Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green/Matcha
Where to Buy: 3 Leaf Tea
Tea Description:
Vegan, Gluten Free
Ingredients: Matcha, natural flavors
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is a fairly new company, and one I actually wanted to order from since they’ve got a pretty diverse selection of flavoured matcha and I was interested in seeing how it differed from what Red Leaf Tea offers. Unfortunately they don’t yet ship to Canada, so it was great that my fellow SororiTea Sister TheLastDodo was able to send some for me to try!
Instead of my usual matcha in milk I prepped this cold shaken in a DAVIDsTEA timolino with plain old water. Since this is a new company to me and I’m not familiar with their base matcha I wanted as much of a “plain” taste as I could get.
Visually the matcha is a really bright green colour – exactly what I want to be seeing! It smells really intense, and maybe a little bit artificial? That’s something I don’t want to be getting from this one. Hmm; I kept my expectations really neutral going into this.
I actually liked it a lot; I thought the raspberry was very sweet and natural tasting with just a tease of natural tang to it. It also didn’t seem to eclipse the flavour of the matcha itself which tasted subtly grassy and very, very floral. It had me thinking loosely of both orchids and peonies. The artificial smell I was picking up didn’t cross over into the flavour – hooray! Plus, the flavour and base together worked very well – the floral components absolutely complimented the natural tasting raspberry.
It definitely makes me wish I could try more flavors from this company – in particular I’m curious about the pineapple matcha and the apple matcha. I love the pairing of pineapple and floral flavours like orchid so I can see that working really, really well. Basically, I’m saying people should give this company a little bit more love because hopefully then they’ll be able to expand their shipping into Canada!
Just Perfect Peony White Tea from Just.Organic.Tea.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Just.Organic.Tea
Tea Description:
Find your “Zen Moment” with this perfect cup of premium organic white tea.
Taster’s Review:
It seems like it’s been a while since I’ve had a pure, unadulterated White Peony tea. It’s such a lovely tea to enjoy in the evening, because it tastes lighter and it doesn’t leave me feeling overstimulated the way a black tea does. I know that there has been a lot of debate over the caffeine content in the different types of tea, but what I know from the years of experience I’ve had drinking the tea is this: most black teas are much more invigorating than most white teas.
I find that this is true with just about any other tea. You can replace “black tea” with Oolong or Green tea and these two tea types are more invigorating for me than most whites. And you can keep the black tea in it’s place in the original statement and interchange “white teas” with just about any other tea type and the statement would still be ringing true for me.
And that’s why I generally enjoy my black teas earlier in the day when I don’t mind the stimulation, and then I drink less stimulating teas later in the day. White teas I generally keep for evening because they are gentle and calming.
And this White Peony from Just.Organic.Tea. is quite lovely. It’s smooth, sweet and refreshing. I’m picking up on flavors that I don’t always pick up on with Bai Mu Dan teas like this. I’m picking up on the familiar flavors like a light vegetal tone and a pleasing fruit note (a delicate melon note) and the crisp, airy note that reminds me of the air after a cooling rain. How the air is still moist and sweet from the rain.
But I’m also tasting lettuce. I don’t always pick up on a lettuce note, but this Organic White Peony definitely has a crisp lettuce note that is really rather refreshing. As I sip it, it evokes thoughts of summertime and eating a fresh, crisp salad on a hot summer day. I’m thinking of how refreshing that salad is on a day like that and this tea is very much like that. But without the tomatoes, croutons and salad dressing. Just the refreshing, crisp, replenishing sort of taste.
You get what I’m saying, right?
A really excellent pure white tea from Just.Organic.Tea. At the moment, I don’t see this tea on their website. I don’t know if this one has been permanently removed from their collection or if it’s temporarily sold out. If you’re interested in getting some of this tea to try for yourself, try contacting the company to find out what the status is of this tea. I’ve found this company to be very prompt with their responses and very friendly too! The kind of company I like to deal with!
Lovers Leap Estate Indigo Black Tea with Essence of Peony from Eden Grove
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Amazon Trading
Ingredients:
Camellia Sinensis with Red Pigments (Red Tea) with natural Peony Flavor.
Learn more about Amazon Trading here.
Taster’s Review:
I am usually a little put off by the prospect of trying a bagged and/or sacheted tea, because let’s face it, loose leaf is better. It just is. However, I do try to go into the experience of trying a new to me sacheted tea with an open mind. And so far, the teas that I’ve tried from Eden Grove have been impressive – and all have been sacheted teas! Eden Grove is definitely making a believer out of me.
