, really good sweetness.

Now on to the Australian ginger black tea chocolate. Really dark, smooth texture, smells fantastic (as all chocolate should) with a hint of a ginger scent. Biting into it and it tastes rich and sharp but the wonderful ginger flavor gets stronger with every mouth-watering, melting second. Strong, lingering ginger aftertaste (I LOVE GINGER)! This is absolutely my new all-time favorite chocolate. You wouldn’t think that ginger and dark chocolate would be such a fantastic combination but they are. It’s now a proven fact.

You can purchase the Dark Belgian Chocolate with Organic Raspberry Tea and Dark Belgian Chocolate with Ginger Black Tea directly from the Tea and All Its Splendour website.