Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Tea Forte’

Ah, the pleasure of a good smelling tea. Often the dry leaves, as-of-yet un-infused, reveal a lot about the tea that is to come. The spicy and sweet notes of the dry leaves of this herbal tisane blend in an attractive melody that promises a deep and possibly heavy drink.

Utilising a Tea Forte Café Cup, I steeped this pyramid infuser for four minutes using just-boiled water. Smelling the infusion, it is clear that cinnamon is definitely what lends much of the spiciness to this tea’s aroma. However, with the first sip, it becomes immediately evident that cinnamon is not all that is in Tea Forte’s Flora. The sweetness of liquorice root melds with the explosion of flavour from the hibiscus in this blend. The hibiscus adds a lot of body to this tisane and sweeps through one’s mouth, filling it with flavour.

A re-steep of this herbal blend offers a much weaker version of the first cup, but with the same balance of flavours. This is one blend that is worth trying and might make a tasty chilled drink as well. I would give Flora an 83/100 on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase the Flora directly from the Tea Forte website.

Steeped in a Tea Forte Café Cup, with the spent tea pyramid resting on a Tea Forte tea tray, all the pieces were set to provide an enjoyable tasting experience of this mango flavoured green tea. Impeccable as always, the packaging of this individual tea pyramid infuser bag was clean and sharply presented. After heating the water to the proper temperature, I proceeded to steep the tea for only two minutes before moving on to tasting it. The aroma is light, and the mango smell is lighter yet. My guess would be that the green tea base is a sencha or something akin to it.

The tea itself has light forward notes with a strong finish. The mango is present but not very prominent. Overall the tea is not very impressive in its taste. Not wanting to judge it by first try, I steeped a second cup. This time, I left the tea pyramid in the water for three minutes. The mango flavour is now a lot bolder and broader. It complements the green tea far more than during the first infusion.

Overall, I think this is not one of Tea Forte’s better blends. However, for lovers of fruit flavoured green teas, it may be worth giving this one a try. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate it a 76/100.

You can purchase Tea Forte Green Tango directly from their website.

These teabags are adorable; little bendy strings with the leaf, the pyramid shape leaving room for the leaves to dance, the packaging.  They’re highly engineered and very cute.

However, it’s what’s inside that counts, and as a chai, it didn’t really stand out.  Chai should be bold and brave and spicy.  This is a delicate chai.  A demure chai.  Not quite a wall-flower chai, but definitely not the belle of the ball.  Nice to drink, but not something I’d actively seek out.

What I found that I really liked using this tea for was making cocktails with it.  I originally got this idea from a class I took at a local tea shop.  They had gotten the Tea Forte tea cocktails set in, and this is a modification of one of those recipes.  This is a LOVELY decadent drink, to replace dessert when you feel like laying about and being pampered.

1 Bombay Chai Tea Pyramid
Double shot of Whipped Cream flavored vodka (can be done with regular vodka, but this adds an extra dimension of yum)
ice
simple syrup
whole milk (or half and half if you feel REALLY decadent)

Take the bombay chai tea pyramid and put in a small cup.  Pour the vodka in, let sit approx. 5-8 minutes. Remove tea pyramid. Take a large juice or highball glass, fill with ice.  Pour in steeped vodka.  Then add at least 2 tbsp of simple syrup, more if you like things sweet (you can adjust after finishing the drink).  Fill the glass with milk.  Taste, adjust the sweetness with more simple syrup as needed.  Then enjoy.

The tea pyramid can be resteeped two to three times for more drinks.  (For you, or your friends - if you want to share.)  It’s amazingly yummy.  Completely decadent.  Lovely.

You can purchase the Bombay Chai directly from the Tea Forte website.

Although I normally cut open teabags and steep them loose, I decided to steep this tea in its own bag and why not, Tea Forte has one of the most attractive teabags in the industry. I kept the teabag in for the full duration of my drinking the tea. Steeped leaves show broken green leaves, stem, ginger bits, and white flower petals. Infusion is a yellowish colour. Although the leaves are not small enough, I did notice a little bit of dust components, pekoe?, that made it through the teabag and sat on the surface of the tea. Aroma is heavenly, sweet from the pear.

Unlike with many teas with ginger as an ingredient that I have tasted recently, the ginger here is surprisingly soft. Sweetness came predominantly from the white tea and pear and the ginger played the supportive role. The resulting taste of the balance of these three flavours is one similar to bubble gum. Funny, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pear bubble gum flavour before, but the combination of these three ingredients was spot on like bubble gum. Don’t get me wrong, I like bubble gum but like with bubble gum I can’t chew more than one piece at a time. I don’t think I can drink more than one cup of this tea at a sitting. I can’t see myself drinking a lot of it.

You can purchase Tea forte white ginger pear directly from their website.

Not being much of a mint fan, in whatever form, be it candy, ice cream, or chocolates, Tea Forte has a tough job at hand to try to convince me that mint – yes, in the form of a tea is good. Well, I like citrus fruits so at least they have that going for them. Anyway, on with the review…

Dry leaf looks like the grade of a fannings, green and some brown, packaged in that familiar pyramid shaped teabag known to be Tea Forte. I cut open the 2 teabags I received (total about 3 grams) and steeped it in about 400 ml of hot water. I was pre-occupied at the time and by the time I returned to the water, it had cooled to 80C. Herbal teas should be steeped at 100C for 2-3 minutes. I knew I was going to get a sub-par tasting tea. There was a faint minty aroma, no hint of citrus. The taste was minty, not overly piercing mintyness but a softer mint. I did not detect any citrus taste. After the initial mintyness, there was a taste as if you were licking the back of an envelope – that sort of gluey-paper taste. Mind you, I think this was because of the low temperature at which I steeped the tea.

I tried a second infusion at boiling point and the tea tasted much better. There was no more of the gluey-paper taste and the mintyness was more light and tangy rather than stale if that makes any sense. I noticed that as the tea cools, the minty taste dissipates and you can taste hints of citrus. I prefer it cold rather than hot. As a hot beverage, I found that the citrus and mint did not complement each other very well. I don’t know, maybe because when I drink citrus I expect something sweet like citrus juices, because when I tasted this the sort of “lack of sweetness” coupled with the mintyness made the taste buds yearn for something that wasn’t there. It was missing an ingredient, maybe honey or cocoa shells or maybe even lavender. But then again, that could just complicate things…let’s leave that to the tea blenders shall we.

You can purchase the Citrus Mint directly from the Tea Forte website.