Frosty Garden from Mellow Monk is a Kumamoto-style guricha with tea leaf stems. Apparently, the curly-shaped guricha leaves are prepared using a steaming process, rather than a pan-fried process, which give this tea its special flavor.
First and foremost, let me say that I like the name of the tea, and it’s helped me be inspired while drinking this brew. This is a well-balanced tea, just the right mix of both vegetal and fruity notes, and both sweet and savory tones. The vegetal notes feel like spring grass that grew up fast and got caught by that last, sudden wet frost. This tea feels green and fresh, like melting frost on new grass, very wet and green.
There are also some brighter notes, which taste more lemony with a hint of savory herbs like sage or parsley. In the aftertaste, there’s a bit of green almost-melon sweetness. The most I drink this tea, the more I experience a buttery mouthfeel with hints of toasted nuts.
Reminding me of the cusp of spring weather where new greens meet the last clutches of cold, Frosty Garden from Mellow Monk is aptly named, and a fresh, fantastic brew.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Mellow Monk
Description:
Frosty Garden™ is a shiraore (also known as karigane), a tasty sencha mixed with some white leaf stems. That, plus a slightly different tea-crafting technique, results in a uniquely “soft” tea—a lightly herbaceous aroma, a gentle, creamy sweetness with nutty overtones, hints of sage, and a savory finish. This tea is always first flush—made from the first harvest of spring leaves.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Rose Chateau by The Love Tea Co
I steeped this tea at 200 degrees in about a cup of water for about four minutes.
This is another selection from the Love Tea Company, who donates a quarter of their proceeds to mental health causes. Their teas also come in cute little reusable canisters!
The dried leaf has rose petals and other flower petals too, it looks like. According to the ingredients list these could be hibiscus, calendula, or sunflower petals, which are all included in the blend! In addition, there’s green tea in here and some curled oolong bits and some pieces of dried fruit (which turn out to be rosehips based on the ingredients list). It smells mainly fruity, with some rose/floral scent.
The steeped liquid looks almost pinkish-peach and smells like strawberry with floral notes and some savory green tea flavor.
I steeped for four minutes because it didn’t seem very strong at three (and I prefer getting stronger flavor out of my tea when I can).
First sip: it tastes a little astringent and strawberryish; the rose flavor isn’t overpowering here (maybe I just didn’t get any rose petals in my scoop of leaf?). It’s delicate and reminds me the most of a strawberry-flavored green tea, which is quite nice and desserty. There’s a bit of seaweedy vegetalness in the back of the throat. A few particles of tea escaped the strainer so I’d recommend a fine mesh if you don’t like that sort of thing (although mostly they’re just sitting on the bottom of the cup not causing a problem).
Overall it’s light, floral/fruity, but with a hint of buttery aftertaste (from the oolong), so I’d say it’s great for afternoon or evening relaxation (unless you’re super-sensitive to caffeine; green tea generally has just a little).
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green/Black
Where to Buy: The Love Tea Company
Description
This blend was created by a Canadian Master to evoke the character and spirit of France’s best rose vintages. It’s combination of some of the most luxurious green and black teas available today. Like wine, it goes perfectly with cured meats and fine cheeses. Milk and sugar are NOT recommended with this one.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
RYCBAR by Fandom Teas. . . .
I’m a Doctor Who fan and, even with the information that this is an “impossible girl” inspired tea, it still took me several seconds to figure out what the name of this blend meant. Maybe my brain was just really slow today? Hopefully you can figure it out faster. 😉
I steeped two teaspoons of this tea in ten ounces of 175-degree water for three minutes.
While steeping, it starts smelling fruity right away. This is a flavored tea (raspberry-pomegranate flavored) and the tea liquid is much darker than an unflavored green tea would. That might be from the raspberry, although it’s not really pink; it’s a sort of clear and handsome brown color with a reddish tinge.
First sip: It’s definitely fruity and sweet. Pomegranate and raspberry are both quite tart fruits, but the tartness isn’t coming through too strongly here, although yes, there is quite a bit of astringency. The fruity flavors complement each other well, and the green tea base sings backup; I’m hard put to it to distinguish its flavor components separately, yet I can still tell it’s there.
With sugar: Sweeter, of course. But surprisingly, I can taste the green tea base a bit more now. The sugar tames the astringency but doesn’t really bring out the fruity flavors like I hoped/assumed it would.
I bet this one would be great as iced tea too, but wouldn’t want to try milk with it because it might be too acidic for that.
