1001 Nights

Being pretty much done trying new teas means that I’m starting to think about cleaning out my cupboard a bit from all the older samples I still have lying around. This was one that had probably just barely a cup of tea left in it. I added a few Jasmine Pearls, also from a TeaFrog sample, to fill it out a bit.

The brewed tea still smells a bit fruity, but the jasmine pearls have gone a long way to up the jasmine content of this tea. I got rid of most of the tea “dust” that was left before brewing it, so thankfully it didn’t brew up too bitter, though there is the faintest hint. I like this tea for all it’s florals, but I’m not quite as enchanted with it than I was before. I can definitely see myself looking for blends like this in the future, but I the indistinct sweet-tart candy fruity flavor in this one is throwing me off a bit. Still, it’s an enjoyable cup this morning.

This smells – and I mean this in the best possible way – like Pez. It has that candy/fruity sweetness. I wasn’t sure of the steeping parameters on this one, since it’s a green/black blend, but even with near boiling water it’s smooth enough to drink plain.

This reminds me a lot of Red Leaf Tea’s Blue Moon, because they’re both black tea blended with just flower petals, and they both brew up deliciously fruity, smooth, and sweet. I think maybe it’s the Marigold?

This is getting a little astringent as it cools – I’ll try steeping at a lower temp next time.

The problem with getting samples is that you want to just try them all at once. I’m trying to space out my TeaFrog samples, but…I don’t know how successful I’ll be. I’m going for two per day, so…this is number one!

So here’s what I’m thinking. Do I count this as my green for the day? If I drink it TWICE can I count it as my green for the day? How does that work exactly. I treated it as a black tea since the bag called it one, so did I kill all the useful stuff in the green tea? Dunno!

On to the tea. The aroma of both the leaves and the tea itself is VERY fruity to me. Which is weird because it is full of flowers. I’m not getting the sort of artificial sense that I am interpreting the posts that compare this to candy as indicating, though. The steep came out a very light brown. Golden brown? Sure, why not.

Trying this out, it’s quite nice! Very flowery with a light hint of fruit and the black tea peeking through. The green tea is kind of absent though, although that’s probably due to the way I prepared it more than anything else. I have to say that I really like the combination of these flowers – it gives the tea a kind of body that I don’t think a single one of them would have been able to grant. I can’t really differentiate them individually, but, on the other hand, i don’t really have much experience with the taste of flowers other than roses so it would probably be weird if I could.

Not sure that I would want this as part of my permanent collection, although I would drink it with pleasure if I had it. I was thinking to myself a while back that I could use more fruity/flowery teas for when that mood hits me, but is this the one I want? Dunno! Have to try the others first.

Not bad, it is a bit acidic for me and believe it or not a get a fruit vibe on this one. Nevertheless, a pretty good cup.

I am bumping up this a few points…as it cooled the floral side of this tea made itself known…beautiful. :-)

This was my “oh lord, I drank some beer last night which always upsets my system so I feel horrible in the morning and I need something soothing” tea this morning. I found it very soothing. The sweet floralness really was perfect. This one’s growing on me. It’s like it has the “NERDS! taste but healthier.” I’m gonna bump the rating up a little (the original being a solid 80). NE

Another TeaFrog sample.

Between the time I ordered it and now I’ve pretty much decided not to order mixed black and green teas any more, absent a really compelling reason to do so. It’s just too hard to know how to steep these for maximum benefit, and I am certain I get it somewhere between wildly wrong and not quite right pretty much every time. If I got it very right, I doubt I’d even know. I’d probably figure it could still be better. And then of course, even if I got it very right and knew it, it’s impossible to know whether it would be achievable the next time. Just thinking about it makes my brain hurt.

One thing I don’t need while trying to relax with a cup of tea is a lot of uncertainty. I have enough of that in other aspects of my life. Some things should just be reliably certain, dammit.

Getting off soapbox now.

So I’m going to go with 3 minutes at 200 and see what happens. I find that with these mixes, very hot temperatures obliterate the taste of the green tea, and green tea temperatures make the black tea a shadow of what it could be. Also, steeping too long is dangerous because the green tea can get bitter.

The dry mix smells fruity to me, which is bizarre because there is nothing identified as fruit in it. For whatever reason I’m getting that grape Tootsie-Pop smell Rabs identified in one of her notes. (Lots of things are smelling fruity to me today that shouldn’t. Wonder if one of the kids stuffed a roll-up up my nose while I was sleeping?) What it seems I should have smelled, from the jasmine and rose ingredients, is flowers, and this I didn’t smell. The rose petals in this one must be a white rose or at least not red, as all petals appear to be varying shades of white, tending toward the creamy or yellow end.

In the tea’s aroma, the grapey, candy smell opens up into something more like jasmine. There’s a hint of vegetal greenness in the aroma, but mostly what I’m smelling is fruity black tea.

Surprisingly, I can taste the green tea here. It adds a vegetal taste to a jasminy, fruity, black tea.

It isn’t at all bad. It just isn’t enough to compel me to order a green/black blend.

Oh, and I went and read the other notes on this just now and I am so relieved to see I’m not the only one who got fruit here. You have no idea how relieved I am. ;-)

I like this one a lot better than I thought I would. Eventho it has 4 floral type ingredients it’s not overly flower-like….you know bitter/floral…The Black tea and the green tea along with the flavors all make sense and make it very enjoyable! I think I would have this more than once in a blue moon. Nice!

1001 Nights Flavored Black mixes a Ceylon black tea and a sencha green tea with jasmine and roses. This is the second green and black tea blend I have ever tried, and the first one was excellent. I steep two teaspoons of this mixture in just boiled water for about three minutes. All of these flavors together… I was curious to see whether or not it would actually work!

With the first sip, I know that it does. The roses and jasmine blend together into a delicious floral mix and the sencha does mix with the black tea in such a way that one gets the vegetal notes of green tea with the strength and bold flavors of the black Ceylon. With such a great mixture of flavors, I feel as though this tea would be nicely paired with a myriad of foods, but it has enough natural sweetness that it could even stand on its own as a desert, if such was desired. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate this tea a 90/100.

Ok, I admit it. I bought this just for the name. I’m anticipating not liking it. Why? Because black/green blends just don’t work parameter wise. Each tea demands vastly different steeping conditions. I hate “winging” tea, but I have no clue what to do w/ this so I gotta. I’m gonna go w/ “typical” green parameters.

1tsp/6oz

The liquor is a beautiful autumnal amber and the aroma is surprisingly sweet. I’m getting fruity and sugary notes instead of floral. Interesting.

Whoa! Color me surprised. It tastes nothing like the watery black tea I feared. The green tea and flowers took over giving me a smooth slightly sweet (but still not floral) tea that has quite a bit of body (I’m assuming from the black tea). It’s actually very good and I’d give it even more points if I got the floral notes.

0.0 it’s so good. It almost tastes like it has marshmallows in it. It doesn’t need milk or anything.
It’s smooth and sweet and wow and my sample is gone and I think I’m going to cry since it only got here yesterday.
Did I mention smooth? It almost feels like I’m drinking silk. The mouth feel is just enough to let you know it’s not water but it’s not heavy at all.
And really really… I thought there was fruit in it. I’ve been tricked! I would have sworn there was fruit in it.. not a lot… but a dusting of fruit maybe.
I feel like this tea is hugging me.