Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Vanilla’

Tonight, I need to relax so I’ve chosen two decaf teas from Tea Forte. 

Pulling out my specially made Tea Forte cup with it’s perfect little hole in the lid, getting set to try their African Solstice.  Love rooibos in the evening and this blend smells delicious.  I’ve failed with some other Tea Forte pyramid teas in the past because it just never seemed that there was enough room for the leaves to steep properly, this one I hope is going to be different.  I can’t see the rooibos clearing enough (through the pyramid) to tell what grade it is but I’m hoping the needles are long enough to not sneak through the mesh.  The dry tea smells only of rooibos, can’t smell any of the other ingredients.

Steeped it per their instructions, and now I am starting to smell the berries and the flowers in the pyramid sneaking through the hole in the teacup lid.  Taking the lid off and now I’m getting hit with a smell of vanilla and berries.  Brews up a nice dark red with a negligible amount of dust.  Tastes good but the flowers are a bit overpowering, still a soothing rooibos with a berry twist.  Well suited to the shape of the pyramid, dancing rooibos is such a sight.

You can purchase the African Solstice directly from the Tea Forte 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.

I was really excited to try this tea, as I have a love for white teas that is unfulfilled much of the time. Tea Forte’s website says that this tea is supposed to have vanilla, coconut, and fruit flavours. To start with, I am already a bit apprehensive about the coconut, since the last Tea Forte tea that I tried with coconut ended up with the coconut taste and smell fading away quickly.

Upon opening the tea bag container, I could smell the vanilla a lot. The coconut was very prominent in the scent, though the underlying hints of fruit (mango especially) definitely came through.

The website recommends steeping 2-4 minutes, so I decided to go for a happy medium of 3 for this first steep, in a single Tea Forte Cafe Cup.

While the tea was steeping, I thought I would inspect the packaging. Inside the cardboard tea bag container, I found a lot of tea dust. The leaves in the pyramid bag had sadly looked a bit crushed and small. I also found a couple pieces of tan fuzz in the container, which was weird.

Mmm, the smell of this tea is a delicious medley of fruit and vanilla and…barely any coconut. The taste of this tea is very fruity, but not so much that it overpowers the white tea aspect. Vanilla tones float along and mingle wonderfully with the fruit, and comprise much of the aftertaste. In fact, the fruit flavour is reminiscent of a tropical trail mix of dried fruit. One can taste the coconut, but it is not prominent at all now.

Truly, it is a delicious tea. I’m not disappointed at all. The smell is sweeter than the taste. As my friend who tried this tea with me said, “You smell the flavours more than you taste the flavours.”

This tea would taste excellent iced. It is certainly something I would recommend, especially for lovers of fruity teas. On my personal enjoyment scale, I’m going to give it an 80/100. That fuzz was just really strange…

You can purchase the White Ambrosia directly from the Tea Forte website.

Africana is one of the Rooibos blends from Red Leaf Tea. It combines a rich red Rooibos leaf with bright blue malva flowers and purple cornflowers creating a very attractive loose tea that smells mildly of vanilla. The only ingredients listed for this blend are the Rooibos and the flowers that I mentioned but the description refers to “subtle touches of vanilla and orange” which I assume are added as flavoring.

I brewed a single cup of the Rooibos for 5 minutes; the tea was a nice mahogany color and had the typical sweet scent of Rooibos. The flavor as described was very subtle. A little too subtle in fact, if I hadn’t read the bag I would have thought this was a straight Rooibos. It wasn’t unpleasant; it had the nice sweet, nutty flavor that Rooibos is known for, but I couldn’t distinguish any of the vanilla or orange flavors that I was expecting.

I do enjoy plain Rooibos. There are so many flavor combinations available that it is sometimes hard to find a good Rooibos with nothing added to hide the natural taste. I started drinking Rooibos because it is naturally caffeine free and it made a nice cup of tea to relax with in the evening. For these reasons I did enjoy my cup of Rooibos Africana but I have to say that I was expecting a bit more from it.

Africana is priced a little high for a Rooibos, as are most of the loose leaf teas at Red Leaf Tea, but they have a Points and Rewards program and are currently offering free shipping which sweetens the deal considerably.

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