All in all a fun tea, and one that I’d like to try iced (or as cold-brew) if I ever have the chance to try it again!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green Tea
Where to Buy: Fandom Teas
Description
This tea is no longer available but click below for Doctor Who teas that are.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Kind Green by Love Some Tea. . . . .
The tea leaves are long, twisty, intact, and dark green. I used the entire sample packet and steeped it for 3 minutes at 175 degrees in about 6 ounces of water.
This tea starts to smell quite buttery and floral while steeping. The water’s not turning color much, but it smells very nice. (When I saw the leaves and smelled the sweet and buttery flavor I kind of forgot this was a green tea rather than an oolong tea, so I was expecting the water to get darker than it did.)
After steeping, the tea liquid is a light whitish yellow; there’s not really much green in it at all. It tastes astringent, floral, and a bit sweet (honey-like?). It has fruity and orchardy notes and maybe a hint of umami. It really tastes much more like an oolong to me than a green tea, with its orchid-fruity taste and lack of the usual green tea flavors like jasmine/grass/seaweed/etc. Although there’s a bit of umami, there’s not a lot of vegetal flavor. The leaves looked oolongy too–super long and twisty.
As I continued drinking this tea, I found it to be a very complex, fulfilling cup. It has more than enough flavor notes to stand on its own without sugar or milk, and is interesting enough that I didn’t get tired of the flavor and found myself wishing for more when I’d finished. I normally consider myself more of a dark-tea person (and don’t drink oolongs or greens much) so that’s quite impressive.
The tea company has a focus on natural tea production and harvesting tea leaves in their natural state (grown pesticide/fertilizer free and plantation free in the forest), which means their processing tends to be a bit different than conventional processing. This may account for the super-high quality of the leaves and the fact that it has elements of oolong as well as of green tea (at least in my opinion). I’m kind of in love with this tea now so I might just have to go and buy some more from their website now. And if you enjoy complex oolong-y flavors and high-quality tea leaves in your cup, you might want to do the same. 🙂
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Love Some Tea
Description
Green Tea natural and wild, the way nature intended. Our green tea is wild picked from the mountains of Northern Thailand.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Dragon from Transcendence . . . .
Ever encountered a tea that just transcends you into that perfect soulful moment that makes you think everything is going to be ok?
Every once in a while, I’ll come across a tea that just demands my full attention. No multi-tasking is allowed while encountering this tea. No TV, no tablet, no phone. . . .just the serene organic noises from my kids playing-using their imagination to create fun games that only the two of them understand. Don’t get me wrong, I drink brilliant tea blends from the minute I wake up to the minute I go to bed, but some teas just take you a different level. Dragon from Transcendence is the latest example of this sort of tea for me.
Dragon from Transcendence is a simple no fuss green tea- a Long Jing tea to be precise. This tea gives you all the love of a well balanced green tea while providing levels of gorgeous flavor through each sip.
First sip in you are greeted with the familiar nutty slightly vegetal tone while half way through a hint of sweetness makes an approached with that nutty slightly bitter flavor coming back for the final touch. A lovely mix of sweet nutty vegetal that green teas are known for. This one is especially well balanced and after infusing the tea leaves to exhaustion, this tea has carved a special place in my tea drinking regime.
I’m a green tea kind of girl, drinking this particular tea like there is no tomorrow. But Dragon from Transcendence took me by surprise by who lovely the brew was and reminded me why I love green teas so much. The name Dragon fits this tea so perfectly too! Named after the creature that stalked the area where this tea is grown, this tea gives you all the love you can take with that subtle touch of bitterness that shows you Dragon is a tea that craves-no-demands attention!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Transcendence
Description
DRAGON also known as Long Jing tea is almost as famous as the beast it is named after, being one of the most renowned teas in China. Grown close to the West Lake in Hangzhou; Long Jing tea is surrounded by mountains, forests, and creeks – truly a Dragon’s playground. With a sweet taste and little bitterness; Long Jing will make you strong and as resilient, as a DRAGON…..
DRAGON engages the strength and power within you with its Caffeine and Vitamin C content (Thompson et al. 2001; Nienman et al. 2002; Stuart et al. 2005; Beck et al. 2006; Keisler and Armsey 2006; Jones 2008; Yfanti et al. 2010).
Furthermore, Amino Acids found in DRAGON have been shown to have a performance enhancing effect and can also be used as energy source, when stores are dwindling (DeSourza and Green,2005; Williams 2005; Burrin and Stoll, 2008; Zhou et al. 2013)
So transcend your limits with the power and intensity of a DRAGON, and let nothing get in the way of your goals…
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
