Novus Tea

A tea bag I got from Izzy again. It’s actually whole leaf pyramid and it won “great taste award in 2018” with two stars, so I was pretty much looking forward to try it.

The tea seems nice and as well smells nice.
Brewed as they suggest, though bit less! water and bit stronger. So, 300 ml / 4 minutes and 96°C water.

I have expected more. It’s on point of black tea and bergamot, as well malva flowers gave bit of florality in taste, but it was quite one-dimensional. Baked bread, citrus and floral. Nothing more, nothing less.

Maybe I have expected more from base tea and bit more citrusy note. It was tasty, but just bit boring. Especially when it got that award.

Ordered a pot of this in ‘The Stores’ cafe in my nearest village. It was surprisingly good! I drank the first teacup black, it was smooth and rich. Full-flavoured and just really thirst quenching after my trek to the cafe. The second teacup had a little bitterness as it kept brewing in the pot so I added some milk. Again, really good, smooth and full-flavoured.

Possibly one of the best pyramid tea sachet format English Breakfast teas that I’ve tried.

It has been a minute since I have reviewed any teas, so as I sat here at my desk, I figured I would review the tea in front of me. Novus teas are pretty good; they’re not necessarily my first choice, but they are offered in the kitchenettes at work for me, with a large variety. I have tried just about all of the teas that we have. This one is my favorite – or one of my favorites – from that bunch. It’s very floral and isn’t too much in the morning. However, what I have noticed with this brand in general is that almost all of them are VERY temperamental with heat. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with their packaging or blend, but we only have a few settings at work for hot water – pretty much a button press – so if the water gets hot enough, the tea can often taste burnt. While knowing temp & steeping time can be important for tea drinkers, I’ve only run into a few teas in the past that were actually that affected by it. So that is often a turn off for me with this brand. If we had like an electric tea kettle/water heater at work, the experience may not be so bad.

This is the best chamomile I have had. I love the lemon grass and floral notes in it. The large pieces of lemon grass and whole flowers make the leaf look very appealing. The smell is bright and floral. It steeps in about three minutes but could be steeped longer. It also re-steeps very well. I have nothing but good things to say about this blend, is is supremely fresh and delightfully tasty.

One of the better English Breakfast’s that I have had bagged.

I don’t drink darjeelings pretty often because they are a lighter black, but I gotta admit I like this one. I even recommended it to people at the coffee shop I worked at, saying “I usually don’t like darjeelings, but this one, I do.”

Solid green tea, especially for a bagged one. It’s good if that’s the option available.

The closest tea that has ever gotten to what I had in Egypt. Purity in a cup. But that’s if you like mint. And when I was working at a coffee shop, I downed this constantly to freshen up my breath. If you ever want to try a good quality Egyptian mint, this is probably one of the better ways to do it bagged. Good on its own, or with honey.

I thought that this one was too weak. Fragrant, yes, but I wanted to taste more. This company has changed in the last few years, so it might be better if I were to try it again.

This is one of the only herbal bagged hibiscus tisanes that I’ve really liked. Pomegranate and apple are the perfect fruit flavors to blend it with because they resemble each other more. It almost reminded me of the hibiscus tea I drank with every meal in Egypt. Also, so sweet that this is practically a fruit juice. In my opinion, it’s best with honey, iced or hot.

This Earl Grey is more floral than most, and also considerably lighter. Visual appeal and aromatherapy are the aims of this little pyramid, and the Malva flowers perfume open with the smoother Ceylon. The coffee shop that I was a barista to sold this company, and I was able to hook people on this one because of its mellow strength and soothing smell. I often recommended this to Earl Grey lovers and people who were willing to try something different. I suggest the same here on Steepster if you are looking for a unique bagged Earl Grey.

A friend dropped a bag of this tea off on my desk, and I’m glad he did. I don’t usually associate Bigelow with anything more than intentionally affordable, lower quality tea. This is not that. They’re really trying to put out a quality product, from the individually wrapped satchet to the tea itself, which was strong but not too astringent. I’d consider this a very drinkable, middle of the road English Breakfast worth purchasing.