This Lovers Leap Estate Indigo Black Tea with Essence of Peony from Eden Grove is quite nice. The Ceylon is flavorful and smooth. It has a very pleasing, even taste to it. It’s sweet and has some malty tones to it, and I taste no bitterness whatsoever. It’s good.
I taste hints of flower to this as well, and I presume that it is the peony essence that I’m tasting. I can’t recall ever tasting peony in the past, so I don’t have a memory of what peony tastes like to be able to compare what I’m tasting now. It is a sweet, gently floral taste. It isn’t sharp, and it doesn’t have a perfume-y taste to it. It’s an enjoyable flower essence.
Overall, a really nice cup of tea. It’s a mellow tasting black tea, not one I’d want to start the day off with, but, one that I’d love to drink in the afternoon when I want a little bit of a pick-me-up to keep me going. It’s good.
Organic Love White Tea from Spicely Organics
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Spicely Organics
Tea Description:
This delightful blend, with its light floral essence and smooth minty finish, is perfect as an after meal pick-me-up or as a late night elixir to refresh the mind and enhance the mood. One pot can make the night sweet and reminiscent. Share it with someone you love. INGREDIENTS: Organic White Peony, Organic Rose Petals, Organic Lavender, Organic Peppermint
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about the Spicely Organics Monthly Tea Membership here.
Taster’s Review:
This Organic Love White Tea from Spicely Organics smells so amazing! I wouldn’t have thought that mint, rose, lavender and white tea would have made such an appealing aroma, but, it’s really quite lovely. White tea and mint … perhaps. Definitely rose, lavender and white tea. But, all four together? I wouldn’t have imagined it smelling so beautiful.
And it tastes quite beautiful too!
The peppermint is the strongest flavor of the four ingredients in this tea, but I’m happy to report that it isn’t an overpowering flavor. This doesn’t taste like mouthwash or even like a piece of peppermint chewing gum. It has a light, sweet peppermint-y note that mingles in a very pleasing way with the flavors of lavender and rose and white tea.
The lavender is especially subtle here, offering just a hint of it’s calming presence. Just enough to let you know it’s there, lulling you into a relaxing state. The rose is a gentle flavor too, and it isn’t a sharp rose flavor. It’s lightly sweet and floral. The two flowers seem to mingle in such a way that it offers more of a “floral essence” than a distinct, powerful flowery taste.
And that’s good, because this IS a white tea, after all. And White Peony tea tends to be a somewhat delicate tasting tea, and if the other components to this blend were too strong, they would create a taste that was all mint and flower. I like that I can taste the white tea, it tastes fresh, light and crisp. It is a perfect base for these other three flavors.
This is a really beautiful tea that seems to instill a sense of calm. And definitely a tea with which I could easily fall in love!
White Guava Tea from The Persimmon Tree
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where To Buy: The Persimmon Tree
Tea Description:
White Guava tea brews a light infusion with a beautiful, rich scent and a delicate tropical flavor. It comprises an exotic blend of white peony loose-leaf tea leaves, strawberries, ginger, and natural flavors, and as with all of our white teas, White Guava tea prepares nicely both hot and iced.
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
As I sip this White Guava Tea from The Persimmon Tree, I can’t help but think of summertime! Specifically, I’m thinking of summertime in Southern California, when the strawberries are in season and you can buy fresh, ripe strawberries right from the field from which they were grown.
Well, it’s been well over 10 years since I’ve been in Southern California, and for all I know, all the strawberry fields are gone now in favor of “city improvement,” which means more buildings and less strawberry fields. That doesn’t sound like improvement to me. But I didn’t come here to get all political on you, so I’ll stick to the tea.
This tea is bursting with guava and strawberry flavor and I love that the flavors taste true to the fruit. This doesn’t taste artificial. There is a hint of ginger to this, just enough to provide a little interest without it becoming too intrusive of a flavor. It is sweet, fruity and delicious.
And then I taste the White Peony tea flavor, which is sweet and delicate with subtle earth notes. Everything in this cup is really well-balanced: it’s not too fruity, it’s not too spicy. It has just the right amount of flavor to complement the tea without overpowering it. It isn’t bitter. There is a faint astringency to the cup but I only started noticing it when I started focusing to find it. The aftertaste is lightly sweet with just a barely-there hint of berry tartness to it.
This is wonderful served hot on a chilly winter’s evening, but, it’s even better served iced. Cool and refreshing!