Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Tea Avenue
Tea Description:
Known for it’s calming qualities, Magnolia is a sumptuous, exotic tea, light and pure-tasting, Magnolia is a highly refined tea with an appealing sweet flavor and warm floral notes.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh. My. Goodness! I have often said that jasmine is my favorite flower with which to ‘scent’ a tea – but when it comes to Oolong teas, I think that magnolia is my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, I love Jasmine Oolong – just as I adored the Jasmine Oolong tea from Tea Ave., but this … this Magnolia Oolong Tea from Tea Ave. is absolutely superb!
The base tea is my favorite type of Oolong – Ali Shan! – and that’s been scented with magnolia blossoms. The essence of magnolia is absorbed into the leaves during a baking process which imparts a lovely note of the flower without becoming too perfume-y.
The tea has a sweet flavor that is buttery, like browned butter. I can taste a hint of caramel in the buttery notes. It isn’t overly vegetal, although I do get hints of vegetation. The floral notes are soft and sweet – no sharpness! Sweet, nutty notes. So smooth. No astringency. A sweet, delectable cup.
And of course, this is an Oolong – and that means multiple infusions! With a tea that tastes this good, I find myself thrilled that I’m going to be tasting more!
My second cup (infusions 3 and 4) was a little stronger in flavor than the first. I found the magnolia notes to be a little more focused. Focused – but still not what I’d call sharp. Still beautifully soft and sweet. This cup is a little less creamy, but I still get some of those delicious browned butter notes. I taste a little more vegetative flavor but it’s still not a strong flavor. The nutty flavors are more distinct now and remind me of hazelnut – like freshly toasted hazelnuts! Mmm!
The third cup (infusions 5 and 6) was still fantastically flavorful. I am still getting the same flavors that I tasted in the first and second cups: sweet, hazelnut, brown butter, I’m even tasting distinct hints of butterscotch! Floral but not sharp, whispers of vegetation. Truly, a delightful cup of tea.
Tea Ave. celebrates it’s GRAND OPENING today – it’d definitely be worth your while to go and peruse their teas! I highly recommend putting this one in your cart while you’re there. This is a tea that I’d recommend to all tea lovers – even those that are usually not fond of floral essence in their tea. The way the floral notes mingle with the sweet, creamy butter notes and nutty tones is so delightful! You really MUST try this one!
Kolkata Street Chai Tea from Teabox
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Teabox
Tea Description:
This particular blend has been created using rich Assam tea and exotic Indian spices, including saffron, cardamom, nutmeg and ginger to make an extraordinary cup of chai. The flavor is virile and aroma heady. Savor a cup of this tea inspired by the city of joy – Kolkata.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The photo shows a few saffron threads in the Kolkata Street Chai Tea from Teabox, but I didn’t see that many when I measured out the tea into the basket of my Kati tumbler. In fact, I only saw one tiny piece of what might have been a saffron thread when I measured out my heaping bamboo scoop. There could have been more in there, I could have missed a small piece or two, but the picture shows numerous long threads of saffron. In reality, what I have is a fraction of a fraction of one thread.
I do realize that saffron is one of the most expensive spices out there (if not the most expensive) and to add it so liberally to a tea blend would be very costly. Given that they’re selling this blend for just under $10 for 100 grams of the tea, I can see why they need to be thrifty with the saffron threads, but don’t mislead the customers by showing a photograph with many saffron threads when the blend contains less than a fraction of that.
All that aside, this is a very tasty chai. The CTC Assam is very rich and malty. It’s somewhat astringent, but not overly so. It’s not bitter although I do get some bitterness from the saffron. I steeped the tea in near boiling water as per the suggested parameters on the website, and steeped it for only 3 minutes rather than the suggested 4 minutes. The black tea is full flavored and satisfying. It’s a good base for the spices.
I like the combination of spices here. Yes, I can taste the saffron (even a small amount IS effective). As I mentioned before, I get a slight bitter note from the saffron as well as a hint of honey like flavor from it. The honey-esque notes are a wonderful complement to the warm notes of cardamom and ginger, and I love the nutty flavor of the nutmeg in this.
I’m usually quite happy when I find a chai with nutmeg in the blend and of the many different chai blends that I’ve tasted over the years, I must say that this one has the most obvious nutmeg flavor to it! Quite a delight to taste!
I really enjoyed this tea despite my misgivings about the misleading photograph. The chai blend is very flavorful and I do recommend it. But I also would recommend to Teabox that they represent their tea more truthfully in the photograph. If someone buys this based on what they’re seeing in the photograph, they’re going to be disappointed when they open the package to find significantly less saffron than the photo suggests.
