Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black & Green Tea Blend
Where to Buy: Art of Tea
Tea Description:
This award winning blend of select black tea and green teas, jasmine blossoms, and passionfruit essence has a long lasting, sweet flavor and astounding aroma that carries well hot and as a refreshing iced tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I am sometimes a bit stand-offish when it comes to blends like this, where two different tea types (like black and green teas, as was used in this blend) are combined into one tea blend. I worry that the black tea will overpower the lighter flavors of the green tea, and I’m concerned about the proper temperature and steep time.
Generally speaking, when I encounter a blend like this, I tend to yield to the tea type that requires the lower temperature: in this case, it’s the green tea. So I heated the water to 180°F and steeped it for three minutes. This seemed to do the trick, because this is quite tasty!
And, I’m happy to say that while the black tea notes seem to be a bit stronger than the green, I can still taste the lightness of the green tea as well as the rich, earthy notes of the black tea. The black tea is softer than a black tea that was brewed at a higher temperature – obviously! – but, I’m still getting a lot of black tea flavor in this cup.
The green tea adds a soft, buttery note and a hint of freshness to the cup, and I like the way that melds with both the notes of flower from the jasmine and the essence of passion fruit, which is sweet and flavorful. The black tea adds a nice depth to the cup and gives an interesting contrast to the sweeter notes of the green tea. There is some astringency to this, but not a lot, and it’s not bitter.
Overall, this is a pleasingly sweet tea that’s a little bit fruity and a little bit floral, and a whole lot enjoyable. This tastes good served hot, but I like it even better when it’s chilled! I was sure to save some of what I brewed and stashed it in the fridge, and iced … this tastes really great! As it cools, I find that the passion fruit notes really pop, and the floral notes aren’t quite as sharp, offering an interesting exotic quality to the tea that I didn’t experience when the tea was hot. It’s an interesting twist on the classic tropical flavored iced tea!
Passion Fruit Mango Rooibos Blend from Tea of Life
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Rooibos
Learn more about Tea of Life and Amazon Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
There are times when I want something a little lighter and without caffeine. Those are the times that I turn to tisanes. Tisanes like this Passion Fruit Mango Rooibos Blend from Tea of Life that are naturally caffeine free and have a lighter body, something I can sip and enjoy without worrying whether it will keep me up all night.
And this has a really pleasing flavor. The passion fruit and mango flavors are vibrant. The flavor of the rooibos is subdued, but I do taste notes of the nutty flavor and the sweetness – but without that whacked weird flavor that I sometimes get from rooibos.
You know, that weird, off sort of flavor that kind of tastes like wood that’s been soaked in sour vinegar or something? Yeah … that flavor. I’m not getting that strange flavor with this tisane.
Instead, I get a pleasant, tropical fruit flavor with hints of a nutty sweetness in the background. It’s a sweet way to wind down after a long day.
I enjoyed this hot, but, I found myself distracted and left my teacup to cool, and when I returned to it, the tisane had gone cold. No worries! This tastes great cold too!
Crime of Passion Green Tea from Culinary Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Culinary Teas
Tea Description:
Memories of the Copacabana Beach in Rio. Papaya pieces, sunflower petals and criminally exotic passion fruit notes infuse superior green tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Mmm! This Crime of Passion Green Tea from Culinary Teas takes me (or at least my taste buds!) on a tropical vacation! The sweet passion fruit and papaya flavors meld together with the lush, green tea to present a really tasty tea with tropical flair.
The green tea base is a Chinese Sencha, and it lends a sweet, buttery and slightly vegetal note to the cup. I’m not finding this to be overly vegetative or grassy. It’s a light “grassiness” – I find the buttery/creamy notes of this tea to be stronger than the grassy/vegetal tones to be. The texture of the buttery notes give this a very smooth mouthfeel.
The passion fruit and papaya are beautifully sweet. There are hints of tartness in there too, but mostly, I taste sweet tropical fruit. The fruit notes here are strong and are edging out the flavor of the green tea just a tad – that is to say that the flavor is stronger than the green tea – but it’s so tasty that I am finding it difficult to find fault with this, especially since I can taste the green tea. It just isn’t as strong as the fruit notes.
