Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Butiki Teas
Tea Description:
Pistachio Ice Cream has an Organic Mao Jian base with generous amounts of roasted pistachios and a dash of lotus stamens. The sweet roasted pistachio flavor is immediately noticed followed by prominent notes of heavy cream. Light notes of vanilla can also be distinguished. Add some sugar to turn this smooth full-bodied tea into a dessert treat that resembles pistachio ice cream.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Today is my grampa’s birthday – I miss him so much. And this is an excellent tea to enjoy on the anniversary of his birth, because he loved ice cream. I think he would have really gotten a kick out of this tea, even though he wasn’t much of a tea drinker.
How often do you come across a tea that has you smacking your lips together to keep the taste moving around on your palate … long after the sip is gone? Well, that’s what I’m doing with this tea. This tastes like someone dropped a scoop of pistachio ice cream into my cup of Mao Jian green tea and let it melt. And I’m loving every sip of this!
I’m happy with how every flavor is represented: I can taste the green tea with its fresh vegetal notes and I even taste a hint of the lotus, I taste the toasted nutty taste of the pistachio, and the cream with its sweet, creamy, vanilla character. It is sweet, creamy and absolutely delectable!
I’m drinking this hot, because, quite frankly, I’m not patient enough to allow it to cool. But, I suspect that it is amazing served chilled too. It has a natural sweetness to it, so you needn’t add any sugar or other sweetener. It’s stunning as is!
I am so very impressed with just how good this tea is. It is a flavored tea – and yes, the flavors are strong, but I love that the flavors have not overpowered the green tea. I taste the green tea – and that’s what I think I like best about this. I’m drinking tea … but I’m also enjoying pistachio ice cream – and without all the fat and calories of pistachio ice cream!
Huo Shan Yellow Sprouting Tea from Mark T. Wendell
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Yellow
Where to Buy: Mark T. Wendell
Product Description:
This rare yellow tea from China’s Anhui province is comprised of beautiful hand-crafted leaves and downy silver buds. This tea is notable for its rich, full and smooth tasting floral infusion. When brewed, our Yellow Sprouting produces a naturally sweet and refreshingly clean tasting cup of tea.
Taster’s Review:
This Yellow tea is one of the newest additions to the Mark T. Wendell collection of teas. And you know I’m excited about it; yellow Tea is my favorite!
There is just something about yellow tea that no other tea type can seem to duplicate. It has similarities of white tea, green tea and Oolong tea, but, it isn’t quite like any of them … if that makes sense. It has some of the delicate qualities of a white tea (and sometimes a green tea, depending upon the green), it has some of the light vegetative qualities of some green teas, and then it has a similar mouthfeel and smoothness of an Oolong.
This Huo Shan tastes incredibly fresh, and the sprouting buds are tiny. Very young leaves. After infusing, I ate a few of the leaves, and they are very tender to the tooth, and so sweet and gentle tasting.
The light colored liquor is sweet and possesses a grassy taste. It is sweet and refreshing. The mouthfeel is very soft and silky. And it is absolutely incredible.
If you haven’t yet tried yellow tea, you really should. And this Huo Shan Yellow Sprouting Tea is a good place to start!
Canadian Ice Wine Tea from Culinary Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Culinary Teas
Product Description:
Our Canadian Ice Wine tea has a unique flavor. Grapes are left to fully ripen and then freeze before they are picked to make ice wine. Add a dash of sugar and have an organoleptic journey to the winter vineyards of Niagara. A delicious fresh and piquant white grape flavor with hints of exotic fruit that pleasantly lingers on the tongue. Made with all natural flavorings.
Taster’s Review:
I know that I’ve written about my gramma and her yard full of fruit. One fruit that she grew that I don’t think I’ve written about, though, is her grape vine. It wasn’t as prolific as her lemon tree or her apricot tree, but, the limited amount of fruit she did manage to harvest from it was very memorable. Those grapes were considered a great treat when they were harvested because there weren’t quite so many of them as the other fruit.
These weren’t the ordinary, store-bought variety of grapes. They had seeds in them, and the fruit was crisp and juicy with just a hint of sweetness to them. They were more tart than sweet. It was almost a pucker-y kind of tart, but just as I was about to pucker, the sweetness would arrive. They were very refreshing, bursting with grape flavor.
This Canadian Ice Wine Tea brings me back to those days and the flavor of those grapes. It has a crisp, bright flavor that is tart with just a hint of sweetness. It is a true grape flavor – not some cloyingly sweet, artificial grape taste that you might find in purple ice pops.
The black tea base is a brisk, black Ceylon tea. Mellow and smooth; it is not particularly strong. It does its job: providing a delicious background flavor. It has some astringency to it which plays well with the wine-like flavor.
I really have enjoyed this tea; it is a nice change from the typical sweet-fruit flavored teas out there. It’s remarkably refreshing – and it has this crisp, fresh taste to it that has really taken me by surprise. I like this! It makes a nice afternoon tea or, for a real treat – try it iced! When chilled this tea becomes much more wine-like in flavor. The grape flavor really emerges powerfully. Awesome!