It’s been YEARS since I have Lemon Meringue Pie and because I don’t eat dairy or eggs any more this Limóncello Tea from The NecessiTeas is the closest thing to the taste I can remember without actually eating a piece of it. HOORAY! Limóncello Tea from The NecessiTeas you are a wonderful find!
Limóncello Tea from The NecessiTeas smells like Citronella once infused but prior to infusing I could pick up on the sugary notes, various nods to lemon, a slight herbal connection, and even a speck of vanilla. All that in a smell and we haven’t even gotten to the taste of this Limóncello Tea from The NecessiTeas yet!
As for the taste of Limóncello Tea from The NecessiTeas it’s just as good if not better than the aroma! I can definitely taste the lemon peel, lemongrass, and green rooibos! Then there is a sweetness and creaminess to boot! I’m chalking that up to the vanilla and brown sugar. This is really fantastic! An outstanding, flavorful surprise that is perfect for evening reflection or as a dessert tea.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green Rooibos
Where to Buy: The NecessiTeas
Description:
The Italian dessert drink has made its way into a tea. Imagine lemon meringue teasing your taste buds, while sweetly melting in your mouth with a blend of vanilla and brown sugars. The lemony brightness shines through with lemongrass and a sprinkling of golden marigold petals, all topping a green rooibos tea.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Lavender Dream from Dave and Solomons Tea
Dave and Solomons are a mother and son tea blending company, currently selling their indie creations on their Etsy store. I hadn’t come across them before this sample arrived with me, but it’s always nice to discover a new tea company, if a little dangerous for the bank account!
Lavender Dream is a fruit and herbal blend, combining the sweet fruitiness of peach with the light floral of lavender. It sounds a little odd to begin with, but I was pleased to discover that they’re actually two flavours which work incredibly well together. The dry leaf itself is incredibly pretty, with dark pink rose petals, bright blue cornflowers, and purple lavender buds, plus large (1-2cm square) chunks of dried papaya.
I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 5 minutes in boiling water. The result is a medium orange-brown liquor, which smells wonderful and which filled the entire kitchen with the scent of fuzzy peach. To taste, it’s very much as you might expect. The peach isn’t particularly natural-tasting, hence “fuzzy” peach, but it’s strong and incredibly juicy, and I’m more than happy with that. The lavender is definitely playing second fiddle here, not really making itself known until very much the end of the sip. When it does, it’s a pleasant counterpoint to the sweetness of the peach, adding a delicate floral flavour, and just a hint of perfume.
I expected this one to be a lot heavier on the lavender, given that it’s called Lavender Dream. Having tasted it, I feel Peach Dream 
would be a much more appropriate name, because it is primarily a peach flavoured tea. I’m not the biggest fan of floral teas, particularly when they’re herbal blends, but in this case it shouldn’t put you off. The lavender really isn’t very prominent, but the contribution it makes is balancing one, and pleasant to boot.
As this is a caffeine free blend, it’ll likely be making a regular appearance in my evening rotation for a good long while to come. I love the juicy peach notes, and I’d actually like to try this one iced (although I might have to wait until summer, or a rare warm day, for that now.) I’ll definitely be trying more blends from Dave and Solomons Tea in the future on the strength of this experience. There’s certainly some skilled blending going on!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Fruit/Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Dave and Solomons Tea
Description
Yummy peach cubes with organic lavender, rose petals, marigold & cornflower petals. MMMM Soooo good!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Chocolate Chamomile Curiosity Brew Black Oolong from Verdant Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black/Oolong
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Tea Description:
This blend is inspired by the connection we see between fine chocolate and fine tea. Our Laoshan Black and Wuyi Big Red Robe have strong natural notes of cacao that we wanted to bring out and play with. The end result is a rich, sweet and sparkling brew that brings out the best in both the tea, supported by the cacao nibs. Marigold provides a richness that complements the sweet flavors of chamomile, cinnamon and fennel, while the mint gives just enough of a clean sparkle to counterbalance the flavor of raw cacao. Enjoy this curious brew hot or cold and add a touch of buckwheat honey for a real treat.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Thanks to my SororiTea Sister TheLastDodo for the sample! I’ve actually been quite curious about this one for a while (pun not intended), but Verdant isn’t a company I’ve had much chance to explore and I’m wary of blends with chamomile so getting the chance to try a small quantity of this one was just perfect!
The dry leaf smells faintly of milk chocolate, and has even fainter fennel and mint notes as well. I know from the ingredients list that the mint in this blend is Spearmint; but based on scent I wouldn’t be able to differentiate.
Steeped this one up hot; it’s a lot softer than I expected and very, very smooth. The chocolate is the focus here and it’s accented quite nicely by the cinnamon and the fennel which are subtle but add a delicate, sweet spicyness. The natural malt from the Laoshan Black is delicious; and the spearmint creeps in right at the finish to add a lovely, refreshing coolness. Also, thankfully, I can’t taste the chamomile!
All in all, this was a great tea! It had a rich flavour, but not an in your face one and with the chocolate and mint pairing it made me think of a really fancy, well executed tea version of an After Eight chocolate. Mmm!
