Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Tea Tray’

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.

Once again utilising my Tea Forte Cafe Cup, Tea Forte Tea Tray, and Tea Forte Tea Timer iPhone application , I start out steeping this tea for a recommended average of 3 minutes. It may sound like a shameless plug, but their app is great, and the Cafe Cup (with its specially designed lid) is perfect for steeping Tea Forte pyramid infuser bags. The leaves inside the pyramid infuser look very broken up. This worries me a bit, but not being one to judge a tea from its appearance (at least not completely), I wait patiently for the steeping to finish.

The liquor has steeped to a milk-chocolate brown. Nutty smells waft up from the cup. This tea smells quite nutty. In the aroma, there even appears to be some subdued cocoa notes. Taking my first sip, it appears that three minutes was long enough to steep this tea. Perhaps even a bit too long.

The taste is much smoother than the smell would lead one to believe. Unlike many Formosa oolongs I have tried, this one slips nicely over the tongue, ending in an expressive aftertaste. Robust is a good descriptor for this tea. Oolongs are known to be warming to the body, and this one seems to be the epitome of that factoid.

My tea time was enjoyable, thanks to this tea. It was a good representation of a decent Formosa oolong. On my personal enjoyment scale, I rate it an 80/100.

You can purchase the Formosa Oolong directly from the Tea Forte website.

This being the first Tea Forte tea that I have tried in quite some time, I decided to go all out. I am using my Tea Forte Cafe Cup, Tea Forte Tea Tray, and the Tea Forte Tea Timer app for iPhone. The instructions, acquired from the application itself recommend 2-4 minutes of steep time. For a happy medium, I choose three, using just-under-boil filtered water.

I have a decent amount of experience with oolong teas. As this tea is steeping, I cannot help but wonder if the tea is being restricted from expansion by the pyramid in which it rests, as most oolongs like this one do a decent amount of unfurling while steeping.

The colour of the tea is a brownish yellow; the smells wafting from the cup are smooth, mellow, with perhaps a faint hint of spice. After a couple of small sips, I determine to put the pyramid back into the cup for another minute. The strength is okay but not quite as strong as I like. (If you like your oolongs light and mellow, three minutes will probably suffice.) Another minute, and it is back to tasting. Pleasantly, I can still taste the buttery aftertaste of those couple sips, with hints of vegetal flavour. The taste of this tea reminds me a lot of a Ti Kwan Yin.

In my opinion, four minutes was a prime amount of time for this tea. The flavours are much more full-bodied and literally burst in the mouth. There is a bit of vegetal bite on the sides of the tongue, as with a slightly-oversteeped green tea (like a gunpowder), but this is hardly noticeable, and probably due to my long steep time.

Overall I really enjoyed this tea. It was a very pleasant cuppa, and I do not think I have any complaints with it, other than a bit of lacking in the flavour department. I would perhaps be interested to know if this was due to the pyramid or the tea itself. 85/100 is what I would rate this tea on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase Tea Forte Silk Oolong directly from their website.

Through my use of the tea tray, I have come to determine that it is a wonderful product.
At first, the tea trays seem a bit frivolous. The question that initially came to my mind is “Why would anyone spend money on something created specifically to hold used tea bags, when they could just as easily use a small plate, or even just dispose of the tea bag straight away?”
So, determined to answer this question, I prepared myself some tea (Tea Forte’s Orchid Vanilla, as the trays were clearly meant to be primarily used with Tea Forte pyramid bags).
Here were my findings:

Great things about the tea trays:
-They’re small, thus conserving the space used on one’s desk/table/etc. (This was especially helpful on my desk, which has a lot of papers and other items on it, and where a small plate for used tea bags would be a waste of space)
-They provide a drip-free resting place in the chance that you want to save the tea bag for another steeping.
-The tea trays are aesthetically pleasing, making them great to give as gifts or to add a bit of decoration at tea time.
-The size of the tea trays is such that they could just as easily be used with other tea bags as drip trays.
-The construction is really solid. These trays are not going to break easily if they are accidentally dropped.

Not so great things (that might not matter) about the tea trays:
-These trays really are not so special and innovative that one would go out and buy them to complete one’s collection of teaware.
-The shallow indentation in the tray was not deep enough, and the excess liquid in my teabag ended up overflowing the lip of the tray’s depression. (I may not have let the tea bag drip off long enough.)
-Because of the shallow indentation, when I picked up the tray to drain it off and clean it, the smallest tilt caused tea to run off the edge.

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