A really tasty tea. It tastes great served hot (and makes a nice mental va-cay during the cold winter when you want to think of warm tropical breezes, the sun and the surf!) but it’s even better iced. Very refreshing!
Jasmine Passion Tea Blend from The Persimmon Tree
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black & Green Teas
Where To Buy: The Persimmon Tree
Tea Description:
Our Jasmine Passion tea is a divine blend of green and black loose-leaf teas, passion fruit essence and jasmine blossoms. Not only does it taste great hot, it also makes a killer iced tea for those warm summer evenings.
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
I am finding myself in agreement with the last sentence in the above description … this Jasmine Passion Tea Blend from The Persimmon Tree makes an excellent tea served hot OR iced. I took my first few sips of this hot, but then I was distracted and my cup turned cold, and the flavor is still so good!
I generally find myself questioning why a company would combine two different leaf types as it has been done here, using both green and black teas to create the tea base. I mean, black teas are typically brewed at boiling temperatures, and green teas are typically brewed at lower temperatures (around 180°F) and are often steeped for different lengths of time. So, to appreciate fully the black tea in this blend, one would think that the tea should be brewed with boiling water for 3 minutes or so. But that temperature would – more often than not – scald the delicate green tea leaves, and three minutes? That could result in a bitter cup of green tea!
But, after tasting it, the combination works well. I brewed the tea at a lower temperature to observe the needs of the green tea leaves, and steeped it for a little longer than I would a green tea, but a little less than a typical black (2 1/2 minutes). This produced a really tasty cup of tea!
The sweet, fruity notes of the passion fruit and the exotic, floral tones of the jasmine come together in a very pleasing way. It is both fruity and floral, with the fruit notes just narrowly claiming the edge over the flower.
The black tea and the green tea play very nicely together too. The black tea is a softer taste than one might be used to with a black tea, but this is because I brewed it at a lower temperature for less time than I might normally brew a black tea. But the lighter flavor of the black allows the green tea to express itself without being overpowered by the stronger black flavors. I taste the sweet, delicate notes of the green tea, and the earthy tones of the black tea.
This tea is a really well-executed blend from The Persimmon Tree. I like it quite a bit, and I’m glad I got the opportunity to try it!
Passion Fruit Flavored Rooibos Blend from Octavia Tea
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Rooibos
Where to Buy: Octavia Tea
Tisane Description:
Lemon myrtle is more lemony than a lemon itself. If you didn’t know that already, this tea will show you! The citrus hits you, mingles with the tropical fruit and continues to linger. The hibiscus plays its part in adding beautiful colour and a tartness that tones down the sweetness of the tropical fruit, creating a more true fruit flavour.
Learn more about this blend here.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
Taster’s Review:
The aroma of this Passion Fruit Flavored Rooibos Blend from Octavia Tea really blew me away! It smells AMAZING! The combination of the passion fruit, peach and mango essences, together with the notes of citrus from the lemon myrtle … create a really ambrosial fragrance that … knocked my socks off!
OK … so my socks are still on, but you get what I’m saying, right?
And … I’m loving what I’m tasting here too. This is really yummy. But … for the purists out there who think that tea should taste like tea and not like a sweet, fruity drink … this tisane is NOT for you! This is a sweet, fruity drink!
In fact, one of the things I like best about it is that I’m not tasting much of the rooibos base. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, I’m not a big fan of the woodsy tasting herb. Here, just hints of the nutty, honeyed taste of rooibos comes through.
And I’m also happy to say that even though I steeped this for seven minutes, I didn’t get a heavy hibiscus note … nor did I get that heavy syrupy thickness that comes with steeping hibiscus a long time. The hibiscus here has been thoughtfully blended … adding just enough to give the cup just a touch of tart flavor without overpowering the blend.
The lemon-y notes from the lemon myrtle is bright and flavorful, and it really perks up the other fruit notes. The passion fruit, the peach and the mango … make delightful partners in this blend … so sweet and juicy!
This is a tisane that kids would love because it has a lot of sweet, fruity flavor. And it would certainly be better for them than that sugar-y soda … not only would it be less sugar, but rooibos have some great health benefits, as does hibiscus. And I love that the ingredients in this tisane are organic, too!
A really tasty tisane! This one gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from me.