Arabian Night

It’s busy season at work, and as of today it’s gone from “this is busy but manageable and surprisingly fun” to “this is busy and I’m starting to get really mad and I want to yell at someone.” So it’s what I call #@%&$! Tea Time.

This is a sample that Zen Tea Life sent along, and I will never complain about getting free samples, especially ones I don’t expect! The dry leaves smell AMAZING. It’s this fresh, floral, citrusy thing that Cher-slaps you and says, “Snap out of it. You are GOING to relax now.” The tea, however, falls a little short. The thing is, the flavors are all so distinct from one another that when you put them together, it winds up tasting like something that’s not really any of them. It tastes like an artificial version of the dry leaf smell. Then, right before the end of the sip, this slightly cherry-cough-syrup note comes in and it’s not at all present in the dry leaf aroma. And the aftertaste… it’s some weird combo of the cherry-cough-syrup motif and lemon. This kind of reminds me of how I always think fruity/flavored teas are going to taste and why I stay away from them.

I wouldn’t quite call it unpleasant, just pretty unimpressive, especially given how wonderful the dry leaves smelled. Glad to have tried it, though.

Reporting back on the cold brew. The base got a tad strong and astringent, and the jasmine note strengthened, while the rose note took a back seat. I actually prefer this hot, although overall, it’s something I would never buy. Still grateful for the sample from Zen.

Zen tea was handing out free samples and i said surprise me, surprise me they did because i received a arabian night sample! One off the tea’s i probably never would have bought when i was buying tea’s. So here we are and i’m very curious because its a mix of green and black tea!

Upon opening the sample i’m greeted with a very nice rose smell! the dry tea on itself is a nice mix of green and black with a bit off other colors from the sunflower jasmin and rose leafs.

I brewed my first cup at 90°C and the color turned out a dark amber like brown looks vert tasty, and it taste pretty nice aswel, the rose flavor turns out a soft note, not to hard at all, can’t really find the flavor off jasmine tough, the black and green tea is balanced pretty good. Don’t taste any bitterniss in my 3min brew!

Overall a very good cup off tea, although i’m not so mutch off a flavored tea drinker i can say i like this blend!

second cup from the same leaves with steep time around 5min was a bit less, bit still tasty!

edit: after brewing some more from the sample i have to so i rated it a bit low the first time :)

(backlog from 5/29/14)

I don’t usually like flavored green tea (with the exception, I have recently discovered, of jasmine!), but I thought that I’d try Arabian Night just for fun.

The sunflower is the dominant flavor in this blend, but there is also some sort of unidentified fruit (“flavor” in the ingredients list…) present. As I’m not a big fan of the taste of sunflowers (though I love the sight!) this blend is not for me.

From the spent leaves, it is clear that black tea is present here, too. I’ll probably use the rest of this envelope for iced tea this summer.

(Blazing New Rating #8)