We live! After two weeks in the States, we are home and happy for it. I am super glad to have all of my tea and tea pots and perfect mugs back in my greedy little hands. I need to rehydrate, STAT. After two weeks of sodas instead of tea and water and deep fried EVERYTHING, I need tea to get my system back into check.

My wonderful Dad got us a hotel room at the halfway point of our 15 hour drive, and let me tell you, it was a lifesaver. It was a Hampton Inn and they put out the most amazing breakfast spread, including a nice selection of teas. I saw this tea and my eyes lit up like a child’s, I was so excited.

I was pleased to see big pieces of a roasted oolong in the sachet, and the taste was heavenly. For a bagged tea, this went above and beyond expectations and it was exactly what I needed to wake me up and get me out the door so we could finally come home. So tasty and just the kind of roasty toasty oolong I like. I’m not well versed enough in oolongs to be able to tell what kind it was, but I liked it and that was all that matters.

So I will definitely be trying more of the Novus brand of teas, and I encourage you not to shy away from it. You might be happily surprised!

Backlog from earlier in the week:
So many things surprised me about this tea. First, I was in a tiny restaurant in a little town and was not expecting to find Dragonwell of all things to drink (let alone with good long leaves in a sachet with plenty of room)! Second, this company is apparently an offshoot of Bigelow. I like Bigelow, but I don’t expect anything very exciting from them—for me they’re a reliable company for bagged black tea that I can count on when I’m traveling. So when the waiter came out with a box of sachets in every flavor we could want I was a little blown away.

This was actually very good, especially considering it was bagged. Lots of sweetness—my favorite thing about Dragonwell—some light vegetal notes and an almost nuttiness. The bag said “chestnut”, and I guess that’s the closest description that fits; more like cooked or preserved chestnuts than raw. It resteeped well and was a delightful surprise on a cold day!

Gah this week is terrible! I was upset yesterday because one of our instruments that is absolutely essential to our lab (our flow cytometer) was down and when I tried to schedule service for it found out that the lab’s administrative assistant had let the service contract lapse in February. This is a machine that costs about $300,000, so yeah we need to handle with extreme care and while this instrument is down pretty much all experiments are suspended. Today, the same administrative assistant sent an email that could be interpreted in a way that made it seem like it was my fault. I was not the contact for the service contract and also, I have no authority to renew it! WHY SO PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE? I hate it. I was thinking about that as I left work and forgot I drove to work today because I had lots of stuff (read: tea making supplies) with me this morning, so I got on the bus and didn’t remember until halfway home. Fun. Now have a headache (wonder why?), so I thought I’d go for a calming mint tea. It’s actually helping, or maybe it was that cathartic rant I just made random strangers read (sorry!). It’s a very nice mint tea, although I secretly wanted Killer’s Vanilla but I also wanted to sleep tonight. I added milk and sweetener because it seemed like the thing to do. It’s working out pretty well and I’m in enjoying this fresh and comforting cup.

Lazy day. I have been parked on the couch watching Netflix all day. I found a BBC series that I am enjoying: The Paradise. I admit that I grabbed a bag so I could get back downstairs and watch the show without having to wait for a loose leaf brew.

Anyway, it’s fine, not an EG that makes me go “nom nom” but a nice cup. I definitely get the bergamot and I can’t tell that the flowers are there. The review where someone said the opposite surprised me.

This tea is very floral and only secondarily fruity. Normally I’m not a fan of floral teas but this one is pretty pleasant. I wouldn’t buy it, but I might drink the other two samples I have of it.

I was pleasantly surprised to be served this in a restaurant this morning for Boxing Day brunch. For a tea company I am not very familiar with, this was a very nice EG and brewed up strong on the second cup.

This is so strange—I could have sworn I knew where this tea bag was (I bought a sample off a friend) and today I couldn’t find it to try it. Hmmm…did I drink it?
It couldn’t have been that memorable, if I did. :/