Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Mighty Leaf’

Much to my delight, I recently received a shipment of 3 teas from Davids Tea. I have been looking forward to sampling and reviewing tea from Davids ever since a store opened close to me here. They are truly a Canadian company (unlike the mistake I made with Mighty Leaf, Davids really was started, and is run, in Canada ), and I have been itching to feature them in a review.

Out of the 3 samples I was sent, the Mojito Mint was the one that caught my eye first. It could have been because after my wife going to Cuba, she has been on a Mojito kick, and we finally perfected our own Mojito recipe here, or it could be because of the sweet smell to the tea, or perhaps the odd mixing of Black tea and Rooibos. Whatever the reason, the Mojito Mint gets the nod for the first review.

This blend is part of Davids Tea’s Summer 2010 collection. I have, in all my years of tasting, never seen a blend of Black Tea and Rooibos together. In the bag, I get a sweet scent, with definite coconut and pineapple, and an undertone of the mint.

The instructions called for 80 deg. Celsius water – again, odd for a Black Tea and Rooibos both – usually you use boiling water for each one of these, but I am always for first trying it the suggested route, so that is what I did. They suggested a 3-4 min steep, so I went for a 4 min, as it seemed a good compromise between my 6 min usual Rooibos, and 3 min usual Black Tea.

The colour of the liquor is a reddish, muddy brown, mid-clear. It is not the dark Black, nor the red Rooibos, again speaking to the compromise that I am seeing in this tea already. Straight out of the steep the coconut scent dominated, but as it cooled, the sweet nutty Rooibos scent, and more mint started to peek through.

The flavour of this tea is amazing. Mojito it is not, I did not get any sense of that, but the name aside, I am really enjoying this tea. There is not a hint of tannin bitterness, in fact, the Black tea really seems to be only a supporting cast member. The dominant base is Rooibos, and each of the flavours seem to come through at different points – first sip I got coconut and a bit of rum’ish flavour, then the fruity pineapple flavouring peeks up – the final appearance from the mint leaves a refreshed taste in my mouth, and encourages another sip to start the cycle all over again.

I am still not sure why the Mojito name, since a Mojito is traditionally a rum/lime flavour, but frankly I don’t care what it is called! I have enjoyed cup after cup of this tea, and keep going back for more. Thumbs up recommendation for a Canadian company making it’s debut with us with a bang!

You can purchase the Mojito Mint Magic directly from the Davids Tea website.

I had a number of teas that I was going to review but these were pre-empted in order to cover the JOEmo XL Tea Travel Mug. I have been on the lookout for a good travel mug for loose leaf tea for a long time now, and when I found this one I was so pleased I just couldn’t wait to get the word out.

There are a number of tea travel mugs out there, from the Teas Etc. mug, to the Mighty Leaf Travel Mug, but nothing has seemed just right. Most travel mugs just have a filter to keep the leaves from getting into your mouth. That is fine, as long as you are going to leave them in there to steep the whole time. Personally, I like to steep my leaves for a certain amount of time, and then remove them, especially when it comes to greens and blacks. Inside the JOEmo, the key to the whole thing is a removable stainless steel mesh basket. It locks in place to either:

A) Keep the tea in the water and out of your mouth – if you are leaving the leaves in.
B) Keep the leaves out of the water, once you remove the basket.

The mesh filter is super fine, and even with Rooibos teas, which are notoriously slippery when it comes to getting through mesh filters, it kept all the leaf right out of the water once the basket came out!

The JOEmo body is double walled stainless steel and very rugged (perfect for banging around during those canoe trips). Being double walled, no matter how hot or cold the liquid is inside, you do not feel it on the outside. No condensation from very cold, and no heat from very hot tea. This makes it pretty comfortable to hold!

The vacuume sealed lid keeps your liquid hot or cold, whatever it went in as. This leads me to one warning – it works almost too well! After steeping a black tea with boiling water, and removing the basket, I sealed it up, and promptly forgot about it as I went about my day. 3 hours later it occured to me that I had some tea to drink, and without thinking, sipped away and came close to scalding my mouth! 3 hours later, and the water was almost as hot as it went in as! So be careful….

The mug is very easy to drink from; you simply push a button on the lid and it opens for drinking, another push of the button closes the lid when you are done. You can sip from anywhere around the rim – no single spout to find while driving in the car! Even with the lid “popped” the heat does not escape the mug.

Hands down, I recommend this to every single loose leaf tea drinker out there. The ONLY downfall that this has is that removing the basket can be messy if you are on the go and have nowhere to put it. However, the length of time that the water keeps warm, and the ease of drinking out of the mug more than makes up for this minor inconvienience. I have already placed my order for 4 more for my family members, and as a bonus, they are on sale at TeaFrog right now!

In conclusion, I love it, I use it, and in my opinion, to date, this is the best travel mug for loose leaf tea that is out there today!

You can purchase the JOEmo XL Tea Travel Mug directly from the TeaFrog website.

Chamomile Citrus is a Mighty Leaf signature blend of rosehips, orange peel, Egyptian chamomile, lemongrass, lemon myrtle, nana mint, hibiscus flowers and various other flowers and flavors that are only identified as “citrus” and/or “natural” (it always makes me wonder when there is only a vague reference to ingredients). Mighty Leaf describes it as “a refreshing infusion perfected to curl up with and savor by the sip…”.

I find that people either love Chamomile Tea or they don’t like it at all. Personally, I love a good cup of Egyptian Chamomile. I love the subtle taste it has and how it smells softly of strawberry. Chamomile grew wild in the neighborhood that I lived in as a child and I can remember crushing the flowers between my fingers to release their scent; happy memories recalled are likely the reason that I find Chamomile so relaxing and enjoyable. I also like all things citrus so based on the name and description I was really looking forward to trying this tea.

I steeped it for 5 minutes and the resulting tea was a nice light gold color. I really wanted to like this tea but I have to say that I was disappointed. I found that the simplicity of Chamomile was overwhelmed by all of the fruits, herbs, flowers, and “flavors”. All of the citrus tones from the orange peel, lemongrass, lemon myrtle, and citrus flowers seemed to result in a too sweet combination – it almost tasted sugary to me. I guess that the rosehip, mint and hibiscus were meant to balance this sweetness but I just didn’t like the taste.

The sample that I tried was in a bag from Mighty Leaf that they call their “Tea Pouch”. It’s a very nice presentation which looks like a hand stitched square of semi-opaque silk that allows you to see the tea inside. The Chamomile Citrus is visually lovely with green, orange and red tones and unbrewed it smells just as good as it looks.

You can purchase Mightly Leaf Chamomile Citrus directly from their website.