Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green & Black Teas
Where to Buy: Hale Tea Company
Tea Description:
Vanilla – rich and sweet, and jasmine – floral and fragrant. Two very classic flavours blend together for some powerful aromatics. The black tea adds great body and fullness and stands out amongst the flavours with a bit of maltiness and hints of caramel and cocoa.
Learn more about this tea here.
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Taster’s Review:
I was a little apprehensive about this Vanilla Jasmine Tea Blend from Hale Tea Company. I was worried … because from the description of this tea provided on the Amoda Tea website, it almost reads as though the jasmine was added to the tea rather than being naturally scented by layering the tea leaves with jasmine blossoms.
In most cases when jasmine oils are used to flavor tea leaves, the tea comes out tasting more like perfume than … well, tea. The layering process, following the harvesting of the leaves … produces the best flavor for jasmine teas. And from the way the description from Amoda Tea reads … this sounds like the tea leaves have been flavored instead of scented.
But, I figured I’d give it a try. I opened the pouch and inhaled deeply to capture the fragrance … I smell more vanilla than jasmine. This is a good sign! Things are definitely looking up! So, I brewed the tea, poured myself a cup, got cozy in my chair … and now … let’s take a sip…
Hmm … not bad. Not bad at all. I taste vanilla. Creamy, luscious vanilla! I taste the earthy qualities of the black tea … a bit softer since I steeped at a lower temperature (since this is a black and green tea leaf blend, I accommodated the delicate green leaves and brewed this at 180°F for 3 minutes), and I taste the smooth, buttery notes of the green tea. And I taste jasmine too. It’s light … soft … exotic. It tastes a lot to me like maybe the green tea leaves in this blend were layered and scented rather than flavored.
Now, I still don’t really know how the jasmine in this tea came to be part of these tea leaves, but, this doesn’t taste perfume-y and that’s what I really care about. I don’t like tea that tastes like soap. Or something that should be applied to the body rather than sipped from a teacup. And this tea doesn’t taste like something that I should wear … it tastes sweet, creamy and rather nice, actually!
I like that all flavors that this tea suggests in the description: black tea, green tea, vanilla and jasmine … all these flavors are present and accounted for, but no one flavor dominates the cup. The vanilla is the strongest flavor, and it gives the cup a creamy elegance … this tastes like something you might enjoy at a fancy tea party, or maybe it’s also something you’d enjoy while sitting at the computer typing your thoughts to whomever might read them, like I’m doing now.
Another wonderful tea selection from Amoda Tea. I’m glad that I decided to try it despite my apprehension.