Focus Green Tea from NudiTea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: NudiTea
Tea Description:
Clear your cloudy mind with our steamy FOCUS blend. Rare and ancient Japanese Sencha is blended with a sprinkling of passionfruit flowers and marigolds creating an intoxicating and flavoursome cup. With a delectable blend of natural caffeine extracts, it’s a better alternative to coffee and energy drinks. FOCUS won’t give you wings but it will help you fly through the day.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The dry leaf of this Focus Green Tea from NudiTea is extraordinarily fragrant! It smells amazing! Like wow, can I get this scent in a bar of soap or perhaps a wax tart that you melt to make the whole room smell like that! It’s strongly floral without smelling like a flower shop, because there are lovely notes of pineapple that balance the flowery notes. Lovely!
The brewed tea has a softer aroma but otherwise smells quite similar – beautiful floral notes with notes of pineapple.
To brew this tea, I used my Breville One-Touch. I measured two bamboo scoops of the loose leaf tea into the basket of the tea maker, and 500ml of freshly filtered water into the kettle. Then I set the parameters: 175°F for 2 minutes.
It’s a really tasty blend! The green tea is sweet and has a nice creamy texture to it. I like that the texture is light but there is a soft creamy feel to it. It doesn’t taste sharp or bitter, it’s sweet, lightly buttery with some grassy notes.
I taste passion fruit. The way the description is worded, it seems that it’s passion fruit flowers … but I’m tasting passion fruit. Sweet, luscious passion fruit! Yum! I also get a hint of pineapple from this. Just a hint.
As far as the floral notes go, I taste the sweetness of the rose and mallow flowers, and I taste the sharp sunflower notes.
The fruit and the floral notes are pretty evenly paired – neither is really stronger than the other. The fruit is sweet and with just a whisper of tangy flavor while the floral notes add a hint of exotic flavor to it and a touch of distinct flower sweetness.
Overall, this is a pleasant cuppa – it’s sweet but not in a cloying way. It’s got a nice layered flavor: layers of flower are the top notes with the middle notes of juicy passion fruit and the undertone of Sencha.
My one criticism – if you want to call it that – would be the addition of the chamomile to this blend. Why chamomile? Chamomile tends to be a relaxing herb, not one that I associate with being focused and alert. I don’t really taste a lot of chamomile in this, maybe once in a while I might pick up on a honey-like flavor that’s quite chamomile-ish but it still is an ‘odd’ ingredient in a tea that is to support a sense of “Focus.”
Tropical Green Tea from Octavia Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Tea Description:
This tea is so much more than what “tropical” might conjure in your mind. There’s sweet tropical flavours for sure, but there’s also an amazing floral character that envelopes the entire tea, a fun citrus finish that blends well with the vegetal notes of the green tea. So hard to describe, you should probably just try it.
This tea is available from Amoda Tea.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda Tea here.
Taster’s Review:
It seems to me that most tea companies out there that offer flavored tea selections offer a ‘tropical’ flavored tea. Some might offer a tropical flavored black tea, some might offer a tropical flavored white tea, and some might offer a tropical flavored green tea. But it seems to be a very popular flavor profile.
And these tropical flavored teas may be a little different from one another. They might have any flavor combination of coconut, pineapple, mango, papaya, banana or passion fruit – or other ‘tropical’ fruit. The name ‘tropical’ leaves the door open very wide for interpretation.
But even though the base might be different and the fruit combination different, it seems to me that most of the tropical flavored teas that I’ve tried in the past (and I’ve sampled quite a few in my years as a tea reviewer!) … well, most of them blend together into a very abstract sort of painting that represents the many different tropical fruit flavored teas that I’ve tasted. Not many of them really stand out as a memorable tropical fruit flavored tea, not many of them really step forward in my memory as one that is uniquely different from the crowd.
Until now.
This. This Tropical Green tea from Octavia is deliciously different. Uniquely different. Memorably different!
It’s the grapefruit! The grapefruit adds a really lovely note to this tea that is quite unlike any other tropical fruit flavored tea that I can remember.
The passion fruit and mango are two sweet fruit flavors and they are beautifully contrasted by the tart and slightly bitter notes of grapefruit. The grapefruit adds a bright element to the cup that really perks up the flavors and keeps the tea from tasting like your average, every day tropical tea offering that you’ll find from other tea companies.
Not to say that those tropical teas are not tasty – I enjoyed most of what I tried. But this one is on another level. And the grapefruit has made all the difference.
I don’t taste much of a floral note from the rose, but that’s alright. The rose can be there just to beautify the blend and make it visually interesting. I’m alright with that. Because the grapefruit makes this tea a delightful tasting tea that it doesn’t need anything else. There is a tantalizing sweetness from the passion fruit and mango and there is appealing contrast from the grapefruit. Perfection!
I’ve enjoyed the other teas that I’ve tried from January’s box from Amoda, but this tea elevated the box from really good to GREAT! Have you subscribed to Amoda yet? If not, why not? What are you waiting for?