Jasmine – Take Me Away!
I swear this stuff is better than any bubble bath for soothing frayed nerves! My jasmine vines are in bloom which set me to hankering for some delicious jasmine tea.
The first jasmine tea I ever tasted was a painful experience. I will try to distance myself emotionally enough to recount it for you. It was EXACTLY like drinking perfume. Or soap. Or something nasty that was supposed to taste like a flower but tasted like chemicals instead. It was synthetically flavored with jasmine, and it showed.
Then along came Teavivre and they sent me a sample of jasmine tea and I nearly wept for sorrow. But then I tried it and….OH JOY! I was hooked. I have had nearly every jasmine tea they make and they are all good, but this may be my favorite, although Peach Jasmine Pearls and Silver Needle Jasmine are all in the running.
The scent caresses your poor overworked brain and then you sip the tea and just taste pure, smooth green tea with essences of naturally infused flavor. It resteeps, too, stretching that tea-buying dollar a little more.
Oh jasmine, jasmine, how do I love thee? I will never be without a Teavivre jasmine on my shelf. (I hope!)
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teavivre
Description
Jasmine “Dragon Pearls” is a deliciously sweet green tea that combines the absolute highest quality green tea with a jasmine aroma and taste. Made from unopened bud and small leaf, this tea hand rolled into small balls, which slowly unfurl during brewing, releasing an amazing taste and aroma combination of green tea and sweet jasmine. Brewing a cup of this sweet, fragrant tea only requires a few tiny pearls!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Greek Mountain Tea by Sparta Natura. . . .
Steeping specs: about 3 g in about 8 ounces of water at about 212° for about four minutes
The first thing I noticed when steeping this tea or trying to rather is that it’s kind of hard to fit all of the leaves and stems into the amount of water I have available.
The tea turned out tasting pretty good though, so I don’t think I used more leaves than I’m supposed to. I guess I could be wrong about that.
It has a distinctly herbal fragrance even while steeping that’s almost a little bit like licorice or anise. The water turns yellowish while steeping, almost like a yellow tea.
After steeping, the fragrance is still licorice -like. The first sip: I noticed a pleasant flavor, not nasty tasting like some medicinal herbs, and yet a flavor that’s uniquely different than anything I’ve tried.
It’s not a whole new flavor family though. The flavor does have some sweetness and is not bitter or even astringent really, although maybe a tiny bit of citrusy just at the end of the sip. It doesn’t taste quite as licoricey as it smells, but it’s still a fairly pleasant flavor. (I know the emphasis is really on the health benefits of this tea rather than on its flavor, but still I think the flavor is important.)
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Sparta Natura
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Don Quixotea by Novelteas
I steeped one very heaping teaspoon of dry leaves in one cup of 210 degree water for about 4.5 minutes. (I decided to be generous with the amount of leaves I put in, probably because it just smelled so amazing and I was in the mood for something strong.) I could see whole cloves and bits of cinnamon bark in the dry leaves of this tea–lots of them.
I always enjoy trying out new chai blends and seeing which spices come to the front and how the chosen spices blend together and so on. This one seems to be heavy on the spice bits and relatively light on the black tea bits, and the spices include plenty of cinnamon and ginger.
After steeping: Cinnamon does seem to be a prominent flavor, going by the smell of the steeped tea. It’s remarkably light in color for a chai, with a sweet rich smell (not just spicy but deeper and sweeter) and has an orangey tint also.
First sip: As foreshadowed by the scent, some of the spices are sweet! The sweet smoothness is what I notice first. The spiciness isn’t overwhelming and doesn’t hit until the sip reaches the back of the mouth. I think I’m mostly tasting clove, cinnamon, and ginger. (There’s pepper in the blend too but not too much.)
With milk: as expected, this delivers a much more well-rounded cup. It’s still not very spicy though. My personal preference would be to steep this one much stronger next time as I consider it fairly mild when steeped to these specs. And I’d probably steep it in milk instead of steeping it first and then adding milk.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: NovelTeas
Description
Join book-lovers and tea-lovers alike and take up your arms to a cup of our traditional organic chai spices – red cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, and the root of ginger.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Hot Cinnamon Spice Tea by New Mexico Tea Company
I steeped 1 tsp of this tea for 5 minutes in one cup of 212 degree water.
