Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Octavia Tea
Tea Description:
This is a characteristic green oolong that is calmingly sweet and fresh. The first steep is light and hints at what’s to come in successive infusions. Give it a second steep and you’ll discover more depth – with floral & fruit notes, vegetal flavours and a stronger minerality that works perfectly.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
Taster’s Review:
The dry leaf aroma of this Silver Mountain Water Oolong Tea from Octavia Tea is vegetative with very soft notes of flower. The tea leaves have been tightly wound into tiny pellets and the color is a deep, forest green.
My first cup of this tea (a combination of infusions 1 & 2 following a quick 15 second rinse) was a very pale greenish-yellow liquid with very little fragrance. I take note of the texture – it is soft and silky – like a wispy cloud that floats over the palate. The flavor is as soft as the color and almost as subtle as the fragrance (but not quite!) But even with the delicate flavor, I notice complexity. I taste notes of vegetative tones and a distant note of flower that beckons me to taste more of it by infusing these leaves yet again. So I shall!
The second cup (infusions 3 & 4) is when I notice more flavors starting to emerge. There is more color to the cup as well … the tea is a deeper color of greenish-yellow, still a light shade but not as pale as the first. I taste a hint of fruit that evokes thoughts of a crisp apple. The floral tones are more obvious now. The vegetative notes are also more apparent, but they aren’t as dominate as the flowery notes.
The third cup (infusions 5 & 6) is where I begin to appreciate the sweetness of this tea. The description from Octavia Tea suggests a fig-like flavor with a raisin-y sweetness, but I am not tasting that so much. This is more like a honey-like taste to me. Somewhere between the sweetness of pollen and the honey that is produced from it. The floral notes are still present, but, I’ve noticed that the vegetative tones are beginning to wane somewhat.
The third cup was also noticeably creamier than the first two cups. This cup is very Milk Oolong-ish! Sweet and creamy and luscious! And because I loved this third cup so much, I decided to go for one more cup (infusions 7 & 8).
Cup four was not quite as sweet and creamy as the third. The third was absolutely my favorite of the four cups that I had of this tea. The fourth cup was still quite tasty though … sweet and of the four cups, this one offered the most floral notes and more fruit notes than the first three cups too. I taste very little vegetal flavor now, and the astringency has definitely begun to subside. The second cup was the most astringent, but even then, it was what I’d call a mild astringency.
A very enjoyable Oolong experience, I’m really that my Amoda Tea Box offered me this opportunity to try this tea!
Passion Fruit Flavored Rooibos Blend from Octavia Tea
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Rooibos
Where to Buy: Octavia Tea
Tisane Description:
Lemon myrtle is more lemony than a lemon itself. If you didn’t know that already, this tea will show you! The citrus hits you, mingles with the tropical fruit and continues to linger. The hibiscus plays its part in adding beautiful colour and a tartness that tones down the sweetness of the tropical fruit, creating a more true fruit flavour.
Learn more about this blend here.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
Taster’s Review:
The aroma of this Passion Fruit Flavored Rooibos Blend from Octavia Tea really blew me away! It smells AMAZING! The combination of the passion fruit, peach and mango essences, together with the notes of citrus from the lemon myrtle … create a really ambrosial fragrance that … knocked my socks off!
OK … so my socks are still on, but you get what I’m saying, right?
And … I’m loving what I’m tasting here too. This is really yummy. But … for the purists out there who think that tea should taste like tea and not like a sweet, fruity drink … this tisane is NOT for you! This is a sweet, fruity drink!
In fact, one of the things I like best about it is that I’m not tasting much of the rooibos base. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, I’m not a big fan of the woodsy tasting herb. Here, just hints of the nutty, honeyed taste of rooibos comes through.
And I’m also happy to say that even though I steeped this for seven minutes, I didn’t get a heavy hibiscus note … nor did I get that heavy syrupy thickness that comes with steeping hibiscus a long time. The hibiscus here has been thoughtfully blended … adding just enough to give the cup just a touch of tart flavor without overpowering the blend.
The lemon-y notes from the lemon myrtle is bright and flavorful, and it really perks up the other fruit notes. The passion fruit, the peach and the mango … make delightful partners in this blend … so sweet and juicy!
This is a tisane that kids would love because it has a lot of sweet, fruity flavor. And it would certainly be better for them than that sugar-y soda … not only would it be less sugar, but rooibos have some great health benefits, as does hibiscus. And I love that the ingredients in this tisane are organic, too!
A really tasty tisane! This one gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from me.
Vanilla Coconut Black Tea Blend from Octavia Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black Tea & Rooibos
Where to Buy: Octavia Tea
Tea Description:
As if the individual ingredients weren’t tasty enough on their own… brought all together, this blend delivers YUM in spades. The apple does well in this blend and the red rooibos base stands its ground. You’ll probably want to make a whole pot of this one.
