Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Mouthfeel’

Hmm, the scent of this dry rooibos is legit. And by legit, I mean it legitimately smells like vanilla. Not fake vanilla like is used in various desserts, but real vanilla. Adding three teaspoons of this tea and steeping it in two cups of water for six minutes, I was left being tantalized by the aromas of vanilla wafting from my teapot as I waited. The tea smells sweet, but not in a fake sweetener way. It is more like the sweetness that comes from plants like mint or various fruits. The liquor is clear, yet a very dark red-brown.

My first cup smells warm. And not just from the hot tea. It just has a warm, and soft, aroma about it. It softly caresses the senses and lingers in the nose. Eagerly, I take my first sip and am immediately surprised by how sweet it tastes. The sweetness is very passive, but it is definitely there, and a quite pleasant surprise. This tea’s mouthfeel is thick and smooth. The flavour of vanilla is, of course, at the forefront. The rooibos, sadly, seems to have taken a backseat in this brew, as it does not show its head much, except in the aftertaste.

The flavours do not change much throughout the rest of the pot. I very much enjoyed drinking this tea. It is good, it is unique, and it is well worth a taste or two. I give it a 77/100 on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase the Vanilla Rooibos directly from the TeaFrog website.

I love oolong, and I love finery, especially in the tea world. So when the chance to try this tea came up…an oolong, mind you, that is supposed to be one of the finest available, and available only in limited quantities, I jumped at the opportunity.

The dry leaf holds light, vegetal notes that are, surprisingly, reminiscent of a few white teas that I have tried.

The steeped liquor is a brilliant gold, with excellent clarity (the benefits of utilizing a glass vessel for steeping). It also has a darker aroma, more akin to darjeeling. Ah, but the first sip was nothing like drinking darjeeling. Light and fruity (what specific fruit flavours – I cannot quite place), the liquor slipped over the tongue easily. Incredibly soft mouthfeel combined with a surprisingly bold, yet not overwhelming, aftertaste to provide a wonderfully pleasant drink.

Steeping the tea again, for a few minutes longer (five this time), led to a brew of much the same strength and character as the first. I was pleased at the resilience and quality of this tea. I most definitely enjoyed drinking this and would certainly keep this on my list of teas to keep in stock. I give it a 90/100 on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase the Extra Fancy Formosa Oolong directly from the Mark T. Wendall Tea Company website.

There are toys you can get – the “amazing expanding dinosaur” or “mermaid that really grows” – compressed sponges that once soaked in water grow something like 400%. This tea is just like these toys. Put in two teaspoons of tea, get an entire cup of giant whole huge tea leaves. A co-worker asked me why I had a cup of wet spinach. And the leaves are good ones too – unbroken and high quality.

And the oolong these beautiful produce is pretty high quality too. This tea tastes like a less oxidized, greener brew, and has a lot of vegetal notes to it. But it also has the buttery mouthfeel you get in some oolongs, the floral notes, and the spicy aromas. Lots of things going on in that cup! It’s a complex tea, but manages to balance the various flavors into a cohesive whole.

Or, to put it another way – Yummy! This is a really nice, solid oolong.

You can purchase the Imperial Gold Oolong directly from the Mark T. Wendall Tea Company website.

Opening the package, the dry leaves smell grassy and have a perky sweetness about them that I’m eager to try (too much time spent drinking roasted and musty green teas has drawn me from teas like this). Two teaspoons of leaves, two cups of water, and three minutes later, I had a pale green brew with a much deeper aroma than the dry leaf had. Deeper, yet still as sweet, the grassy notes linger as well.

Deliciously smooth. The grassy flavour does not overwhelm, as some greens are apt to do. For such a lightly flavoured tea, the brew seems to carry a moderate amount of thickness to the mouthfeel. However, even those light flavours are complex by themselves, making each sip a lingering pleasure, if left to settle on the tongue.

The sweetness and delicacy of the brew leave one with a very refreshed feeling, and it is a very enjoyable tea to drink. I gladly give it a 77 out of 100 on my personal enjoyment scale, and would certainly recommend it.

You can purchase the Dragonwell Green directly from the Mark T. Wendall Tea Company website.

One of the perks of being married 25 years come September is the marital right to stick just about anything under your spouse’s nose and say, “Smell that!” without getting clobbered. In the case of nice tea from India, the response was “Wow! There’s something clove-y going on, isn’t there?”

While neither of us have a professionally trained tea nose, we did pick up some nice spicy, fruity notes in the dark dry tea. I suspect it has something to do with the area in which Banaspaty tea is grown — evidently the perfect greenhouse environment for teas.

The fruity tones come through loud and clear when this tea is brewed. Because I prefer my Assams on the meatier side, I let it steep a full four minutes before a taste test. Assam Banaspaty has the nice thick heft you’d expect from an Assam tea, but was surprisingly mild in flavor. While I don’t think milk and sweetener would harm this gentle brew, it certainly doesn’t need to be toned down any.  This would be a good introductory selection for someone new to the world of fine loose leaf tea.

You can purchase the Assam Banaspaty Organic directly from the TeaFrog website.