Review: Teajo Black Manas
What your getting here with Teajo’s Black Manas, is an unflavored black tea that comes from India. I especially like this tea on occasion when I just don’t feel like an Earl Grey, or a spicy Chai. You’re getting back to basics here, just because it doesn’t contain any additional flavored additives doesn’t mean you aren’t getting any flavor. Rather you are getting a decent quality black tea without any interruptions.
This tea is perfectly smooth. I like to steep this one for about 3 minutes for a medium amber colored cup. There wasn’t a whole lot of aroma, but the taste made up for what was lacking here. It has a nice flavor, slight nuttiness without the bitterness, nothing that particularly stands out, but the smoothness is what really impressed me the most. To be honest I would much rather drink a Darjeeling tea, but this was a nice change.
I was surprised to to find out this was a whole leaf tea as the little particles were so skinny. This tea surprisingly expands a lot once steeped. I enjoyed this tea the most served with a bit of sweetener, but could also enjoy it without any additives what so ever.
BarbaraTeaviews.com Reviewer
» Read about this reviewer on Barbara's profile page.
» Find more tea reviews by the Teaviews reviewing staff.
Until now, I started wondering if perhaps lemons and I don’t get along unless they are doused in sugar and called lemonheads or lemonade. This tasty, well-balanced mix of lemongrass and green tea may convert me. This has the refreshing effect of light green tea with lemons added; no dryness here. The dried tea looks heavier on the lemongrass than the green tea. The effect is a very light green tea base with a lemony scent. The flavor is initially of lemongrass with the added depth from the green tea following afterward. The overall effect was refreshing, like a tea that might be served at a spa. I did have to control my desire to add a cupful of sugar, but in the tea’s defense, I’d be inclined to add sugar to salads too. This reminds me of a light spring raincheerful and pleasant.
Like a well titled novel this tea was interesting from the start. Before you even take a sniff you’ll be somewhat impressed by the long twisted leaves. These leaves look black on first view, but when looked at closely exhibit dark, rich, greens and unusual blues, they are surprisingly compact, well rolled, and seem to survive shipping extraordinarily well. The look of this tea would seem to say that its more of an Oolong than a traditional green tea. Generally Green teas aren’t this dark, or possessive of such character in the shape and texture of the leaf, although the types of tea are each such a wide sea full of soo many fish that label breakdowns such as this are to be expected.
Keemun Hao Ya A # 407 is the first tea that I have sampled from Drink the Leaf, a company that offers “exceptional loose leaf tea from around the world”. Although I wouldn’t say that keemun is a daily beverage for me, I do appreciate the rich and malty flavor for which this tea is known. The dry leaves of Drink the Leaf’s version were very thin and wiry, with a characteristic malty aroma, as well as a subtle sweet aroma that I might compare to the smell one experiences when opening a package of raisins. As directed on the website, I steeped my tea for 3 minutes in boiling water to produce a rich amber-brown liquid. The tea smelled “heavy”, but delivered a really wonderful combination of malty, sweet and fruity notes. The maltiness, like a heavy dose of barley or other grains, was the key player here, but there were definitely undertones of a sweetness (perhaps nutty or chocolatey) and a floral fruitiness, similar to a first flush darjeeling. With heavy black teas, such as assams, I almost always find that I need to add a bit of sugar, but this tea’s natural subtle sweetness was completely sufficient to satisfy my sweet tooth. In all, I was highly impressed by this tea and really enjoyed my sample. In my opinion, however, there are two minor drawback to this tea, although neither is substantial enough to outweigh all of the positive aspects of the tea. First, because the tea leaves are so thin and wiry, many of them seeped through my infuser into my cup, which resulted in me getting a mouthful of tea leaves at the end of the cup (not pleasant, trust me). Second, costing $20 for 4 oz, this tea tends towards the pricier side; while the price isn’t outrageous, it may be high enough to discourage some people from giving this tea a try.
