Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black & Green Tea Blend
Where to Buy: Art of Tea
Tea Description:
This award winning blend of select black tea and green teas, jasmine blossoms, and passionfruit essence has a long lasting, sweet flavor and astounding aroma that carries well hot and as a refreshing iced tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I am sometimes a bit stand-offish when it comes to blends like this, where two different tea types (like black and green teas, as was used in this blend) are combined into one tea blend. I worry that the black tea will overpower the lighter flavors of the green tea, and I’m concerned about the proper temperature and steep time.
Generally speaking, when I encounter a blend like this, I tend to yield to the tea type that requires the lower temperature: in this case, it’s the green tea. So I heated the water to 180°F and steeped it for three minutes. This seemed to do the trick, because this is quite tasty!
And, I’m happy to say that while the black tea notes seem to be a bit stronger than the green, I can still taste the lightness of the green tea as well as the rich, earthy notes of the black tea. The black tea is softer than a black tea that was brewed at a higher temperature – obviously! – but, I’m still getting a lot of black tea flavor in this cup.
The green tea adds a soft, buttery note and a hint of freshness to the cup, and I like the way that melds with both the notes of flower from the jasmine and the essence of passion fruit, which is sweet and flavorful. The black tea adds a nice depth to the cup and gives an interesting contrast to the sweeter notes of the green tea. There is some astringency to this, but not a lot, and it’s not bitter.
Overall, this is a pleasingly sweet tea that’s a little bit fruity and a little bit floral, and a whole lot enjoyable. This tastes good served hot, but I like it even better when it’s chilled! I was sure to save some of what I brewed and stashed it in the fridge, and iced … this tastes really great! As it cools, I find that the passion fruit notes really pop, and the floral notes aren’t quite as sharp, offering an interesting exotic quality to the tea that I didn’t experience when the tea was hot. It’s an interesting twist on the classic tropical flavored iced tea!
