Wissotzky Tea

The weather was finally nice enough to have a cuppa and I finally had a little time at work to write up a tasting note. Imagine my consternation when I discovered that the dilapidated old browser on my work computer isn’t capable of running the “write tasting note” feature. Bah!

So this is a somewhat belated tasting note, but I feel that I must write it or else Internet Explorer 1782 wins.

I quite enjoyed this tea though! I haven’t got a whole lot to add to my prior note. I drank it after only steeping for about 4 minutes, at which point it was still tasty but not as well balanced as when you really let it sit. The sage aroma and flavor are very strong and soothing. I really wanted to add some honey to it, though, to round it out a bit. Overall, good for a quick fix during a busy workday.

I never thought about it when I used to regularly leave teabags in the mug while drinking my tea, but some teas seem to benefit substantially from lengthy steeps. This is one of those teas. At 3-5 minutes, it’s very meh. Flavor is weak and unimpressive. Luckily, I got distracted at work and didn’t come back to the cup until 15-20 minutes later. Oh. my. goodness. The flavors really come out to play. It’s a lovely balance of honey and sage and I find it extremely enjoyable. I wasn’t paying attention to aroma or color, but I’ll definitely be having it again and will try to notice those things.

I think many of the Wissotzky green teas fall into the category of teas that benefit from lengthy steepings. Not sure why.

This just tasted sort of generically fruity/berry-ish today. Lots of hibiscus. I’m not sensing any passionfruit flavor at all. The underlying green tea is grassy and a bit dry – neither terrible nor astounding. Overall, this has too much hibiscus for my taste right now. Also, ssssipdown!

I love the smell of this, though I can’t quite pin it down. Seems to primarily be black currant, rose, and hibiscus. Color is a very pretty red, though I think I understeeped this (and threw out the teabag, d’oh!). Flavor’s fairly light because of that, but I’m picking up a lot of strawberry, rosehip, and passionfruit. Aftertaste is definitely strawberry.

Overall, pretty tasty but not a staple tea.

I had what I believe to be a sipdown of this tea earlier today. I see from my previous tasting note that I enjoyed the ginger flavor. Unfortunately, I could barely taste the ginger today. It just seemed very weak all around – maybe the water wasn’t hot enough? I did let it steep for a good long while…

Oh well. I have better ginger teas and better Wissotzky teas, so it’s no big loss to be done with this one.

I needed something for the commute home, so I just tossed a bag of this into some hot water in my travel mug and left the bag in for the trip home. This tea holds up to a long steep pretty well. I agree that the green tea flavor is weak, but the ginger and lemongrass are strong and very well balanced. I quite enjoyed it. Very soothing.

Alas, can’t testify as to color or scent, since it was in a travel mug.

I know it’s probably technically impossible to ‘oversteep’ an herbal tea, but after a certain point the hibiscus, if it’s present, takes over. I think that is what happened here. I set my alarm and when it went off, I failed to take the tea bags out and then forgot I was making tea. Not my best execution.

With this, I can certainly taste the berries, what must be the wildberry flavour because I’m mostly unfamiliar with it. Unfortunately it’s also very tart and that detracts from it. There’s something almost sour with the berry flavour and I find that I’m just not enjoying this tea.

Backlog because Steepster wasn’t cooperating on Friday -

Still enjoying this tea, though this is the last of it. Posted a list of my work desk teas and apt in the chatroom picked this one out for me when I was being indecisive. Good choice. The honey is definitely still present in the smell, quite nice, and the taste is mostly okay, but for an old bagged tea, I can’t complain too much.

First off, this smells absolutely fantastic. The honey smell is very prevalent and strong. The smell was really faint when the tea bag was dry, but as soon as I poured water on it, boom, in your face smell. Kind of surprising for a chamomile blend. I have some hopes for something I’ll like from a company that I haven’t been impressed with yet. This tea is from yssah who was kind enough to send me a bunch of Wissotzky teabags.

I think I oversweetened this a bit, since it had honey in it already, but this is pretty decent. Not something I would seek out though, since I find chamomile kind of boring most of the time and prefer to sweeten my teas with rock sugar because of the distinct flavour that honey imparts. Still, for a bagged tea, pretty decent.

This is why I should read my own reviews before making and drinking tea. Apparently I disliked this tea the first time and I don’t like it any better the second time. Blech.

Couple of tea bags of this from yssah about a million years ago that I’m finally getting to. I actually took all of my trades out of their bags last night and labeled them by swapper so I can get to them at random rather than go person by person. I think it’ll be faster this way since I won’t be stuck avoiding moving on to the next bag just because I don’t want to try one of the old bag’s teas immediately. Anyway.

There is just something in this tisane that is not sitting right with me. It’s not the mango. I don’t think it’s the passionfruit. I’m pretty sure it’s not even the hibiscus. But there is something that is just off that I do not like at all. Distinctly unpleasant cup of tea.

Thanks yssah for sending me these…months ago. I just got around to opening the package and I’ll be working through these. I still have one bag to use later since she sent me 3 and I generally use 2 in my big mug. It’s not quite 16 oz so the tea is pretty strong.

That said, it is VERY strawberry. There’s a little bit of a feel of too much hibiscus, but it’s not too bad. Thankfully I’m not getting any of the cinnamon that the ingredients say is in this because I really don’t like cinnamon on anything but toast (mixed with sugar) and a super sugary cinnamon bun (once in a blue moon…or less often, those happen once a year, don’t they).

For a bagged herbal tea, this is pretty decent. I don’t like it enough to order it because my standards on herbal teas have gotten ridiculously high since I found Steepster and branched out to online companies. Go go gadget Zentealife and Tealux mostly. Anyway, decent tea.

Drank this when I had a migraine and people recommended mint tea. I put it in my travel mug and brewed for about 3 minutes, and it was much better than last time. Maybe not being able to smell it through the mug made the mint less offensive? I don’t know how much it helped my migraine, but it wasn’t an absolutely awful tea drinking experience like last time.

Blegh. Just blegh. I remember liking this tea. Clearly I have memory problems, because this is really truly terrible. I like other Wissotzky teas; I like their green tea; I like their regular mint tea. But this? No. No no no no no. It just tastes like drinking straight spearmint. Maybe it would be ok mixed with a nice green, but then I would have to be willing to risk ruining a good tea. I actively feel guilty now for sending this along to someone else (at least it was a giveaway and not a swap!). I don’t understand why I ever thought I liked it…

Luckily, my brother inexplicably likes this and I was able to pawn the rest of it off on him.

Not a bad tea. Not a good tea either. A terrible example of Earl Grey, more like English Breakfast.

Disgusting. Like drinking syrup. I was served this after a Passover seder- I had to discretely throw it down the sink.

Not bad for a bagged masala chai. I drink it mainly at Passover.

This tea brews up a lovely deep red color. It’s pleasantly, mildly sweet – I definitely wouldn’t add any sweetener – but it becomes cloying if paired with a sweet dessert. This is a very smooth tea with a caramel taste. It also resteeps nicely.

This tea is delightfully sour, I love lemons but anyone faint of heart will enjoy the addition of honey. I can’t stop at only one cup, it’s so good. I leave the bag in while I read, causing the last sip to explode in tart lemony goodness.

This is a tasty herb tea that I sweetened with sugar and honey. I think next time I’ll let it steep for a bit longer.