Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Green tea’

I tend to like tropical tastes. Much to the chagrin of my family, when I order pizza, I usually choose pineapple and ham as toppings. This just grosses people out but I like it. So how about pineapple tastes in tea?…keep that thought in mind, okay now add to it guava. This combination makes me think that you’ll either love it or hate it. As separate food and drink items, I like it so I’m game to try the combo too. Not too sure about the flower petals in it though. We’ll see.

Opened up the package and found a mesh-stitched teabag filled with not small fannings or dust in the teabag but whole leaves that looked of good quality and only a tiny bit of blue flower petals. Steeped the teabag in boiling water for 3 minutes as per the instructions. Aroma is very fruity and floral. A very pleasant fragrance.

I agree with Mighty Leaf that the “green tea blends harmoniously with the sweet tropical fruits of pineapple and guava” and this may be part of the problem. It would have been more distinctive had the green tea had some of the characteristic grassy or vegetal notes of other green teas. Because of this, it tasted more like a tisane than a green tea blend. The taste of pineapple also seems to be lost in a stronger base note of the sweet guava. The blend does seem to come together quite naturally with the floral notes. It is an okay beverage but tastes too much like many fruity, floral teas I’ve tasted. It doesn’t stand out but it’ll do. I could take it or leave it.

You can purchase Mighty Leaf Green Tea Tropical directly from their website.

Teekanne is an outfit out of Dusseldorf (a name that always makes me laugh), Germany. The company has been involved in the tea trade – in one fashion or another – since 1882. One of their biggest claims to fame is the fact that most of the teabags sold commercially in the U.S. are made using Teekanne industrial equipment. Their stateside subsidiary is Redco Foods, Inc., which also has several other brands under its umbrella. One of them, I was already familiar with – Salada, producers of a decaf green tea I drank early on in my tea exploration.

The Teekanne Herbal Wellness line went public in 2008 and was endorsed by Stefi Graf (the “Fräulein Forehand” of the tennis world). Blends they marketed fell into three categories: Soothing, Relaxing, and Energizing. Being the neurotic that I am, I decided to go for something I aspired to – relaxing. Calming Chamomile, it was.

There wasn’t much to say about the tea. It was in a teabag. It smelled like chamomile. Both pluses for an end-of-day drink. Brewing instructions weren’t necessary either. Herbals could be steeped in boiling water for up to eight minutes, if one chose to. I went with a five-minute infusion in an ordinary mug.

The resulting liquor was clear-to-off-orange – a medicinal-looking palette that chamomile always yielded. The aroma was floral, faintly citrus and soothing. To the taste, it was what one expects from chamomile – like drinking a pillow that weighs heavy on the eyelids. It certainly accomplished what it set out to do; it made me ease back in my chair and sigh comfortably. Beyond that, I don’t have much to add. It is what it is.

You can purchase the Calming Chamomile directly from the Tea and All Its Splendour website.

7 minute brew time with boiling water

Very pretty blend. Green and yellow “grass” like cuttings are sprinkled throughout this lemony blend.

Champagne colored brew.

Lemon grass is the dominant flavor. This blend would be great added to another tea for that just right lemon addition.

As I neared the end of my cup, I noticed the astringency of this herbal blend, which makes me really think that using this as a mix in with another tea would really be the best use for this one.

Overall, a good lemony cup of herbal tea.

You can purchase the Lemonade directly from the Shanti Tea website.

Dry smell is nice and minty.

A 4 minute brew time yields a light straw colored brew.

My first sip leaves me screaming, “where is the mint?”

This is blasphemy. The Moroccan mint police need to called! Someone stole the mint out of this blend!

The dry smell was to die for, the brewed up tea was a total failure.

I was greatly disappointed with this sample.

You can purchase the Moroccan Mint directly from the SpecialTea Brew website.

Steeped in a Tea Forte Café Cup, with the spent tea pyramid resting on a Tea Forte tea tray, all the pieces were set to provide an enjoyable tasting experience of this mango flavoured green tea. Impeccable as always, the packaging of this individual tea pyramid infuser bag was clean and sharply presented. After heating the water to the proper temperature, I proceeded to steep the tea for only two minutes before moving on to tasting it. The aroma is light, and the mango smell is lighter yet. My guess would be that the green tea base is a sencha or something akin to it.

The tea itself has light forward notes with a strong finish. The mango is present but not very prominent. Overall the tea is not very impressive in its taste. Not wanting to judge it by first try, I steeped a second cup. This time, I left the tea pyramid in the water for three minutes. The mango flavour is now a lot bolder and broader. It complements the green tea far more than during the first infusion.

Overall, I think this is not one of Tea Forte’s better blends. However, for lovers of fruit flavoured green teas, it may be worth giving this one a try. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate it a 76/100.

You can purchase Tea Forte Green Tango directly from their website.