Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Organic Tea’

My uneducated acronym for Assam is A Specially Strong Awakening Morning tea, and this selection from Tea Forte’ fits perfectly.

You’ll find it in Tea Forte’s organic filterbag selections, although my sample was loose, which gave me the opportunity to really enjoy the bready aroma of the small loose leaves.

Steeped toward the five-minute edge, Forte’ Breakfast is a beautiful red-brown color and has the strong and hefty kick you need to boot yourself out the door on a cold morning.  It lives up to the malty and full-bodied adjectives typically connected to an Assam. Need a little milk and sugar? It’ll take it.

Should you feel a need to procrastinate and drink a second steep, you may be glad you did (little less water, little more time). Minus the “boot prints” of the first strong cup, you’ll pick up some lighter, nuttier notes that continue to coax you up and around: “Come on, dear, it really isn’t that bad; take off the ratty bathrobe, splash a little warm water on your face and you’ll be fine, just fine.”

This is a good one: a tea you can spend a whole morning with.

You can purchase the Forte Breakfast directly from the Tea Forte 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.

I’ve had Tea forte before and consider it a premium tea. This whole leaf organic tea comes from a single estate Assam. Assam tea from India is known for its exceptional malt flavours. The packaging indicated that the bergamot oil used in the manufacturing is a 1st pressed Italian bergamot. Like a good olive oil, forst pressed offers higher quality and more desireable flavour. The package temps you with words of ” citricy and lightly floral infusion” and prints a single word “caffeine” on the front to let you know this tea is not a caffeine-free. The ingrediatent listed areblack tea, corn flower petals and natural flavours. Both the Fair Trade and USDA Organic seals were printed on the package. After opening the package, I could smell the bergamot and citricy oils I weighed the sample in at 5 grams. The packaged direction were 12 0z. Boiling water and 5 minutes steep time. Milk and sugar were a compliment for this tea, I read.

When I opened the package I was suprized that the leaf was whole and not in a tea bag . The Broken Orange Pekoe looked uniformly dark and the intense dark blue cornflowers provided an interesting visual depth. I grabbed my teaball and found the 5 grams fit perfectly. I prepared boiling water and pre-heated a traditional porcelain tea pot, noting the line for 12 oz. I also knew 5 minutes was a long time for tea to steep, so I prepared a burner on my stove with a protective ring to maintain the heat. A tea light on a tea stand or trivet could also have been used, but I was in a hurry to get the tea at 5:30 to revive my spirit after a stressful day at work. I noted a strong chlorophyll rim in the tea pot.

After 5 minutes, I poured off 10 oz into a large porcelain tea mug and had a sip of the clear brew. I noted a low astringency to the tea and soft bergamot and floral flavours. Lets stop for a moment and look at what cornflowers do for tea. First, they are decorative. In Victorian times, adding fresh flowers to food provided a lift from gloom and celebrated the floral tones of the tea. There is a slight clove-like flavour to the flowers. Secondly, the flowers are an aid to digestion, aid in healing wounds and scrapes, and are used to treat ailments of the eyes.

I added milk and took a sip. Milk cuts astringency. As this tea is already low in astringency, the milk enhances the malt flavours but now they come in secondary to the citrus high notes. There is more fullness in the mouth. Amazingly, despite the addition of milk, there is a very long lingering taste of the bergamot, an aftertaste of bitter orange. If you were having an afternoon tea, this flavouring would easily last through two tea scones loaded with jam and clotted cream.

I know there are many who need more “earl” in the earl grey, so I’d recommend this tea to those wanting those citrus notes and that bitter orange bite. Enjoy then, as this tea is forte!!

You can purchase the Earl Grey directly from the Tea Forte website.

Love the vintage feel of Blue Q products, they always make me smile. This tea is designed to help you function at family functions (clearly the creator has attended one of mine). It’s a spicy blend with a Darjeeling base and I love spicy teas in the colder months. Cracked open a bag of this, after being thoroughly amused by the packaging, and steeped it in hot water for a couple of minutes.

Thinking I should have steeped it longer because I’m not smelling any spices at all. Sadly, it doesn’t even smell like Darjeeling…. Hmm no flavor, not even a bad flavor.

You can purchase the Pleasant Holidays w/Family Tea directly from the Blue Q website.

I wish I was at home, reading a book on a nice summer afternoon, because this tea deserves that. Or at least it deserves a little more than sitting in my boring cube at work in the middle of winter. A nice light tea, with strong ginger and lemon tones. While mild, this cloudy sage-green brew is not subtle. It is definitely GINGER and Lemon. Ginger is the strongest element, and comes out more in the flavor while the lemon flavor comes out more in the scent. The herbal element here is more to the fore than the tea element; it really feels more like a herbal than a flavored green tea. The blend works well both sweetened and unsweetened. I also bet this would be lovely iced.

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