Wissotzky Tea

It’s old, but I didn’t really want to finish it.

I think this is part of the newer line of chais that may end up replacing my precious rose chai. For my first try, I made it with a three minute steep and generous (for me) quantity of almond milk. (As with the rose chai, I made sure to eat first because the base for both of these is an Indian Assam and those have a tendency to hurt my stomach.) I found it surprisingly rich – sweet and flavorful without being overpowering. I don’t like things to be too sweet and grew up drinking 1% milk though, so YMMV! I suspect this will be downright indulgent with oat milk. It’s pretty creamy even with the almond milk, which makes me think that some of the creaminess is coming from the blend itself – almond milk is just relatively thin for what I’m picking up. There’s also caramel sweetness, some maltiness from the base, a whiff of salt, and maybe vanilla? Not sure about that last one, I might be imagining it. I just love the rose so much that it’s hard for me to find anything dessert-y to be an adequate substitute/replacement, but this is definitely a worthy addition to the Passover tea lineup.

A very strong almond tasting tea. It’s smell is amazing and you get great tastes of: mainly almond, but also: apple, cinnamon and hibiscus. I would highly recommend it and interestingly enough I also make cookies out of it which work well with other teas or coffee.
A word of caution, the taste is overpowering.

A tea bag from my big bags again, but for some reason I recall buying this more recently. However, it’s still about two years. Oh well, these poor tea bags deserve more love. Hopefully after finals I will be able to sit down with them and finallly sort them out.

Anyway, to the tea.
There is in ingredients: “Orange Pekoe & Pekoe Cut Black Tea” so I was naturally afraid it being very strong and very tannic. Luckily, it isn’t like that. But tastes like a generic, a quite mellow black tea. Nothing much to write more. While it isn’t bad, it’s just nothing to write about. Hmm.

I had this tea for the first time when a friend of mine brought it back from Israel and offered me some while I was at her house. In the years to follow I looked all over for it in the US and was unable to find it. I finally found it on a trip to Israel at a grocery store, and have since found it multiple times during my trip.

Why am I so obsessed with this tea? It reminds me of my childhood. It has warming spices, almond flavor, and doesn’t need sugar to leave a sweet aftertaste. It’s chocolatey, nutty, and not overpowering. I have literally tore up every Kosher food aisle I have come across to get my hands on it. Needless to say I will be stocking up before coming back to the States!

Yesterday exam went well. Very well! I got a B.

And then I drank 5 beers. From lagers to IPA. Oh well. But I don’t have any hangover nor headache. Probably very fine beers then.

Anyway to the tea. I needed something bold and brisk and this delivered both of it. Very strong malty notes with drying notes; but certainly not bad. Caffeine booster.

But there are not only malty notes, but as well some… notes of fruits maybe?

Anyway, very nice surprise — considering it’s only teabag!

Somehow old, but I don’t know how much.

Dry bag was pleasant and aromatic, but the cup of tea was not that great. Yeah, I noticed both, mango and passion fruit, but after 5 minutes it was still very watery in taste and the hints of fruits were… just hints.

So that said, it was rather boring and not much of fruits there… I hoped for some tropic and fruit tea and it was unfortunately not like that. Maybe the fruit flavours disappeared?

Found this teabag while cleaning out my cupboard and – since I’m supposed to be less caffeinated in the evenings – decided to give it a go.

It brews up much darker than I’d expected for a tea-less tisane, with a heavily fruity aroma (mildly reminiscent of potpourri) and a pleasantly mild apple-y taste. I didn’t really pick up on the hibiscus or citrus, but for a mellow night-time sip it’s not unappealing.

I won’t be rushing out to buy a box, though as a one-time brew it was sufficient.

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Berries and mint…is that right? That’s what I am getting.

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Thanks for the sample VariaTEA!

I ended making three different teas to drink on the drive to and from my Grandma’s house this weekend, and that included this tea steeped up in a carry mug. I debated adding milk/sugar but ultimately decided to try it straight.

It was good, but nothing exciting or out of the ordinary for an English Breakfast. Mostly, it tasted of raisins, but with malt and floral notes too. Very brisk and full bodied, as English Breakfast is intended to be. It kept me happy on the car ride, but past that I’m sure it’ll be forgettable alongside many other breakfast teas I’ve tried over the years.

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Thanks for the sample VariaTea! I’m not really a big chamomile person, but I’ll try anything at least once.

- So, it’s exactly like described/advertised…
- And for many that would be great BUT personally I hated it
- However I also hate chamomile so clearly I have a huge bias
- The lemon was nice, though!
- I had to add SO MUCH honey for this to be drinkable…

So not for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s not for others. Not rating, because it likely wouldn’t be totally fair…

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This tastes a little bit like bubblegum. Bubblegum and green tea, though a sharper green tea, like a gunpowder. It’s okay but as far as bubblegum and green teas go, I prefer the Necessiteas version.

