Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Amoda Tea
TeaDescription:
The subtlety of the added flavours is what we love about this tea! The white peony is the star with its delicate hay, fruit and floral aromas. You have the leaf’s natural round mouthfeel coupled with the coconut flakes that makes for a creamy cup of tea. Hints of the dried mango and tart hibiscus = a seriously delicious tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
Taster’s Review:
I was very happy when I received this month’s Tea Tasting Box from Amoda Tea and discovered that Indie Tea was the featured tea purveyor for July. Indie Tea is one of my favorite tea purveyors because I love their fun, fresh and funky attitude toward tea! Their packaging is fun and their blends are deliciously different – with cool names to match their unique flavors.
One of the teas that was included in this month’s box – Lover’s Lane – is one that I’ve previously tried and reviewed. So, I won’t be writing another review for that tea, but, I am certainly happy to be tasting it again! In the meantime, I am going to tell you a little bit about this blend that I’m sipping right now – The Road to Hana White Tea Blend from Indie Tea.
And it is YUM! It’s got a great tropical flavor to it with the coconut and the mango notes, as well as the hibiscus. (Which is also quite tropical!) The hibiscus, gratefully, is not overdone here. It didn’t even really color the brewed tea very much … there was a slight pinkish hue but really, this looked more like a white tea than a hibiscus-y tea.
And it TASTES more like a white tea than a hibiscus-y tea too. And I’m very happy about that.
The white tea has a soft, delicate flavor (no surprise there, right?) and lends an earthy, sweet base for the additional sweetness of the fruity mango and creamy coconut notes. The hibiscus adds just a hint of tartness and it’s just enough of a contrasting note to offset the sweeter tropical fruits. Indie Tea has managed to achieve a nice balance of tart and sweet that leans more toward the sweet than the tart.
This has a nice mango flavor. The coconut is more “creamy” than coconut-y tasting … and I like the creaminess as it complements the white tea nicely. The result is a sweet and creamy cup of tropical lusciousness that has just a subtle tart note. Tasty!
A really nice choice by Amoda Tea. I like this one, and I’m glad I got to try it.
Yunomi Monthly Mystery Tea Sampler’s Club: Monoucha Genmaicha from Ishinomaki, Miyagi
Recently, I had the unique opportunity to join Yunomi’s Monthly Mystery Tea Sampler’s Club, and I just received my first shipment! Yay! I received three sample sizes of three different Japanese teas, and this review will be about the first tea I sampled from the group of three: the Monoucha Genmaicha from Ishinomaki, Miyagi
Tea Description:
Sencha from the town of Monou in what is now Ishinomaki City brews into a deep forest green with a strong astringency. With a 400 year history of tea farming, the town of Monou is the northernmost tea region, and the field managed by Sasaki-san is the northernmost tea field in Japan.
Monoucha Genmaicha blends Sasaki-san’s sencha with toasted rice grains as well as rice cracker balls (plain and matcha flavored) for a uniquely toasted nutty flavor.
Where to Buy: Yunomi
Taster’s Review:
LOVELY! I’ve tasted a lot of Genmaicha tea in my “career” as a tea reviewer, and before that, as a tea purveyor. But this Monoucha Genmaicha from Ishinomaki, Miyagi as sold by Yunomi might very well be the very best that I’ve tried thus far. I can taste the freshness of the Sasaki-san Sencha in every single sip, as well as the beautiful sweetness from the toasty rice. This is SO good!
Perhaps it’s the addition of the “rice cracker balls” that are in this blend that makes it different … I don’t know for sure. What I can tell you is that I taste something different in this cup of tea. It tastes sweeter … it tastes fresher, it tastes toastier. It tastes BETTER!
When I was measuring out the tea, I noticed the aforementioned rice cracker balls and I did a double (and a triple) take, because they looked so … unusual. I mean, with a typical Genmaicha, I usually see little bits of popped rice (that look like miniature kernels of popped popcorn), but these little balls were so uniformly shaped … they looked so different from the usual popped rice that I would see in a Genmaicha … and there were a lot more of them than I would usually see in a Genmaicha too. Then I came back here and read the description and saw that there are in fact these little rice cracker balls in the tea … that explains it!
And they do make a difference in the taste. If you like Genmaicha … this is one that you really should try … taste the difference! It’s remarkable!
Organic Goddess Tisane from Shuswap Infusions
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Amoda Tea
Tisane Description:
Strong hibiscus and cassis on the nose transforms to a delicious sweet blueberry and sour currant on the tongue. Sweet to start, tart to finish and herbaceous all around.
All organic ingredients: raspberry leaf, hibiscus, rosehip chips, dried currants, blueberries, natural flavour.
Learn more about this tisane here.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
Taster’s Review:
Wow! Where did June go?
This is the last of the three teas/tisanes that I received in Amoda’s June Tea Tasting Box: Organic Goddess Tisane from Shushwap Infusions. After reading about this tisane on the Amoda website, I decided to follow their suggestion and ice the tea … so I hot-brewed it and stashed it in the fridge until it got nice and cold.