Everyday Green Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
Our modern version of green tea. The unfermented tea leaves are processed gently, encouraging the mellow tea flavours to come through to give a smoother flavour with no harshness. Ideal with or without milk!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I had my reservations about this Everyday Green Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas. I think that by now, I’ve shown that I’m a little less than enthusiastic when it comes to bagged tea. That said, I do occasionally find not only what I’d deem ‘acceptable’ bagged tea but what I might even call tasty!
This is one such bagged tea. Sure, I’d be happier if this were a loose leaf tea. But, for a bagged tea, this is pleasant. It’s tasty.
To brew it, I heated my kettle of freshly filtered water to 175°F and put one tea bag into a mug. Then I added the heated water and let it steep for 2 minutes.
It tastes like ‘green tea.’ It’s smooth, sweet and buttery. It has vegetal notes that are a little grassy and a little like lima beans.
The tea is not bitter but there is a fair amount of astringency to this – much more so than I’m used to experiencing with a green tea. It starts out rather subtle and it develops and now that I’m halfway through the cup I’m finding this to have a dry, astringent finish.
Overall, this is alright. It isn’t something I’m likely to stock in my pantry but it’s not something I’d refuse if I were offered it, either.
Cinnamon Apricot Iced Honeybush Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Organic caffeine-free honeybush with organic sweet cinnamon and apricot flavors. This is a tea the whole family will love. We made a similar rooibos blend with these flavors for a 52teas blend years ago. It was my wife’s favorite and received the name, “Sheri’s Blend”. One of our tea bar customers took one sip of that tea and exclaimed, “It takes just like Christmas!” Personally, I think this honeybush blend is even better.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I remember really liking the Sheri’s Blend from 52Teas which was a rooibos based blend with the same flavors of apricot and cinnamon. And as weird as it is for me to admit, I think I liked that blend better than I’m liking this Cinnamon Apricot Iced Honeybush Tea from Southern Boy Teas.
Maybe it’s the “iced” part, because I am of the firm belief that I prefer honeybush over rooibos so I don’t think that’s the issue with this. Then again, maybe it is the rooibos – maybe rooibos just goes better with the apricot and cinnamon flavors than the honeybush does. I don’t know.
Don’t get me wrong, I do like this tisane. It’s tasty. But its not as tasty as I remember Sheri’s Blend being. I remember tasting a good, strong flavor of apricot that tasted true to the fruit, and here, I’m having trouble finding much apricot flavor at all.
The cinnamon is really dominant in this blend. I taste mostly cinnamon and it seems to be masking the flavor of the apricot a bit. After drinking about 2/3 of the glass, I start to pick up on the apricot notes, but they’re still not as strong as I’d like them to be.
The cinnamon is the top note, with mid-notes of honeyed nutty flavors and a low note of apricot. It’s a tasty blend, but if you’re looking for a strong apricot flavor, this tea isn’t bringing that for me. But if you like a really nice cinnamon flavor that’s a little sweet and a little spicy – kind of like the cinnamon you’d sprinkle on your breakfast toast – this tea delivers!
Overall, a tasty iced tisane, but I’d like it better if the apricot were more pronounced.
Keemun Black Tea from Swan Sisters
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
This tea is available from Amoda Tea.
Tea Description:
This is a rich, lightly smoky black tea that’s smooth & bold. There’s a subtle rose note that adds depth to this cup. It has an assertive edge that gets more pronounced with longer steep times. Try it more “edgy” – 1 tsp in 8oz for 3-5 minutes.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda Tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Keemun Black Tea from Swan Sisters is a lovely Keemun. It has a lot of the flavors that I expect from a top-notch Keemun tea.
To brew this, I used my Kati Tumbler. I measured a bamboo scoop of the tea into my basket and poured boiling water into the tumbler and let it steep for 3 minutes. This produced a robust cup of tea that would make a nice mid-morning cuppa!
It’s got a pleasant smoky flavor – not too smoky, not too overwhelming – but just enough to stimulate the senses. It evokes thoughts of autumn when the weather starts to become a little cooler and people start warming their homes with fires in the fireplace. The smoke billowing from their chimneys creates a smoky note in the air that I can almost taste. That’s what I experience when I drink this Keemun, that wisp of smoke in the air on a cool autumn evening.
I often think (in my own little twisted tea mind) that there are two different ‘types’ of Keemun: there is the smoky Keemun (like this one) and there is a wine-like Keemun. This one is more smoky than wine-like, although there are some fruity, wine-like notes to this as well. I like the way the hints of fruit play with the smoky flavors.
And to my surprise, I notice hints of rose as suggested in the description above. This is not something I always pick up on, so I’m not sure that I’m tasting it now, or my mind is just making me think I taste it because it was suggested to me. But, either way, it’s a pleasant experience.
Overall, a really enjoyable Keemun. Amoda Tea offers me another lovely tea, making me a happy tea sipper. Thank you!