Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Natural Flavors’

It’s rare for me to have bagged teas but this is Celestial Seasonings so I’m open to it. When I was small, this is the only tea that we had in the house so it makes me feel a bit nostalgic. It says it’s a blend of green tea, Bai Mu Dan and ginseng root, with honey and lemon. It smells like a Chinese green tea, can’t smell anything else. Opened a bag and I can see small white bits that I’m guessing are ginseng, the rest just looks like green tea but I trust that there must be white tea in there as well. The ingredients list says it also contains licorice, chicory, ginger and orange blossoms, but I seriously can only smell the green tea.

Steeped for two minutes in hot (not boiling) water and now I can smell the lemon verbana and the spices. Brews up a light green with a hint of orange, not a clean brew but it’s not bad. It’s actually quite tasty, though slightly bitter, need to reduce the water temperature I think. Next time I’m going to try the cooler water and see if it steeps up better. Then I’m going to chill it and see if that will pull the flavors out better.

It’s okay, I mean it is what it is and it’s not terrible for what it is.

You can purchase the Honey Lemon Ginseng Green Tea directly from the Celestial Seasonings website.

This tea is one of the most celebrated white teas and the drinking proves it.  The dry leaf is exceptionally long, tippy, and silvery (just like a silver needle).  Clearly a lovely tea, the dry leaves glow with the promise of an exceptional brew.   The promise is more than fulfilled.  The flavor is phenomenally delicate and sweet.   The pale but lovely brew unfolds in waves of apricot, pear and melon with a simple, yet elegant, base of what can only be described as a naturally delicate freshness.  The tea’s aroma and taste evokes a fruit orchard in early spring, when the flavors and odors are young, delicate, and intoxicatingly seductive.  The bright fruitiness is the keynote here and if there is a slight green or hay-like taste, it is a back-up player to the delicacy of newly ripened fruit.

This tea is best consumed with careful consideration of its innate beauty and delicacy.  I would not drink it with anything but the lightest of foods:  you would not want it overwhelmed.  I think that the natural grace of this tea might be overwhelmed by milk.  The natural flavors could probably sustain and even be enhanced by some sweetener.  I chose not to use sweetener, because the fruity taste of the tea itself added a kind of honey.

Grace Tea Company’s Organic China White Fujian Silver Needle is one of the very finest teas I have consumed and can stand up nicely to multiple infusions.  I paid careful attention to the brewing instructions and was well-rewarded with one of the very best cups of tea.   It would be a triumph to serve this as the opening or closing course to a dinner party if your guests are paying close and careful attention to flavor and taste.

You can purchase the Organic China White Fujian Silver Needle directly from the Grace Tea Company website.

My general aversion to bananas goes back to one greasy teenage summer schlepping banana splits at the Dairy Queen; I’d come home with fiber under my nails and reeking of overripe peels. (To this day, I won’t eat one raw—playing the “it’s a texture thing” card.) Thus, you’ll understand why I approached this tea with a bit of caution.

The first thing that struck me was how pretty this tea is. Heavy on the chamomile flowers, it would be pretty in a potpourri jar. (If you’re a fan of Adagio’s Foxtrot, it’s similar in character, minus the peppermint.) A test sniff didn’t turn me off; didn’t seem too heavy on the banana, so I gave it a go–about a teaspoon per cup, an approximate boil, an approximate five minutes, and …

…wow! The chamomile, banana, and coconut work really nicely together–you can’t really taste where one ends and the other begins. It’s difficult to pick out the other goodies individually, but they blend to make a really pretty red cup of herbal sweetness.

I downed half of my first test batch to prime myself for mowing the lawn; then iced down the rest to reward myself for doing so. Of course, the tea lost a little bit of strength on ice, but that can be remedied next time by upping the steeping strength. I can see Banana Dulce as a base for some add-ins–maybe orange juice or pineapple juice–for some nice, cool summer sipping.

You can purchase the Banana Dulce directly from the Art of Tea website.

The dry leaves are quite large and long sencha leaves. The scent of the dry leaves is a bit tart and quite blueberry like. Once brewed the aroma is more mellow, berry and almost a little floral with a light tartness. The liquor is quite darker than I imagined. It’s almost as if a blue/purple food coloring was added lightly to the green tea. I haven’t brewed a sencha before, so I’m not sure if this is the leaves or something to do with the flavoring. I’m loving the smell of this! I have no words to describe elderberry with, but the flavor reminds me a bit of the brightness of fresh, ripe blueberries. The elderberries really compliment the flavor of the sencha. The sencha is very strong, but the flavors blend, the mesh so well, it is a wonderful dance on my tongue. I’m really enjoying this. I did brew it on the higher end of the temperature range, 180F, for 2:30 minutes. I think I will try this at 170F and 160F to see how it compares. I think the length of the steep is just right, as I’m not tasting any astringency.

You can purchase the Elderberry directly from the 52teas website.

The dry leaf smells like cinnamon and star anise, though predominately of star anise. Through the bag I could distinguish long black tea leaves mixed with small bits of what appeared to be the ginger and cloves. I’ve never had a tea with star anise, but apparently it is a licorice type flavor, so here goes.

I brewed this tea using 6 oz. of almost boiling water for 4 minutes as suggested on the package. Taken plain, the tea tastes unsurprisingly like black tea flavored with licorice. If you like licorice, then you will like this but I’m not a licorice fan. I added milk and sugar to make it more chai-like which seemed to even out the licorice slightly. The cinnamon was also more noticeable but I could not distinguish any of the other chai spices that were included in this blend.

Overall, this is a decent tea for licorice fans who like black tea but is not my idea of a chai since the majority of the chai spices aren’t present in the taste.

You can purchase the Bombay Chai directly from the Mighty Leaf Tea website.