Heavy meals call for a mint. I made a tasty and flavorful lunch and this was my palate cleanser. The green tea base added bitterness and dulled the mint so in the future I will probably stick to straight mint teas but this did what I needed it to. Check out my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/05/28/green-tea-spearmint-from-wissotzky-tea/

My sister got me truffles from the Golden Apple not too long ago and since one of them was an Earl Grey truffle, I decided to brew up this tea to see how the two compared. See the comparison here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/05/18/earl-grey-tea-from-wissotzky-tea/

I’m going to keep this review short. It’s Friday, I barely got any sleep last night, and even though I have not been at work a full hour, I have already had an absolutely miserable, unbearably stressful morning. Some of you may recall me mentioning purchasing this tea in a note I wrote back in November. I had yet to try it at the time and it had been on my to do list ever since. I finally cracked it open earlier in the week, made it through 4-5 cups, and ended up throwing the rest of the sachets out last night. I have literally never done that before with fresh tea, not even with a tea I greatly disliked.

The first turn-off for me was the visible presence of safflower in the blend. I hate safflower. Anyone who claims that it does not contribute a smell or taste to whatever it is blended with has no clue. Anyway, the second turn-off for me was that odd thistle, pepper, and saffron-like smell of the dried safflower. It obscured the tea base, which to be honest, did not seem all that interesting. In the mouth, I got an awkward mix of thistle, malt, caramel, toast, and black peppercorn. The peppery note dominated the finish, leaving an odd, slightly unpleasant tingle coupled with oiliness in the back of my throat.

Now that I have once again failed miserably at keeping things short and simple, allow me to state that this was not for me. Maybe some folks are cool with this blend, but I am certainly not one of them. I found the tea base weak, lifeless, and boring which caused the dreaded safflower to stand out when it really shouldn’t have. This was just an unpleasant experience for me, and I cannot say that I would be willing to recommend this tea to fans of English breakfast blends.

(Tea bag is labeled “Blood Orang & Mandarin Scent: Magic Garden” so this may be a different version.)

Strong smell of tart orange for both the teabag and the infused tea. Has a bit of hibiscus flavor which I normally don’t care for, but in this case it works well with the sour orange.

It smells lovely, but no matter how long I brew it, it just tastes like water. I might have been better off drinking plain water, because at least I wouldn’t have had the tannin staining.

It’s a’ight. I didn’t need it and only bought for the sake of trying something new, and also my daughter likes Earl Grey and I think we are out of all of our other Earl Grey.

Nina’s Earl Grey, back when it had the Keemun base, made you go OOOOH YES! Harney and Sons Earl Grey Supreme makes you lift your eyebrows and say, “MMMMM!” This one…well, it’s just a’ight. Not bitter, a little drying, plenty of bergamot if you like that. Smooth enough I suppose.

I won’t repurchase, and to be perfectly fair one big reason I bought it was that it was discounted to $2.49 because it expired August 31st and I bought it on September 1st. It will be fine in no time and will only have lost a bit of freshness.

Had this hidden in my cupboard for a while. Bought this from TJ Maxx without having heard of this company, did not expect much, but it’s actually quite good. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s a refreshing black tea that you can drink any time of the day. The box says that you should steep it 3-5 minutes, but I would recommend that you don’t steep this any longer than 2 minutes. A little over one minute is the sweet spot that makes a nice cup that is not too strong.

This was in the Easter basket, too. It’s a not-too-strong, not-too-sharp, smooth, bready breakfast option in a sachet bag.

I picked up a box of this at Netcost this morning, since they tend to have all sorts of interesting teas to try. My first thought when I opened the box? “Wooow is that rosy”.

Seriously, the scent of the dry mix is an almost overwhelming rose and cinnamon smell. I like rose teas and I was worried that this would taste like shampoo or perfume. I have to keep it quarantined from my other teas for fear of cross-contamination. I shouldn’t have worried since once you brew it it mellows out. Not too rosy, not too cinnamony. Supposedly there’s coconut in there too, but it’s completely lost under the cinnamon and rose.

I wouldn’t really call this “chai” though, as the only spice included is cinnamon. No cloves, no ginger, no cardamom, no anything else. Would I buy it again? Probably not. It’s nice for a bagged rose tea, but not so much that I would necessarily restock.

Maybe my tastebuds are too sensitive, but I got this at a T.J. Maxx actually with high hopes and it tasted like cleaning supplies to me. I wasn’t getting much of a mint or ginger. The lemon was coming through in the flavor of Pledge! While I’ve never actually sprayed Pledge directly into my mouth, I have a feeling it tastes a lot like this tea, and it certainly smells like it.