Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teasenz
Tea Description:
Reserved for the imperial families since the Song Dynasty in 960 AD. All the appeal and flavor of green tea and enhanced by the aroma of jasmine flowers, Emporial Jasmine Green Tea has a subtly sweet taste and blooming fragrance. Light, soft, and perfumy with a delicate mouthfeel.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I have been craving a green jasmine tea for a bit now. I haven’t had any jasmine pearls in a bit so I thought this might be a great tea to try and calm my cravings.
Let’s start with how gorgeous this tea looks. Just simply gorgeous. One of those teas that makes you sit back and really take it all in. Twisty green and white like tea leaves. I can’t get over how much I love the look of this tea.
Now the aroma of this dry leaf is simply outstanding. You get everything. The sweet grassy like aromas of the green tea mingled in brilliantly with the floral aspects. This is one of those teas that once you smell it, your mouth starts to water.
I prepped my water and brewed the tea for a few minutes. I couldn’t wait to get the gorgeous fragrant brew into my mug. Took my first sip, and sadly, I honestly didn’t care for the flavor. For me, the floral aspects overtake everything else. Now this could absolutely be an error on my part and probably is. I may not have shaken the pouch up enough to distribute the flavors appropriately.
The only flavor I get is an overwhelming floral taste is even too much for this floral loving gal. Typically the more floral flavor there is the more I like it but this one isn’t that way.
For how gorgeous this tea is and how beautifully the cuppa smells, I think I need to take another swing at this tea. It has all the characteristics of being an amazing cuppa so I’m thinking I either oversteeped or overleafed.
I have adored all the other teas from this company, this is an ooops on me!
Lychee Konnyaku from Ette Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black/Green
Where to Buy: Ette Tea
Tea Description:
Our newest tea formula of Jasmine green, black tea, cranberries, lychee pieces & lily blossoms. Sweet tasting & tangy as the Japanese jelly dessert, Lychee Konnyaku tea provides the added malty texture and body for the gourmet tea lover.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This, along with the Mango Sticky Rice blend that I’ve yet to try, is the Ette Tea blend I’m most excited about tasting and reviewing. I absolutely adore lychee in just about anything, but especially in tea. Plus, cranberry is also one of my favourite fruit flavours in tea so the pairing of the two got me really, really excited. It’s also a pairing that I haven’t seen done before which was really cool too.
Dry; this has some really robust smelling lychee. It’s also fairly floral which should be expected given that there’s jasmine from the green tea and also the addition of lily, but lychee is a very floral tasting fruit too so it comes from that as well. I don’t see as many cranberries in the leaf as I want their to be, though I did make sure that what I measured out for my mug had at least one included.
Wow; this smelled heavenly when it was also steeped up! It’s a very strong lychee aroma; definitely the most powerful aspect of the tea, but there’s also a really soft, soothing jasmine smell backed up by other floral elements like lily and maybe also orchid. It’s actually hard to pick out specific notes from either the black or the green tea used though. I can also smell the cranberry, but only slightly.
Thankfully the cranberry is a bit more noticeable in the taste; it cuts through pretty clearly in the start of the sip with some sweetness but also some tartness that reminds me of cranberry jelly like you’d have around Thanksgiving. However, the very lush taste of the lychee and jasmine over takes it early on leaving me feeling just slightly cheated. I want more cranberry because while it’s so different to me to see it paired with lychee the two flavours go together really well!
The lychee is juicy and rich and reminds me a lot of actual lychee or ‘cocktail’ lychee that’s been canned in its own sweetened juices. It’s mouthwatering and strong as a flavour. I can see where, paired with the sweetness of the cranberry, this could get a little too sweet but thankfully there’s the soothing presence of jasmine that brings this back down to a reasonable level and keeps it distinctly flavoured but smooth and relaxing too.
Also, now that it’s steeped I think the base teas come through just slightly more; the first half of the mug seemed to have a really light vegetal taste to it that was brought more into focus when you concentrated on the jasmine but the slightly malty black base was more present in the aftertaste along with the lingering flavour of lychee, and especially present with the last few tiny sips from the mug when everything had cooled down.
There’s definitely room for improvement, but overall this was a really impressive and well executed tea and I’m absolutely kicking myself for just getting 10g! I’ve now tried 3/5 samples and this is definitely my favourite so far. This company has yet to really disappoint me!