Even though I’m a sucker for anything sweet, I’m not normally a fan of caramel or sticky sweet things. Despite that, the scent of this tea is so heavenly, I got caught more than once with my nose in the bag, taking huge sniffs of the sweet toffee scents of the dried rooibos tea. The combination of caramel bits and rooibos meld perfectly here since rooibos tends toward the sweet and creamy anyway. After steeping, the deep red tea has a pleasant and comforting sweet scent. Without any additions, my expectations of the cream in the cream caramel felt stunted; there’s no detectable creaminess here. The scent felt stronger than the flavor, which to me feels like a tease. I took a suggestion from the Tea guys and added a bit of condensed milk….wow! Now the flavors are all there with enough body to satisfy cream lovers. The caramel taste is light and nice, not overpowering at all. This is a caramel tea for adults who love sweet flavors, not children who believe that sweeter is always better. The caramel is mellowed by the rooibos so the effect is warm and comforting. This tastes like someone put a very high quality caramel in liquid form, no fake sugary flavors, just smooth and rich. Without milk and sugar this didn’t reach its potential for me, but with those additions, yum, yum, yum.
First, you are probably asking yourself the same thing I did: what the heck is a Vivabox? Well, to put it simply, a vivabox is awesome. Okay, I will elaborate. A vivabox is, essentially a themed gift box that features two layers of gifts. The themes offered by Vivabox are diverse, spanning from a spa theme to a wine theme to a BBQ theme. Naturally, I am reviewing the tea-themed gift box known as ” Vivabox Tea Time”. As I mentioned earlier, this is a two-layered gift that is delivered in an attractive box. The first layer included in the Tea Time gift set is a fantastic variety of Numi brand tea bags. There are two samples of each of five individually-packaged different tea bags, as well as two different flowering teas. Together, the 12 tea samples offer a full spectrum of black, oolong, green, white, and rooibos teas. Although I am typically not a huge fan of bagged tea, the Numi teas tend toward the higher end of the quality spectrum. As a seasoned tea drinker, I quite appreciated the diversity of tea types and flavors; for those new to tea, the samples provide a comprehensive introduction to the wonderful world of tea and the diversity of flavors and tea varieties available. Essentially, the first layer of this gift is intended to familiarize the recipient with tea, so that the second layer, a gift card displayed in the middle of the box, can be redeemed for one of five tea-related gifts best suited to the recipient’s tastes. The recipient can “cash in” the gift card for a tea set (featuring loose tea and a ceramic teapot and cups), a bamboo tea set (consisting of nine flowering teas and a small glass teapot in a mahogany bamboo case), a flowering tea gift set (featuring a large glass display teapot and a set of flowering teas), a bamboo book of tea (which is a bamboo portfolio filled with tea bags in six different flavors), or an “iRelax” gift set (consisting of 16 Organic and Fair Trade teas paired with an hour-long CD of relaxing music). Each of the gifts was so tempting, that I found it hard to decide which one I would want. In the end, I opted for the ceramic tea pot and loose tea set, which I am excitedly awaiting to receive in the mail. The idea of a Vivabox is truly a great concept, because while the basic theme of the gift is determined by the gift-giver, the actual present (or at least most of it) is directly customized by the recipient, ensuring that he/she gets what he/she will most enjoy. In addition to the wonderfful tea and teaware that I obtained as a result of receiving the Vivabox Tea Time giftbox, my receiving a Vivabox for myself just made my holiday shopping a whole lot easier. At $45 per box, the Vivabox Tea Time gift set makes a wonderful, yet affordable, gift for the holiday season. I plan to take full advantage of these creative and high-quality gift boxes for various friends and family members.
I am generally a bit wary of rooibos teas, as lower quality rooibos can easily have an aftertaste reminiscent of stale dirty laundry. This, of course, takes away from the overall tea, no matter how delicious the added flavourings are. With this in mind, I choose my rooibos teas carefully before buying them, and I always drink them with an ounce of skepticism.
Oolong is sort of an utterly nondescript description of the undescript. While Oolong officially referrs to tealeaves that are rolled into balls or little twists, and are semi-fermented between a green and a black tea, unfortunately this describes a wide swath of dissimilar teas. Although, I would have to say that none of the categories of tea really give you any clue what to expect. Some Oolongs are buttery, some taste of richly fried foods, some are really complex green teas, while others are just black tea in drag.