Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Rose Petals’

A rose by any other name…  Oh, the lovely scent of roses.  As a child, many of the important older women in my life all seemed to use a particular brand of rose lotion, giving me a definite sense memory of strong older, rose scented women  who made me feel safe.  And this tea definitely tripped that trigger.  Highly scented, and very rose.  I was enveloped in comfort as I inhaled the steeping brew.

But I also had a slight worry.  I’ve had a few floral teas that taste like drinking perfume.  Would this one taste like rose perfume?  Smelling good is all fine and dandy, but the best memories can’t mitigate a cup of perfume. It would be downgraded to potpourri at that point.  Luckily – my fears were TOTALLY unfounded.  This tea tasted as lovely as it smelled.  Unsweetened, it carried with it flavors of honey and an underlying sweetness.  It also had a slight nuttiness to the brew.

I will definitely be purchasing some of this tea for myself.  It had good memories, good aromas and good flavors.  What could be better!

You can purchase the Rose directly from the Golden Moon Tea website.

Some days–okay, some weeks—you just need chocolate. In copious amounts. And after multiples of those Reeses’ peanut-butter-cup-snarfing, Oreo-bingeing weeks, one finally reaches the conclusion that one must find a more healthful alternative. Tea Forte’s Hazelnut Truffle provides plenty of the cacao-based yum with much less of the calorie-borne guilt.

The individual ingredients are big, pretty, and very visible inside Tea Forte’s trademark triangular bag. Chocolate is the first and foremost aroma in dry-leaf stage, and chocolate stays the first and foremost aroma as it steeps. The light color may fool you–fully steeped, it stays golden brown instead of the shade of a Russell Stover all-dark assortment. But it’s big on nutty, chocolate flavor with a coconut chaser all the way down.

Hazelnut Truffle is sweet enough on its own; no milk or sugar necessary to make this a real treat, either for yourself or (great gift idea) for your chocolate-loving sweet-tea.

You can purchase the Hazelnut Truffle directly from the Tea Forte website.

I’ve been working on this review for a month.

Or more specifically, I’ve been trying to start writing this review for over a month, but never get as far as getting anything written down. I’ll open the tin, smell the tea, get my brewing tools ready, and be excited to drink. This excitement will last until I actually start sipping the tea. Then I keep delaying in writing, because I keep thinking that this boring brew can’t be right. So I tinker with the parameters, and try again, or get bored and wander off. Either way, the review isn’t getting written.

The leaf has an awesome scent; peaches blending perfectly with the black and green tea. Brewed, its got a good color, and a nice aroma. But I keep sipping, and when I do, part of my brain is still waiting for yum to come. I tried longer and shorter steeps, a variety of water temperatures and sweetening the liquor. Even still, I wanted more fruit, more flavor and more oomph from this tea. Those with more delicate palates may apprecaite this tea more than I. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for a more robust drink.

You can purchase the Geisha Beauty directly from the Sanctuary T website.

OMG. I am so glad I choose this tea for my samples this round.

The smell in the tea is peachy. The leaves are a beautiful blend of black and green and some flower parts…the flower parts…I am usually not a fan of flowers in my tea, BUT this is over the top wonderful.

The peach comes through both dry and brewed. The black and green tea leaves are in perfect harmony together. There is astringency, but you don’t notice until you finish the entire teapot of tea, then the astringency sets in. The tea tastes so good that I may just have to get used to the dryness of my mouth.

I was able to get 2 flushes from two tsp of leaves brewed up in my trustworthy yellow Chatsford Teapot.

Love this tea

You can purchase the Geisha Beauty directly from the Sanctuary T website.

It has been blistering, sweltering hot this July down south in Louisiana. So, I have been guzzling lots of iced tea this summer, especially white teas, instead of my beloved pu’erhs, and chais, which sit ignored at the back of my cupboard as they seem too heavy in this oppressive heat. White tea has a light, buttery, silky flavor without the grassy aftertaste of a green tea and when flavored, it makes a wonderful iced tea. And as an added benefit, white teas are healthier as they contain more anti-oxidants than any other type of tea.

This blend is quite pretty and even frilly as whole, dried rose buds are scattered throughout the blend; whereas usually, only flecks of rose petals are used. Oddly, even though the rose buds are sprinkled throughout, the rose flavor was not noticeable, so I would assume the rose is for decoration only. The dried white tea leaves have the expected white silver fuzz.

Upon brewing, this iced tea is one of my favorites. It has a light and creamy flavor from the white tea, which is remains noticeable in the blend. The combination of coconut and vanilla should be as classic as coconut and pineapple. The vanilla tempers the sharpness of the coconut but both flavors are equally present but not overly sweet. And for those who are hesitant to try coconut flavors, this one does not taste like suntan oil, so try to sample this.

Please give this tea a try and you will not be disappointed.

You can purchase the Jasmine Green Tea directly from the TeaFrog website.