Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Jardin du Thé (However it isn’t currently listed)
Tea Description:
The vert parfumé à l’ananas accompagné de curry, de gui, de fleurs de tournesol, d’osmanthus et de souci. Un mélange fleuri des plus originaux.
Green tea flavored with curry accompanied by pineapple, mistletoe, sunflower flowers, osmanthus and concern/worry/care. A floral blend of the most original.
Learn more about this tea on Steepster.
Taster’s Review:
First, a nod to MissB – this is another tea passed along to me by her while she’s off abroad. Tea friends may very well literally be the best!
This is actually one of the teas she sent that I was most excited to try. As is pretty well known, I love pineapple but don’t actually like spices too much. However, I have had pineapple curry before and I really enjoyed it so I was super open minded about this one.
The smell of this one is lightly pineapple, and steeped up it’s very supple with a soft sweetness to it. It’s a little bit candy like – but not over the top or overly artificial tasting. The osmanthus in this was nice; even though I don’t recall seeing any in the measured out leaf I felt like I was tasting the slightly sweet, whispy floral notes that I associate with it. I’m a big fan of pineapple and floral pairings – as far as I can recall everyone I’ve had has been well executed. I’m personally not very familiar with mistletoe so I don’t know if I can accurately weigh in on how that ingredient presented itself in the blend. I did try looking it up, but the one relatively reliable site I found said it has a very bitter taste – and that’s certainly not something I observed with this blend, so either that’s not an accurate description of mistletoe’s flavour or it doesn’t come through in the tea.
Sadly, neither did anything remotely ‘curry’ like – not even a little bit. That’s definitely disappointing especially since the curry aspect is in the name of the tea. If you can’t deliver on what your tea is named after, you definitely lose a few points in my book. The green base was nice; it was light and just a touch sweet and grassy. It definitely complimented the floral notes and pineapple well.
So overall I thought this was a nice tea and I certainly enjoyed it – but it’s nothing like what I expected and the name isn’t accurate at all so if you’re going to try it keep a very open mind and don’t expect the curry to come through too much, if at all.
Fairy Dust Rooibos from Tealish
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Rooibos
Where to Buy: Tealish
Tisane Description:
Drink this tea and you’ll feel like you’ve just been sprinkled with fairy dust, it’s so good. With notes of strawberry and kiwi, this blend of green rooibos, apple, strawberry, kiwi, orange blossoms, elderflower, and mistletoe, is our favourite way to escape to never never land once (or twice) a day.
Learn more about this tisane here.
Taster’s Review:
This is really REALLY tasty!
As I’ve said once or twice (or perhaps thrice!) before, I prefer green rooibos over the oxidized red version. The green rooibos is slightly fruity in flavor (as opposed to the woody notes of the red rooibos), and it has a light, almost sparkling kind of taste to it. I think given the name of this tea (Fairy Dust) I think that green rooibos was the perfect choice as a base for this blend.
The strawberry and kiwi are the two strongest flavors, with floral notes filling out the background. The rooibos doesn’t offer a strong flavor, but, I do taste it, and it marries with the fruit tones in this blend very nicely.
The strawberry tastes fresh and authentic, tasting like I just bit into a bright red, ripe, juicy berry. YUM! The kiwi is a nice flavor to accompany the strawberry as I’ve often thought the kiwi tastes a bit like a cross between a strawberry and a melon. It enhances the delicious strawberry taste, and adds a pleasing dimension to the cup.
I sipped my sampling of this tea (sent to me by a friend) hot, but as it cooled, I noticed the fruit flavors emerged even more, so I suspect this would be an absolutely AMAZING iced tea. One that you can serve to kids as well as adults without worry that you’ll be overstimulating anyone with caffeine (as it’s naturally caffeine free). A great summertime tea!
