Recently I had the opportunity to take part in a group order from Ette Tea, a relatively new company based in Singapore. They only have six blends currently, but they all appear to be very well thought out and the range of diverse flavours is impressive. Being able to take advantage of buying smaller sample sizes was the nail in the coffin on what probably would’ve been an inevitable order anyway.
This isn’t one of the blends I was initially more excited about; but it smells very good! Quite sweet with cake like elements and a playful touch of spice. I’m definitely getting notes from the dry smell that remind me of caramel or lightly burnt sugar. Mmm! And, because this is one of the lighter blends I ended up with a lot more of it than any of the other samples so I’m taking advantage of trying this one in a different way than a lot of the people from our group order appear to have done; cold brewing! That is my go to, after all.
I’m surprised by how sweet this is; though I don’t necessarily know why. Every other run in I’ve had with ‘chiffon’, be it tea or in real life, is sweet so I should have expected as much from this even though it doesn’t have ingredients that necessarily go hand in hand with more dessert-like teas.
There’s a lot going on but it’s harmonious; I’m picking up sweeter top notes like caramel and vanilla and a pastry-like cinnamon (like cinnamon sugar, sort of) which together are reminding me of Stroopwafel! That’s definitely not what I was expecting to get from this blend but it’s wonderful. I’m also getting some light roasty notes from the hojicha, though not as dominant as I anticipated. They’re great support though and keep this tea from tasting too sweet. There’s also a sweet, starchy taste present: in part I think that’s what making me think of the “waffle” part of the stroopwafel flavour going on, but it also reminds me loosely of sweet potato.
The osmanthus is somewhere in the middle; not as strong as the sweeter notes but not as light as the roasty/potato notes either. It doesn’t tie in with the Stroopwafel thing I’ve got going on, but what it DOES do is really, really round this tea out and give it a lot of depth. My only complaint is that this left quite a bit of sediment/fannings in the bottom of my brewing vessel. But even then it’s not a huge deal with cold brews anyway.
For my first tea from Ette Tea I’m very impressed! If all the others are half as good and interesting as this one it’ll be one of the most successful tea orders I’ve ever made. Yeah, this definitely set the bar high for the others. I don’t know if that’s for better or worse. I really want to try actual Pandan Chiffon now! I don’t know if there’s anywhere in town to get it…
I need a hookup ASAP!
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Oh, that indeed sounds lovely.
yum want
Wow, sounds really tasty!
I keep reading this as “Panda Chiffon” and think that’s a totally legit name for a tea.
When I was writing my SororiTea Sisters review for this one I totally saved it as Panda Chiffon and had to go back in and revise that :P
Sounds really good! I’ll have to watch out for this company (and the rest of your reviews :))
OMGsrsly, me too…in fact I didn’t realize it wasn’t Panda Chiffon til you mentioned you read it that way and realized it was wrong.
Thank you for being part of the group purchase and especially for this lovely review. If you come to Singapore one day, we will bring you out to eat Pandan Chiffon cake & meet Panda at the Zoo. Have a lovely week ahead!
Oh, that indeed sounds lovely.
yum want
Wow, sounds really tasty!
I keep reading this as “Panda Chiffon” and think that’s a totally legit name for a tea.
When I was writing my SororiTea Sisters review for this one I totally saved it as Panda Chiffon and had to go back in and revise that :P
Sounds really good! I’ll have to watch out for this company (and the rest of your reviews :))
OMGsrsly, me too…in fact I didn’t realize it wasn’t Panda Chiffon til you mentioned you read it that way and realized it was wrong.
Thank you for being part of the group purchase and especially for this lovely review. If you come to Singapore one day, we will bring you out to eat Pandan Chiffon cake & meet Panda at the Zoo. Have a lovely week ahead!