Tea - Loose Leaf Tea - Ramblings

Review: Boulder Tea Hojicha Fuka-iri

Boulder Tea’s Hojicha Dark Roast truly does have a beautiful, shiny dark color to the dry leaves, rich and chestnutty looking. Along with its pleasant, toasty aroma, it makes for an appealing winter time brew. The tea is quite hearty and does not require much in the way of steeping. Some sources suggest steeping Hojicha as little as 30 seconds, which I found very surprising. Given that the tea has a hearty flavor, this seems logical. Drinking this particular Hojicha reminded me of a beer loving acquaintance who, in the wintertime, drank only stout style and barley wine style brews, as they had a hearty food like quality that he felt was helpful during the cold months. And this is how I felt on drinking the Dark Roast Hojicha.

Excellent for winter time, with those short (oh, so short) days and often mercurial skies. It’s a hearty tea - a little strong, in my opinion, for early morning consumption, but well suited to a post meal cup.

This tea becomes a little too strong to handle if steeped too long, and I definitely recommend starting with an extremely brief steeping time. From there, you can play around with infusion times and the strength that you most prefer it at. As you pour your water, you’ll immediately note the strong flush of rich dark color come out of the tea, it’s quite surprising if you are used to paler teas or teas that require a longer infusion period. Hold back on your inclination, if you have one, to steep this for a long time. A small amount of tea will go quite a long way, as well, so there’s room for experimentation in that regard as well.

I enjoyed this tea for its color and aroma, before and after the brewing process. The taste of the tea was a bit on the strong side for my tastes. But for an interesting, hearty brew, I’d give it a try. And I’d try my first infusion at about 15 seconds to start, though it surprises me to say that! Once you see the rush of gorgeous color emerge from the leaves, as soon as the water hits, you won’t be surprised either.

Review: Summit Tea Vienne

My experiences with Summit Teas so far have ranged from mediocre to decent, with my primary issue being that the heavenly aromas of the teas do not translate into strong flavors. All of the Summit Tea offerings that I have reviewed so far are products of Damann Freres, the noted French tea blender, and I approached today’s tea, Vienne, also a Damann Freres blend, with reasonable expectations that even though the tea smells fantastic, the flavor would be a weakened representation of the aroma. This tea is touted on the Summit Tea website as a calorie-free treat to satisfy chocolate cravings. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: I have a wicked sweet tooth, so teas that have chocolate flavor in them always get me excited. This particular blend has not only chocolate, but also apricot and vanilla, which I found to be a most intriguing and promising blend of flavors. The flavor of the tea was moderately strong, but consistent with my past observations, not as strong as I had hoped based on the dry blend’s aroma. The brewed tea is certainly tasty, and elements of chocolate, vanilla, and sweet, yet subtle, apricot are all definitely there. I couldn’t help but be disappointed with the low intensity of the chocolate, however; whereas I was really hoping for a rich chocolaty flavor, the chocolate in this tea is more appropriately compared to a very watered-down chocolate milk flavor. As a chocolate tea, it rates pretty low for me, but luckily the vanilla and apricot added enough interesting kick to make the tea a pretty good cup of tea that was worth drinking. Overall, I don’t think I will be purchasing this one for myself, and will continue my quest for the perfect chocolate tea.

Review: Tea Guys Papaya Ginger White Tea

Tea Guys lists the ingredients as including white tea, organic green tea, organic lemon myrtle, ginger, citrus peel, pineapple, anise, papaya, pomegranate, natural flavors, marigold and jasmine. The dry tea had a dazzling array of colors and a sweet aroma comparable to that of honey. The liquor was a light lemony yellow. I brewed this tea using my Zarafina tea maker, set on strong white.

I?ve been impressed with every Tea Guys blend I have tried and this selection is no exception. The ingredients blend beautifully together to create a complex palate that evokes a tropical vacation. The combination of the fruit, spices and flowers complement the tea rather than masking its flavor. That is very difficult to achieve with white tea, especially with an ingredient list that is so complicated. I would definitely recommend this tea.

