It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Tea Website’

When I poured the contents of the sample bag into the filter I noticed that there were a surprising amount of fannings in the as well. A certain amount would be expected in a full bag, but having them in a sample does not give a promising preview of the tea on sale.

The brewed tea doesn’t have a particularly strong smell. The initial taste is fairly bitter, which I would consider typical of a black tea, but the aftertaste has an even stronger bitterness, which I do not consider pleasant. This tea would be better if it had another flavor to distract from the bitterness, but otherwise it does not seem much different from a mass produced bagged tea.

You can purchase Red Leaf Tea Black Night directly from their website.

Kalahari describes this tea on their website as “The blend of naturally caffeine-free herb with deep flavor or roasted cacao, and fresh essence of lush, juicy ripe raspberries.”. (side note: Copy editing is available for a nominal fee – grammer/spelling mistakes on an e-commerce website are a no-no!)

I always approach samples with trepidation when I receive teabags for review. I am happy to review anything, but I WANT to like the tea. Tea companies send their teas for reviews, because they believe that they have a good product, and we receive many of these, however, I seem to have developed a bias against tea bag teas. That being said, Rooibos is naturally a small, in fact tiny leaf, so we are not dealing with fannings or dust necessarily as we would with, say, a green tea tea bag.

The smell of this tea in the bag is a pleasant mix of Chocolate and Raspberry, which are individually among my list of favorite ingredients, so we have a promising start! While the bag is brewing in the cup, I get that nose of Raspberry with subtler Chocolate undertone.

I brewed the tea with boiled water, for 5 minutes, my standard Rooibos brewing method. The color is a dark red, as are almost every single Rooibos cup I have ever had. The taste is a bit more subtle than I had expected however. I was wanting a burst of Raspberry and Chocolate, but got only a hint of each. Despite the scent, the Chocolate is the more predominant flavour, with the Raspberry just barely there. It is not overpoweringly Chocolate, which is good, but I personally would prefer a bit more tartness from the Raspberry. Since the ingredients list only Raspberry flavour, not actual Raspberry, it is to be expected that there is no actual tartness, which this blend could have benefitted from in my opinion.

Overall it is not a bad tea, but at $0.31 per bag, I am not sure that you have value for money, when you can get other loose leaf Rooibos blends for closer to $0.10 or $0.15 per cup.

You can purchase Kalahari Tea Raspberry Truffle directly from their website.

On the Mighty Leaf website this description is given: Bombay Chai with a melange of spicy notes conjures the steamy, aromatic delights of an Indian street market. Black tea leaves with subtle hints of Pepper, Orange, Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Clove make up our chai, the Indian word for tea. Bombay Chai is delicious when brewed fresh and blended with heated milk and sugar to taste.

Having recently given up coffee I drink Chai every day, as I find it is the only tea that has enough of a flavorful kick to get me awake and out the door in the morning.

When I tried Mighty Leaf’s Bombay Chai I found that it was pleasantly smooth and warm. However, generally Chai is distinguished by the bite of its spices, which didn’t seem particularly present here.

When I added milk I found that this overpowered the spices to the point that they were barely even noticeable. To me this tea seems to be suitable as a spiced black tea, but without knowing what it was I wouldn’t identify it as chai.

You can purchase Mighty Leaf Bombay Chai directly from their website.

African Summer is a very pleasant herbal tisane from Red Leaf Tea it is a blend of Honeybush, Lemongrass, Lemon Myrtle, Rose Hips, Eucalyptus, Hibiscus, Safflower, and Marigolds. I was intrigued by the description on Red Leaf’s website: “The beguilingly hot climate of the African Serengeti serves as the inspiration for African Summer tea, with its unique combination of herbs that are known for their healing and nourishing properties. Its main ingredient is honey bush-which is related to rooibos-and additional vitamins and minerals are provided by eucalyptus, hibiscus, safflower, and marigolds. African Summer also contains citrus and rosehips that help boost your immune system.”

The loose leaf is a pleasing earthy mix of color – fresh greens of lemongrass, myrtle and eucalyptus, mellow brown and yellow honeybush leaf, safflower and marigold and bright splashes of hibiscus and rose hip. The lemongrass seems to be predominant in the blend and the citrus scent comes through before and after brewing.

I was surprised at how dark the brewed tea was with nice red tones – certainly a family resemblance with rooibos. The flavor, not surprisingly, was mild and mostly lemony with the honeybush hinting sweetness and the floral notes contributing a bit of tang. Happily I didn’t notice a strong enough eucalyptus flavor to remind me of a cough drop. Overall African Summer is a pleasing cup of tea; very refreshing, and according to the Red Leaf people – good for you too!

Red Leaf is currently shipping orders of more than $40 for free and also have a promotion running – “Buy 4 Teas get 1 FREE / Buy 7 Teas get 2 FREE”.

You can purchase Red Leaf Tea Rooibos Africana directly from their website.

Mighty Leaf is one of few popular Canadian tea companies. As a Canadian, I celebrate that fact, and always look forward to sampling a new Mighty Leaf tea. However, in this case, I am left with a bit of a *meh* feeling.

I picked out the Green Tea Tropical from the samples that Mighty Leaf sent us, anticipating visions and flavours of tropical vacations to Mexico and Costa Rica, and the initial scent of the un-brewed leaves gave me just that. It is of course, packaged in the signature Mighty Leaf stitched pillow teabag, and the leaf appeared to be fairly large and full, and as such, of seemingly high quality.

The first brewing was as suggested, 180 degrees for 3 minutes. As the teabag went in, the scent started to become more muted. After 3 minutes, I was left with a dark amber liquor, and mildly tropical scented water.

As I sipped, I noted that the tea was not in the least bit astringent (aka “bitter” for some), leading me to again, believe that the green tea was of good quality. However, the flavouring of the tea was strangely blended together, not really allowing me to sort out different tropical flavours, tho the scent was “Guava” like. I found overall, the tea not “incredible” – but a decent cup of tea, but yet, unremarkable, leaving me with that *meh* that I mentioned before – a take it or leave it kind of feeling.

As I make notes on this tea, the taste does slightly linger, while leaving my teeth feeling a bit fuzzy, and my mouth a bit dry, again, green tea characteristics. The problem I think here, is that the actual green tea flavour gets lost in the tropical fruit flavouring, never really rising to the top to be complemented by the flavours. The second steeping (4 min @ 180 deg) was even more unremarkable, with a little flavour, but less so that the original, and again, the green tea not coming to the fore.

So my overall impression of this tea is that it would be a good starting tea for a convert, someone that is not used to green tea and could get turned off by the earthier aspects of a straight green. This tea has maybe a wider appeal, but I am not sure if it is good enough to be called a “premium” tea or to charge premium prices for.

All that being said, it is not a bad tea, and Mighty Leaf produces some top quality teas, which is maybe why this one leaves me wanting more.

You can purchase Mighty Leaf Green Tea Tropical directly from their website.

EDIT: I was informed by an astute commenter that Mighty Leaf is NOT a Canadian company, and much to my chagrin, they are correct. My apologies for the mistake in this review!