This tea was included in the Amoda box to celebrate the coming of Summer. I’m not exactly sure I see the connection yet – I mean, berries, yes those are summertime … maybe that’s it. I’ll reserve my final judgement until the tea cools and I’m sipping on some iced tea.
The dry leaf smells a bit like wine to me. Like a sweet, fruity wine. That gave me some hope for this one, unfortunately, no amount of hope could really … save this tisane.
Meh … I gotta be real, this one isn’t doing a whole lot to inspire flowery prose from me. I taste the berry notes, but mostly what I taste is hibiscus. It isn’t overly hibiscus-y, fortunately, because I didn’t steep it too long. It has a tart-sweet flavor and reminds me a bit of Kool Aid.
Not all that exciting really. It’s not horrible, and I’ll be finishing the pitcher of it that I brewed. It is light and thirst-quenching. But I do think that this could really benefit from … something. Perhaps the addition of some peppermint or spearmint … or even some cinnamon, ginger, or … something. It lacks “umph!” You know what I’m saying? It lacks that excitement factor. It lacks that something that makes me want to keep sipping it.
This is the first tisane that I find myself truly disappointed by from the Amoda Tea Boxes, and since I’ve been subscribed since November, I guess that’s pretty good.
Citrus Earl Grey Black Tea Blend from Naked Teas Galore
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Amoda Tea
Tea Description:
There’s a whole lot of tang in this tea: orange peel, lemongrass, bergamot oil. The Ceylon (Sri Lankan) base tea can also have a tangy character. This is a smooth, medium-bodied cup. Obviously, the citrus in this tea is bold, but it’s not aggressive or bergamot-heavy.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn how to subscribe to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
Taster’s Review:
This Citrus Earl Grey Black Tea Blend from Naked Teas Galore is the second of the three teas I received in this month’s Tea Tasting Box from Amoda Tea. I really do enjoy these boxes, and this month, they did things a little different. Instead of providing three different teas/tisanes from three different tea vendors, they chose just one vendor to focus on, and selected three different teas from them.
I kind of like this change … it gives me the opportunity to try not just one tea from a tea company, but, three! Let’s just hope that the company they choose will be a new-to-me company – like this month’s vendor, Naked Teas Galore.
I am very happy with this particular selection – Citrus Earl Grey. Of course, Bergamot is already a citrus, but Naked Teas Galore really zoomed in on the citrus notes by adding Lemongrass and Orange Peel. These additional citrus flavors soften the sometimes sharp bergamot flavor and create a sort of “medley” of citrus-y flavor … sort of like a citrus punch, if you can imagine that. The bergamot is still distinct, of course, but just … more mellow. Smoother. Sweeter! The orange peel and lemongrass do not offer a strong, specific flavor of their own in the brewed cup; instead, these ingredients contribute to the aforementioned “citrus punch” like taste.
The black tea is sort of a mellow-tasting black tea that sits off in the background, content to let the citrus-y flavors play. It is a solid black tea flavor, but it is definitely off in the background. It is not an aggressive flavor, but I think a stronger black tea flavor would have interrupted the citrus-y notes that I think Naked Teas Galore was trying to hone in on with this blend. It might be interesting to see how a stronger black tea base would have tasted here, but as it it, I find this to be a really tasty tea, perfect for one of those lazy afternoons, when you just want to sit and contemplate the joy of tea!
Lychee Black Tea from King’s Zen Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Amoda Tea
Tea Description:
The dry leaf smells incredible. Lychee fruit is unique and distinct. Hopefully you’ve tasted lychee before, because it’s flavor is tough to compare. It has a natural sweetness that is present in this tea. Mixed with the smoky Chinese black tea, you get something a little exotic, sultry and sweet. This tea is smooth and light-bodied.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn how to subscribe to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.
Taster’s Review:
Lychee teas are often hit or miss with me. Sometimes the Lychee is just too much – way too fragrant, way too over-scented, and the cup ends up tasting like someone spiked my tea with artificial tasting, nasty chemicals. Then there is sometimes the opposite side of the spectrum, where the tea is lacking in scent and flavor.
But this Lychee Black Tea from King’s Zen Tea – a tea I received in my Amoda Tasting Box for February – is really fantastic. The black tea base is nicely pronounced here – it isn’t hidden behind the Lychee flavor. It tastes rich and smooth, with a hint of smoke and I think that this smoky tone interacts quite well with the sweet, exotic flavor of the lychee fruit.
I have to disagree slightly with the description above, I don’t think I’d categorize this as a “light-bodied” tea. The lychee taste is light (when compared to a typical Lychee Congou tea) but the tea itself is what I’d categorize as a medium bodied tea … or even a medium to full bodied tea. It has a nice richness to it, it certainly isn’t as thick or rich as … say, an Assam tea or a Yunnan tea, but, it has an understated yet satisfying richness to it that is a bit more than what I’d call “light.”
The lychee fruit flavor is indeed subdued compared to some of the other lychee scented teas I’ve experienced. But I think that’s what I’m digging so much about this cup … it doesn’t have that overwhelming lychee taste that almost tastes of chemicals. This tastes light, sweet, and naturally fruit-y, while still maintaining that rather unique lychee taste.
A very nice cup. Thank you Amoda, for including it in this month’s box!