Review: Choice Organic Jade Green

There are some very good things to say about this tea. Above all, I am very pleased to see tea manufacturers package whole leaf tea in a way that makes it convenient for the consumer and for restaurant service. I would be very pleased with this option in the restaurant basket of bagged teas. The pyramid bag does allow the hydrated leaf to brew and expand more than the old-fashioned paper so that the tea leaves don’t clump together quite as much. This tea is much more tolerant of higher water temperature so that it has less tendency to become bitter. It is a subtle green flavor that would probably be more interesting to someone who is trying green teas for the first time. There is the sweetness but not the stronger vegetal flavor of a fresh tea.

It is also an economical tea. The Choice Organic Tea website offers Jade Green in a box of 15 teabags for $8.49 – or about $0.57 per teabag before shipping.

My caution about bagged tea and blended teas is that there is not the same level of quality assurance that there is with whole leaf. There is still a margin of sacrifice for the convenience of the bag. There are certainly times when I appreciate this and seek out the tea packagers who provide the highest quality tea in the most convenient form.

What I have found to be true is that when a company packages organic, fair trade tea it will say 100% organic, fair trade if that is true. They are legally allowed to blend teas and include non-organic and non-fair trade but still use the icons. I suspect that this is the case for Choice and their Jade Green.

But it’s still a nice cup of tea. And I think they’ve done a lot to give consumers the value and convenience they want in one product.

Review: TeaGschwendner Assam Marangi

Until recently, most of the black teas I had experience with were blends. While I found some more appealing to me more than others, I wasn’t really able to ascertain which additions to the blend made them so. Then I started experimenting a bit with individual black teas and quickly found that Assam tends to be my favorite. Having come to that realization, I was really looking forward to reviewing Teagschwendner Assam Marangi. The teas I have sampled from Teagschwendner thus far have all been of the highest quality.

The dry tea consists of a mixture of black and gold thin, wiry leaves. The aroma, though lighter than I expected, reminds me vaguely of a tobacco that my grandfather used to smoke in his pipe. While I am generally thrown into uncontrollable fits of sneezing and watery eyes when I am in close proximity to smoke, there was something strangely comforting about Grandpa’s pipe smoke. This tea invokes the same comfortable feelings. This Assam possesses a generous maltiness that manages to add to both the strength and the smoothness of the cup. This isn’t the type of tea that jolts you into your morning, but rather it offers a gentle nudge. There was no indication of the bitterness that can sometimes accompany black tea. While Assam Marangi is tasty in a travel mug on the way to work, it really deserves to be savored in a proper tea cup! This tea is delicious alone, but is nothing short of delightful with a bit of cream and sugar!

Review: Boulder Tea Hojicha Fuka-iri

Truthfully, the odor of the unbrewed leaves turned me off completely. It was reminiscent of old burnt logs or mossy earth. These scents might be wonderful when you are camping out in the woods but I found them difficult in a tea.

When I poured in the hot water, the scent became overwhelmingly strong. My coworkers even commented. One thought that the coffee roasting house down the street had burned a batch of beans. I found very heavy overtones of dark chocolate and hard wood.

I let the leaves brew for about three minutes and hesitantly took my first sip. What a surprise! This is definitely the strongest tea I’ve ever tried but it wasn’t the awful mess I expected from the scent. In fact, it had a very hearty green tea flavor, with no bitter overtones whatsoever. I would drink this tea on a cold, rainy day but it is not for the faint of heart. Once the tea steeped for about four minutes it became far too bitter to drink.

Review: Mighty Leaf Pear Caramel Truffle

I do not have a lot of experience with Mighty Leaf teas, an unfortunate fact I hope to change in the near future. However, their website is attractive and extremely informative, which are both things I can appreciate when buying teas or anything for that matter.

Mighty Leaf’s website describes Pear Caramel Black as the “perfect after-dinner dessert tea.” Dessert teas are always a bit touch-and-go for me, but I am always willing to give them a try.

This tea was off to a good start with its big bits of dry pear and caramel. Once I opened the packaging, I was intrigued by its toothsome scent and excited to brew my first cup. It has an overall sweet scent with an alluring aftertaste that reminds me of sugar cookies.

