Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Zest Tea
Tea Description:
At Zest, we start every morning with a Mojito. This aromatic blend of young hyson green tea, peppermint, lime, and pomegranate will bring back memories of lounging on a beach, or maybe whatever memories you have left of college. Either way, our Pomegranate Mojito Green Tea is an amazingly refreshing blend, great for any time of day.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about Zest High-Octane Tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I took the opportunity to taste this tea several times before I sat down and write a review about it, and I’m glad that I did. This is one blend that took a little “tweaking” on my part to find the right brewing temperature and time to get the most out of the tea.
Normally, I’ll brew a green tea from 175° – 180°F. I found that this tea works better with the lower temperature. I usually steep a green tea for 1 – 2 minutes, but I found that this tea required about 2 1/2 minutes to get the most out of the pomegranate, lime and peppermint flavors. I tried a 3 minute steep time too, and I wasn’t very happy with that result, so my recommendation for this tea is a temperature somewhere between 170° – 175°F and a steep time of 2 1/2 minutes.
And while it does seem like this is a lot of effort to put forth to find the “sweet spot” brewing parameters for a tea, it’s well worth the effort! This is a tasty green tea!
The peppermint is the prominent flavor of this cup, with notes of lime weaving their way in and out throughout the sip. The green tea notes are sweet and buttery. The pomegranate is a little more difficult for me to discern, but after a few sips, I started to notice hints of pomegranate arriving at the tail of the sip. The aftertaste is mostly pomegranate and lime with a crisp, clean minty note.
Of the three teas that I’ve reviewed thus far from Zest Tea, I think this one is my least favorite. I really enjoyed the Blue Lady and the Apple Cinnamon black teas, and I’m enjoying this one as well, but, there is something about this tea that is less appealing than the other two. A slight “chemical-y” off taste to it that I didn’t notice with the other two teas. It is a very slight taste though, and I still find the lime and mint notes to be quite delightful as well as the notes of pomegranate in the finish and aftertaste. It’s a tasty tea, it’s just not my favorite.
I also really like the energizing BOOST that I get from these Zest Teas!
Blue Lady Black Tea from Zest Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zest Tea
Tea Description:
Our Blue Lady Black blends a sultry South Indian black tea base with an aromatic mix of orange, lemon, passion fruit, and hibiscus. A peppering of vivid blue cornflower petals and bits of orange peel make for a visual spectacle. Blue lady will excite all of your senses. No wonder this is a favorite among hot and chilled tea drinkers.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about Zest High-Octane Tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I thought that this Blue Lady Black Tea from Zest Tea was the ideal tea to review on tax day. We got to get those taxes done and in the mail, right? Actually, I finished my taxes in the first week of February, but, I know that there are those who don’t get them done and April 15th always seems to be crunch day, right? So, this one’s for you!
Zest Teas are “High-Octane” teas, that is to say that there is more caffeine in this cup of tea than in the average cup of flavored black tea. The goal, according to the makers of Zest Tea, was to create a high quality cup of tea that had the caffeine of a cup of coffee.
My one concern was this: I can’t drink coffee. Coffee makes me sick. I used to drink coffee every morning until I realized that the reason I was feeling sick around 11 am was that the coffee I was drinking every morning was making me feel that way. Was this “High-Octane” Zest Tea going to have the same effect on me? I kept my fingers crossed that it wouldn’t.
This tea is VERY aromatic. When I opened the pouch, I was greeted with a very fruity “punch” of fragrance: I could smell citrus notes of orange and lemon and I could smell the passion fruit. And despite the images that the “High-Octane” evoked in my head, it doesn’t smell of gasoline. Not one bit. It smells like a fruit flavored black tea. I like that smell.
It tastes great! The fruit notes of citrus and passion fruit are strong, but I also taste the Nilgiri black tea base. It has a pleasing flavor: rich and smooth, no bitterness, and it has lovely notes of malt.
I like the way the notes of malt play with the notes of lemon and orange. I also appreciate the balance that has been achieved in this blend: I taste the strong fruit notes but there is a full-flavored black tea base to fill in the background. There is also an agreeable balance of tart and sweet here. It is neither too sweet nor too tart.
The hibiscus in this blend adds a little bit of body to the cup and a hint of tart flavor that complements the citrus notes. Not a lot of hibiscus flavor, just enough tart and tangy taste to contrast with the sweeter notes of the fruit.
There are no weird/funky flavors associated with the extra dose of caffeine in the tea. Not that I thought there would be, but for those of you who might have thought: “What will that “High-Octane” thing do to the flavor?” I’m here to tell you that I don’t notice anything off with the flavor at all. This tastes like tea. It doesn’t taste different or off or funky in any way. It just tastes like a tasty tea with lovely notes of citrus and passion fruit.
So far, I really like what I’ve tasted from this tea. I’ll come back in a couple of hours to let you know if I felt any ill after-effects from the caffeine.
OK … so a few hours have lapsed since I finished the cup of tea, and here’s what I noticed:
- More energy: Yep. I could feel the extra burst of caffeine. But it didn’t feel like the jolt you’d get from a cup of coffee. It was stronger than the usual energy flow that I’d get from the usual cup of tea, though. A bit more like the unbridled jolt from coffee, but, I didn’t feel jittery or … well, I didn’t feel like I had just consumed a cup of coffee. But there is definitely an elevated level of invigorated energy from this tea.
- No ill effects: I didn’t feel that icky feeling that I would feel after I drank a cup of coffee in the morning. Big bonus points for that.
- No “crash”: After drinking coffee and experiencing that jolt, a few hours later, I usually feel the crash. I feel a lack of energy, like I need another cup of coffee to get me going again. Now, the lack of crash could be from the fact that I drink tea throughout the day, but, my tea drinking today has been limited to this one cup of tea from Zest Tea and then a couple of glasses of cold-brewed black iced tea. I don’t know the level of caffeine from the iced tea, but, I will say that I don’t usually feel “energized” after I drink iced tea. I feel refreshed and I feel my thirst has been quenched, but I don’t feel the burst of caffeinated energy from iced tea.
OK, so there you have it. I like this stuff … it’s a great way to get your act together in the morning on those days that you really need to get it together. And it tastes great too. This tea has it going on.