Mr. Jones

Another tea from the return of the second round of the EU-TTB (European Travelling Tea Box). Another reminder that signs ups are open to join in round three).

Mr.Jones is an entirely new brand for me to try and a quick snoop of their website shows they ship around Europe (Yay!). It may be a company for me to try in the future if this tea shows positive promise. At least I have that option anyway.

As far as rose goes I adore rose flavoured teas, this one is a perfect introduction for me. Opening the cute paper bag reveals a rather square teabag with a decent amount of filling and an overwhelming (though beautiful) scent of rose flowers. Sweet, perfumed, a little dry though on the whole exactly what I wished to smell.

Steeping times are not given so I will treat this like another herbal and use boiling water for 4—5 minutes.

Mild black tea base with heavy sweet rose flavour and a slight malty and smoky after taste. Strength altogether is rather medium so nothing too offensive/strong. The blend works well together, the black tea is complimented from the sweet rose while the malt adds depth and richness.

For a bag I say this is very nice, better than I had hoped. It’s still not as fresh as it could be nor is it perfect by any means but that doesn’t stop it from being a nice bagged rose tea. I may consider buying more of this :)

This is a lovely, very lychee-y tea. Never mind that it’s in teabags, it’s pretty perfect. And amazing for bubble tea, if you manage to work out the darn bubbles… or you can just skip the bubbles and make it with sugar syrup and lots of milk and leave it to cool. Yum yum yum. It’s also lovely as is, hot, no sugar or anything else. All in a all, really nice. Plus great name and great box, which I always appreciate.

This one came to me from Cteresa. I like lychee as a fruit. They’re nommy, but alas, I don’t get them very often as they are a rare guest around here, and they’re expensive when they are here. But sometimes you luck out and can get a few hundred grams for a reasonable amount of money.

Consequently, lychee flavoured tea is something that appeals to me.

This one is bagged and I suddenly realise what people mean when they can taste paper. There’s a distinct paper-y note to this, but it’s not so bad that I can’t ignore it. It’s also closely up against the lychee flavour, so maybe it’s just a lychee aspect? The fruits have never tasted like paper to me, but a fruit and a fruit flavouring are not always exactly the same.

I find this does taste very lychee-y. It even has that slight astringency to it that the lychee fruits have, and this is significant because the base is a Chinese black and Chinese blacks are only very seldomly astringent.

This one is flavoured with lychee blossoms rather than actual fruit and it does have a flowery sort of note, but it’s not overwhelming.

I keep saying I don’t care for flower scented teas and then I come across one which is nice… When it’s fruit flowers, I just seem to get along with them better.

I’m going to continue to explore lychee flavoureds, I believe, I in fact ordered one just yesterday. (Yeah. Oops. Twice.)

I’m not a big fan of lychees. I like fruit that packs a punch, and lychees’s are just too mild. But amazingly enough, it works as a tea. Very nice flavour and the smell… it’s almost like you’re standing next to some fresh lychees.

Regarding fruity flavoured black teas, I got a weakness for lychee as a flavour. Seriously, just try it, it´s flowery, fruity, exhuberant and somehow it just goes so well with tea – beats earl grey all the time (lady grey is a different matter). Even the most humble lychee blends can make a cup which makes me go hmmm.

This is maybe the nicest lychee flavoured black tea I ever had. It´s bagged yes, not sure they even make loose tea, but the quality of the tea and flavour is awesome, and it´s tea bags in those hermetically sealed little tin foil packets – those envelopes do no miracle for bad tea, but when tea is good, it can be so much better than more oxidized loose tea leaves.

Just a note, blender description says lychee blossom flavour. I never ever saw a lychee blossom, and have no idea what it smells/tastes like. For other fruits the blossom and fruit usually taste and smell VERY different (orange blossom and fruit, for example), so I wonder if they made the blossom/fruit confusion, this to me tastes precisely like juicy sweet ripe lychees – the fruit.

I love rose-scented teas, and this is probably the best I have ever found. Even if only available on tea-bags!