My major hitch with this tea is that it was neither very pear nor very caramel. It was sweet and vaguely fruity, but if I didn’t know the flavours beforehand, I probably couldn’t have placed what they were. To the tea’s credit, however, pear flavouring can easily be disgusting, and this was pleasing despite being hard to recognize.

Review: Teatulia Tulsi Infusion

Teatulia is another company with a great website that if you take a few minutes to peruse, it will make you want to buy their teas and support the community of the tea growers. I find it interesting that Teatulia has a created a cow co-op, whose members receive a cow and payoff their cow in milk and cow dung. Really, if you have a minute head on out to their website and check it out.

This tea is described as Spicy & Exquisite Holy Basil. It is also has organic black tea and tulsi and is ayurvedic per Teatulia. I knew when I requested the sample that it might be something that was a little outside of the scope of what I prefer to drink on a regular basis. However, the day I requested samples, I had this sweet basil salad dressing (Papa Vino’s) that was amazing so… Anyway.

Teatulia claims that the sachets that the tea comes are bio-degradable and that the canister is compostable. That does score a brownie point with me. I boiled some water and immersed the sachet for two minutes. This tea smells and tastes quite different than anything I’ve come across on the market. The herbs used taste like they would be good in cooking some meat or rice–or maybe even in a salad dressing. Those of you who like to cook with tea should really get some of this. I was expecting something a little more spicy, but this is not a heavy spice load–in fact I found the spice to be kinda subdued.

I guess when push comes to shove this is not something that I would likely purchase unless I were into cooking with tea. It reminded me a little more a meat marinade than something that I would drink for pleasure or to quench my thirst. However, I would like to try something a little more traditional from Teatulia.

Review: Kalahari ChocoLatte Red Tea Raspberry Truffle

Rooibos is becoming more and more popular, and with its increasing popularity are an increases in the numbers and types of flavor blends. Kalahari Cafe’s Artisan Raspberry Truffle ChocoLatte Red Tea appeals to those that, like me, have a sweet tooth and just love anything with chocolate in it. The Raspberry Truffle tea is one of five interesting flavors offered in their ChocoLatte tea series. The tea is offered in eco-friendly bags made of unbleached Manila hemp and unbleached wood pulp, however, the sample bag I was given was individually wrapped in a foil-lined paper packet…if all of their teabags are packaged like such, then the excessive use of paper and foil probably cancels out the eco-friendly teabags! Anyway, on to the tea. The aroma of this tea is nothing short of delightful. Elements of chocolate and a sweet raspberry flavor are evident. As has been my experience, all rooibos blends, regardless of ingredients, tend to look the same when brewed. This one was no different, producing a rich amber liquid. The chocolate flavor, resulting from dark-roasted cacao and organic chocolate flavor (whatever that means) was most prominent for me, but the raspberry sweetness (provided courtesy of “natural raspberry flavor”) finished each sip. In all, this was a very decent cup o’ tea, and one I could see being quite successful as a dessert tea. Kalahari recommends steeping the tea for three to five minutes, but I would recommend brewing this one for a minimum of five minutes because the flavors seem to need the extra time to really be coaxed out of the tea bag. At a cost of about $5 for 16 tea bags, this tea isn’t exactly economically priced, but if you are into sugary and chocolate teas, particularly those of organic origins, its probably worth giving this tea a try.

Review: Tea Guys Morning Americano

I don’t normally drink milk in my tea but by adding a little it really did make this tea richer, as it said it would in the description on this tea.

Tea Guys is based out of New England and uses premium, natural, organic and fresh ingredients. They have some interesting blends and the more you buy the cheaper it is, which is smart if you want to share your tea as I do.

Wait a second after you open the package and let the tea just sit. Wow - I think the apple pieces intensify the chocolate and brings out a little fruit aroma in the background. The infused leaves have just a touch of smokiness to them.
I really enjoyed drinking this tea. It has a vanilla/chocolate/earthy taste with a little sweetness.

Being in the South, I always try my tea iced to see what I will be drinking during the next summer. I am not the usual Southerner however, because I don’t normally put sugar in my tea, just as a treat sometimes. It was different and delightful having the cocoa notes in the iced version.

This is a great tea anytime - summer, winter, and I can even imagine it as a great start in the morning because of its heartiness.