23 Tasting Notes
Update: Okay, the more I drink this tea the more I like it. I think it’s earned a spot in my permanent tea collection.
That said, I REALLY want to cold brew this, but each time I try results are lackluster. (That goes for this AND every other tea I’ve tried cold brewing.) I can make a killer sun tea but the cold brewing method is eluding me. Grr. #firstworldproblems
Thank you for the generous sample, Teajo Teas!
Although black teas aren’t my favorite, there are a few fruit-flavored black tea blends that I really enjoy. I was very excited to try this tea – Tropical Mango with an Assam base. Sounds promising!
As soon as I opened the sample, I was greeted with a strong but pleasant fruity smell. I don’t know what mangoes smell like, but I thought this tea smelled like a peach.
After brewing, this tea still smells very strong and fruity. It’s a strongly flavored fruit tea with a smooth and malty black tea base. I could easily taste the black tea through the flavoring.
This is a high-quality tea, but unfortunately it’s not for me. I would prefer it more if the flavoring and black tea base were more subtle. It’s possible this tea would be more to my taste as an iced tea. I’ll try it that way next month!
Preparation
Mmm…I adore this tea! The dry leaf smells fruity and sweet. The tea leaves are a lovely dark green and I appreciate how much TEA is actually in this blend. This blend is mostly tea with a sprinkling of fruit pieces.
Once it’s steeped, the tea smells much like the dry leaf, only more subtle. It brews a pale yellow-green (almost clear). The pineapple flavor takes center stage with delicate notes of coconut and grass in the background. The fruit flavors taste very natural and work well together.
I drank this tea hot with no additions. It’s wonderful that way, although I look forward to experimenting more with it as an iced tea and with sweetener.
Preparation
Della Terra has created yet another great tea blend. I’m partial to green tea, so I love that this has a green tea rather than black tea base. It definitely tastes like walnut with notes of caramel. Such a sweet, light, yet flavorful tea. It’s definitely a dessert tea that I look forward to brewing.
I love oolong tea and I love jasmine, so I had high hopes for this tea. Perhaps I was expecting too much because it was simply ho-hum. I brewed my first cup at 195 and the second one at 185 for 3 minutes. Both times I got a full-bodied jasmine flavor followed by a bitter aftertaste. Weird. I’ll stick with jasmine green tea for now.
This is a great herbal tea. I’ve had it two nights in a row, and now my sample is depleted. Time to order more! Enough about that, though.
I’m always on the hunt for a soothing nighttime tea with an interesting twist. This one fits the bill. It calms me after a hectic day and soothes my stomach. It’s a mild tea with subtle notes of ginger and chamomile…and something else. I imagine I’m tasting the ginseng, but I’m not sure what ginseng is supposed to taste like. Oh well. It’s a pleasant taste, and that’s all that matters.
This tea is incredible! It’s fresh, sweet, floral, and creamy. I brewed it gong fu style for three people – one of whom had never seen loose leaf tea before, let alone a gaiwan. (She converted to loose leaf tea after drinking this – yay!)
The tea brews up golden and smells a lot like honeysuckle. Drinking it brought back memories of tasting the sweet nectar of honeysuckle for all of us. I look forward to future gong fu sessions with this vibrant tea.
This tea is really interesting – green tea, mint, berries, and citrus are a lot of flavors in one tea blend. Somehow they all come together smoothly, creating a truly refreshing cup of tea.
I’ve tried this both hot and iced, with no additions. Although it smells like it would make a great iced tea, I actually enjoy it most as a hot tea. The gunpowder green tea and mint flavors come through the strongest. Sweet and tangy notes of berries and citrus come through subtly toward the end of the sip and in the aftertaste. I’m going to try another steep tomorrow with some rock sugar. This is such a fun blend to experiment with!
Preparation
A wonderful tea, both in aroma and flavor. I drank two steeps and thoroughly enjoyed both. It tasted mainly like caramel and toasted rice. Ever so slight grassy notes from the green tea peeked through at the end of each sip. The tea base was hardly noticeable.
woot!