First of all, this tea isn’t kidding when it says “hot.” (Currently I’m able to smell the cinnamon flavor through the bag even though I double-bagged it, which means it has about the same strength as lapsang souchong). You can clearly see, when measuring it out, that there’s tons of cinnamon in the tea leaves. The ingredients list says it has natural and artificial flavorings too in addition to the three types of cinnamon–I didn’t know three types of cinnamon existed, did you? But apparently they do.
I don’t expect the black tea flavor to come through much at all at this point (it’s probably mainly there for caffeination purposes.)
It smells very spicy and strong as it steeps, too. After steeping I note that it has a very dark brown, fittingly cinnamon-ish color. It’s nearly opaque and has bits of dissolved cinnamon in it. Kind of like spiced cider. It also has a faintly sweet cider-ish smell, but of coursewithout the apple factor. (It does have clove and orange peel though, so that’s probably why it’s reminding me of cider.)
First sip: yes, it’s quite sweet and quite spicy. And no, I don’t really taste the black tea at all. There is a slight bit of astringency, but I’m not sure if it’s from the black tea or from the cinnamon. There’s a depth to the cinnamon flavor, which is probably caused by the blending of several types of cinnamon and cinnamon flavorings to create a more complex cinnamon blend rather than one that hits you all in a wave. It’s very effective, too. It’s like a tour of cinnamon.
With milk (no sugar needed as it’s already sweet): it’s creamier, of course, but the milk doesn’t really bring out the tea flavor the way it usually does with spicy teas (though maybe there’s a hint). The excellently warming, invigorating cinnamon flavor isn’t quelled by the milk either, though perhaps a bit tamed.
Overall I like this tea very much both with milk and without. I’d recommend trying it both ways to see which strikes your fancy the most.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: New Mexico Tea Company
Description
.This blend brews very sweet even though no sugar is added. A cinnamon lover’s dream come true. A combination of hearty Chinese and Indian black tea and invigorating cinnamon.
Many cinnamon teas have a watery aftertaste due to the use of low grade teas. The black tea here has the stamina to last through the whole tasting process
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Genmaicha (Australia) from Blue Hour Tea. . . .
I steeped this at 190 degrees with 1stp tea and 1 cup water for about one minute. (The recommendation was 1-3 minutes, but after one minute it smelled super toasty even from across the room so I figured I’d better drink it before it got strong enough to knock me over.)
This tea does interestingly include a bit of matcha in the ingredients despite being a genmaicha, which is a great addition as far as I’m concerned. Also, I’ve never had a tea from Australia before (that I know of), so I was quite excited by this opportunity!
Once steeped, the tea was hazy and a bit cloudy, possibly from the dissolved matcha, and had a grassy but very light green color. Even in the fragrance I could definitely find the green-tea-flavor melding with the toasted-rice flavor. The liquid was a little thicker than expected, and as I took my first sip I found that it doesn’t taste quite as toasty as it smells. There was a bit more of the buttery, savory green tea flavor than I’d expected based on the fragrance, especially at the beginning of the sip. However, the overall flavor profile was nicely blended with most of the strength of the nutty, toasty flavor coming more at the end of the sip. This tea was smooth, not bitter at all, and it was somewhat astringent but not too astringent.
So the verdict altogether is that if you like genmaicha, you’ll like this tea, and if you like matcha-flavored cereal, you should try it with milk and sugar. In addition to being delicious it should also be really great for you (unless your doctor has told you not to drink caffeine, of course), since green tea and matcha both have plentiful health benefits. The only downside is that, although you can steep it multiple times, the second steeping isn’t quite the same because the match gets mostly used up in the first steeping.
I really enjoyed drinking this tea and would happily drink lots more of it if given the opportunity.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green Tea
Where to Buy: Blue Hour Tea
Description
Our Genmaicha is a combination of the fresh flavour of green tea with the undertones of roasted rice and the added richness of matcha tea. This premium Genmaicha is grown in the Acheron Valley in Victoria, Australia. There are only a handful of farms growing tea in Australia and this is one of our favourites.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!