Learn more about this blend here.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
Taster’s Review:
My monthly tea tasting box from Amoda Tea arrived a couple of days ago, and this Vanilla Coconut Black Tea Blend from Octavia Tea is the first tea that I’ve tried from it. This month, Amoda Tea has selected Octavia Tea as their tea company of the month.
And this is Vanilla Coconut tea is really YUM! The black tea base is fairly mild – there’s not an aggressive black tea taste here. The rooibos adds some lightness to the overall cup too, I think, so we get an earthy, slightly woody background of flavor that is a bit on the lighter side. The base does more to complement the flavors of vanilla, coconut and chocolate (YES, chocolate!) than stand on its own in this cup. Everything seems to meld together to create an enjoyable union of tastes.
The vanilla is what I notice most prominently. It is sweet and creamy and adds a certain decadent quality to the cup. Then I notice the delectable flavor of the coconut. The coconut is not quite as strong a flavor as I think it should be, given that this tea is called “Vanilla Coconut” but, I do like the accent of coconut flavor here, and I find that more coconut notes come through if I slurp the tea. It might not sound like a very well-mannered thing to do – slurping the tea – but it certainly does enhance the flavor, and since i’m sitting here by myself at the moment, I’m going to slurp!
The chocolate is a soft flavor but, I like how it seems to accentuate the flavor of the black tea. These two flavors are very synergistic, they seem to play off each other very well … each flavor benefiting from the presence of the other.
And then we have the apple bits. Usually, the apple bits do more to increase the visual appeal of the blend than really add a whole lot of flavor to the cup, but, as the tea cools and as I reach the end of my cup, I am starting to pick up on hints of apple-y flavor. The apple adds a little bit of contrast for the palate, a slight sweet-tart taste that’s very enjoyable.
This isn’t the first tea I’ve tried from Octavia, but, it’s nice to be sampling their teas again! Thanks to Amoda Tea for making Octavia Tea the focus of your tea box this month!
And speaking of Amoda Tea, they have made some changes to their box which became effective this month. The first thing that I noticed – the box is a little smaller. (The boxes are super cool, they’re flat (maybe 3/4 of an inch?) and they’re about 10″ long, and about 4″ wide.) The samples are also smaller – just enough for a pot of tea. And with the smaller sizes came a smaller price. I’m really thrilled with the changes that Amoda has made to their monthly box!
Mirabelle Cream Rooibos Tisane from Hale Tea Company
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Green Rooibos
Where to Buy: Hale Tea Company
Tisane Description:
The aroma is something of a cross between a peach and an apricot. To taste, this tea really does mimic eating an actual Mirabelle plum with it’s tart skin and sweet flesh. The green rooibos brings an interesting savouriness that interacts delightfully with the Mirabelle flavour.
Learn more about this tisane here.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
Taster’s Review:
This Mirabelle Cream Rooibos Tisane from Hale Tea Company is the last of the three teas that I received in September’s tea tasting box from Amoda Teas. The fragrance is to die for! My mouth was watering the moment I smelled it – it smells luscious … like fresh peaches and apricots … and evoked memories of my gramma’s kitchen during the month of August and beginning of September, when the last of the peaches and apricots were being harvested from her prolific trees, and she would be making peach and apricot preserves, as well as pies and cobblers. YUM! I think my stomach just growled from thinking about it … now I want a peach/apricot cobbler with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream!
But I suppose a cup of this tisane will have to suffice since those days have long since past (and I’m not nearly the baker that my gramma was!) And this is tasty … not nearly as tasty as my gramma’s cobbler with homemade vanilla ice cream, but, this also has less fat and fewer calories.
Click on the Pic to go there.
The green rooibos base is a nice choice for these flavors, because the green rooibos has a natural fruity tone to it that accents the notes of plum. I can’t recall that I’ve actually tasted a Mirabelle plum, but I do notice some plummy notes in this tea that remind me of a sun-ripened plum with the juicy, deep red flesh. I notice the sweetness and the hint of sour to those plums. This is sweeter than most plums that I’ve tasted … but I do notice that plum-like tartness to this too.
The flavor is not as peachy or apricot-y as the aroma would lead one to believe … but then, this is not supposed to be about peaches or apricots, but the Mirabelle plum, although the photo of the Mirabelle plum (above right) … those kinda look like apricots!
Overall, I’m finding this tasty tisane to be fruity with a nice contrast between sweet and tangy, with just a hint of cream. I like the lightness of this … it’s very refreshing and it tastes great hot or iced. As it cools, the flavors do soften somewhat, but it’s still a tasty, creamy, fruity drink.
A really nice tisane, I’m glad that Amoda included this in the September box!
Vanilla Jasmine Tea Blend from Hale Tea Company
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.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
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.