Tea Forte

This was a free sample from teaforte thank you so much. This is a pretty good tea the yuzu is there and abit tart with a nice bit of honey and the pleasant green tea. I thought this was pretty good I added sugar but wished the tea had abit more honey taste then the yuzu because the fruit is just not one of my favorites. Overall though still a good tea.

Steep Information:
Amount: 3 tsp
Water: boiling, 2 mugs
Tool: my grandmother’s Bee House Ceramic Round Teapot (like this one)
Steep Time: a little over 3 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: Strong hazelnut, hints of dark chocolate
Steeped Tea Smell: hazelnut
Flavor: black tea, hints of chocolate and hazelnut
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: astringent
Liquor: translucent dark brown

Rating: 3/4 leaves

Blog: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2011/11/tea-forte-loose-leaf-black-tea-hazelnut.html

This is one of the free samples I got from teaforte thankyou very much. This smells like cloves and cinnamon. I honestly did not brew this very strong I will see if the taste changes if I can get another cup. I have this and waited until just warm and this taste clove like then abit of cinnamon some natural apple and abit of chocolate. I think this is really good and am thankful I did not not taste the roobios.

I had one bag of this and I blew it. First I got impatient and didn’t wait for the water to cool enough. Then I forgot about it and let it steep for too long, but not by much. Plus, I have had this for a long time and I was only going to drink it to get rid of it since I am doing a bit of decluttering, shifting, and repurposing for the holidays.

Even oversteeped this isn’t bitter, but it also isn’t very good. I seem to only like really REALLY good greens. I am not getting much mango, and that is probably because of the age of this bag.

I will just have to look forward to my upcoming pot (pots) of black tea with Sandy later today.

1 pouch of loose in 450 mL water, bare, steeped 5 minutes.

I got a gift box of Forte single steep pouches a while ago, and this one was my favourite. That said, it can get bitter once you hit 5 minutes; it was more pleasant at 4.

A competent and pleasant Assam blend with, to my surprise, what looked like some CTC mixed in with very small leaves. Some malt, lots of body, but again, a tendency to bitterness at the end. Not the best Assam ever, but far from the worst.

My IE won’t let me access the slider bars, so I have to type out ratings. I give this one a 75.

This was ok. Granted I had a headache to beat the band yesterday afternoon. So nothing was tasting right. I will say it did help my headache a little, but not enough for me to keep drinking it. I probably should have tried this one iced instead of hot. I might be willing to order this one to give it a better go.

I feel really guilty. I drank this while I was sick because I thought the citrus and honey combo would be good for my throat. Well, it made me feel better, but I have no idea what this tea tasted like. Now I really wish I had drunken something else because I’m really curious! Too bad I only had the one bag. I’ll bet it was good!

Yesterday was my birthday, and I turned 27. But alas, I was unable to celebrate it because I was working a 12 hour clinical shift at the local children’s hospital. I got lots of phone calls and birthday texts to make the day wonderful, but the curling up and relaxing with tea didn’t happen because I fell into bed exhausted by 8 PM.

Ah well, there’s always next year to celebrate. Or in this case, there’s a next day to drink some of the free samples that Tea Forte so generously provided me with. I’ve wanted to try the skin smart teas for a while now because some of the flavors just look amazing! This one caught my eye first and it just smelled so fall-like that I had to give it a go.

The smell of dry leaf and steeped tea is strongly cinnamon, and maaaayyybe a hint of apples in the background. As to the taste, there is a strong cinnamon tinge and a juicy texture reminiscent of apple juice. The flavor is really all cinnamon, though. Not bad, but not accurate to the description. Luckily I like cinnamon, so it’s drinkable.

*I will say that I made a mistake and brewed hot water in my Keurig and accidentally put on the large setting, with is 9.5 ounces, whereas I’m pretty sure the tea bag was supposed to be used with only 8 oz. of water. Not a huge difference in volume, I know, but the tea tastes a bit watery and that may be contributing to it. I’ll use the smaller size next on the other teas in the collection, and out of fairness will refrain from rating it formally, but as it is right now I’d give it a 65 or so.

As a child I used to cough into my pillow at night when I had a cold so that my dad wouldn’t hear and insist I take some of the probably long-expired prescription cold meds we had sitting in the medicine cabinet so I’m a bit leery of anything cherry. I do not take cough drops (unless they’re the Ludens ones that are basically just hard candy), I do not drink cough syrup unless I am feel-like-I’m-about-to-die desperate.

So I was super stoked to get this as part of Tea Forte’s generous sample offer. /sarcasm (re the flavor, not the generosity)

But one night last week, it spoke to me and I figured ‘what the hell’ and tried it.

Not bad.
It did smell like cough medicine so that freaked me out at first. But I didn’t hate it. Didn’t love it either, but it hit the spot that night although I had no problem not trying for a second steep like I normally would.

Backlogging. Thanks for the free samples teaforte. This smells really good with the orange and the mint. This tastes orange and minty with alittle bit of the roobios. This is really good both the orange and the mint are balanced and this is really refreshing to.

Interesting. The flavor of these mints is pretty intense – I taste the ginger and the pear but not so much of the gingko. I don’t taste much white tea either. It tastes very fresh and uplifting. It’s zesty. I like that there is no aspartame in these (I’m allergic to it).

So I’m not rating this one, as it wouldn’t be fair. I don’t like cherry flavored anything. But my wife, who loves cherry, took a sip and seemed to like it, so there you go.

To me, it tastes like a flat cherry coke with too much cherry syrup. It does vaguely remind me of a cherry cosmo, or at least what I would imagine a cherry cosmo would taste like…

Wait! I figured it out. It tastes like a melted cherry coke icee. I feel much better now XD. Don’t you hate when a tea reminds you of something else, but you can’t quite put your finger on what?

But yeah, this isn’t one I’d restock.

I don’t think I can rate this one, being pretty firmly anti-cherry flavouring. I cold-brewed it, and not for very long. On one hand, I was surprised that I found it quite drinkable (I don’t like cherry flavours) and refreshing. On the other, it tasted pretty artificial and I don’t think I’d make it again. I can’t imagine it hot because this was already pretty strong.

Thank you for the free sample tea forte. I taste the apricot and the honeybush/roobios. And find this a fairly good but wish the apricot was somewhat stronger.

This was interesting. The dry leaves smelled like Jack Daniels and Cherry Coke, once wet immediately reminded me of Cherry Carmex, Neccos and Pine Sol. Steeps to a dark raspberry colored liquor. I had to add quite a bit of sweetener, as this was very prominently hibiscus and very tart. Tastes like hibiscus, cherry, alcohol and a bit of raspberry. I don’t think I like it hot, as I normally don’t like hot fruity teas. This is like hot fruit juice with alcohol. I’ll let it cool and try it iced.

Edit.
Tried this iced. It tasted like cherry lime Kool-aid..plus a funny taste I can’t place. Just wasn’t digging it.

This was just not my cup of tea. But I’ve also never really been a fan of amaretto. I just can’t get over how much this reminds me of cherry Halls cough drops, I tried, but with every sip it just tastes to me like liquid cherry Halls cough drops. I swear I can even taste the menthol. And I’ve always had a strong disliking of those, too. I love the scent and taste of almonds, apricots and peaches. But this was the first tea I’ve ever tried that I just couldn’t drink. :/
I’m going to refrain from giving a numerical rating because I’m not saying the quality of the tea is bad, it just does not agree with me!