Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Luhse
Tea Description:
STORY:
Unbeknownst to most, Queen Song longs for the day when she meets her island mate, King Kong. She has recently taken up hula dancing to keep fit and has begun wearing sexy, eye-catching outfits to attract attention. Despite the gang’s misgivings, she can be found wearing risque coconut bras when she is not at work.
TEA DESCRIPTION:
Coconuts have migrated into your cup of tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Another Luhse sample from my recent order. Nice Coconuts is a white blend, flavoured with coconut. The dry leaf smells amazing – strongly of coconut, with an undertone of creaminess, and a hint of something almost rum-like. Alcoholic, at the very least. The dry leaf looks to be a mixture of silver needles, which are white and downy, and white peony, which is blackish-brown in appearance and not particularly fresh looking. There’s a predominance of broken leaves and twigs. Scattered throughout are red safflower and blue cornflower petals, and a smattering of dried coconut shreds. There’s enough leaf in the pouch for about two cups, although if your cup is larger than average you might want to use the whole sample (about 3 tsp), as per the recommended parameters. My cup is on the smaller side, so I went with 1.5tsp of leaf, and gave it 2 minutes in water cooled to around 175 degrees. The resulting liquor is a medium yellow-green; the scent mildly coconutty with a floral undertone.
To taste, this one is deceptive! I wasn’t convinced at all by the scent of the brewed liquor, but it’s actually very pleasant. The initial sip is all coconut cream; sweet, tropical amazingness! It has remarkable depth of flavour, with just a hint of rum rolling around the mid-sip, and an almost thick mouthfeel. It’s like a decadent dessert – rum babas, maybe, with a side of coconut ice cream. It’s possible to taste a little of the white tea towards the end of the sip, although it’s by no means prominent. Just an edge of floral, hay-like sweetness. Mostly, the white tea seems to contribute most towards the mouthfeel, and doesn’t at all overpower the sometimes-delicate flavour of coconut. This really is a delicious, summery cup. I’m impressed with this blend, and it’s definitely one I’d consider repurchasing in the future.
Sweet Nothings White Tea by Adagio
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Adagio
Tea Description:
Sweet apricots, peach, lavender and white tea entangle themselves for a delicate fruit and floral tryst. Quietly pleasing, like softly whispered confessions of admiration that keep you wanting more.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is a white tea from Adagio’s Love Petals collection. It’s a fruit-floral blend, containing sunflower petals and lavender buds on the floral side, and apricot and peach on the fruit side. The base tea is a white peony, composed mostly of brown-black stalks and leaves, but with a few downy silver buds in evidence. It’s not the best looking white peony I’ve ever seen, but appearances can be deceptive.
I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 2.5 minutes in water cooled to around 180 degrees. The resulting liquor is a medium golden-yellow, and the scent is mildly fruity. To taste, the fruit is the primary flavour, and the floral ingredients are mostly absent. I was hoping this would be the case, as (with a few rare exceptions) fruit/floral combinations usually strike me as rather odd. The main flavour I can detect is peach, and it’s a reasonably natural tasting approximation – mildly sweet, with that pulpiness that ripe peaches have. The apricot is present a little, but it’s definitely second fiddle here. As peach and apricot are reasonably similar flavours, however, it hardly seems to matter.
Although I can see lavender buds in the dry mix, they actually make no impact on the overall flavour, or at least not that I can discern. I imagine the sunflower petals are being used to carry the fruit flavours, so perhaps that explains their role in this blend. The white base is also strangely absent from the flavour of this blend. I usually find it possible to detect white teas in flavoured blends, particularly white peony as it can be quite thick tasting, with a floral/dusty flavour all its own. Not so here, which is another point in this blend’s flavour. The peach and apricot are allowed to shine, and shine they do!
This makes for a pleasant blend on a warm spring day, and I can imagine it would also work well iced. Adagio did well with this one.
Chocolate Mint Whisper White Tea from Nature’s Tea Leaf
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Nature’s Tea Leaf
Tea Description:
Chocolate Mint Whisper White Tea is an exclusive blend of a select White Peony tea with pure peppermint leaves and rich Belgian chocolate. The whole leaf tea is evenly mixed with fresh cut mint leaves that are dried naturally to preserve their flavor. Belgian semisweet dark chocolate curls are expertly combined to provide the drinker with a tea that is decadent in aroma but with a flavor that is fresh and minty with hints of rich and velvety chocolate.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I gotta tell ya, the more I try chocolate blends from Nature’s Tea Leaf, like this Chocolate Mint Whisper White Tea, the more I’m liking them. First of all, I love the big curls of chocolate that this blend has. Not just dark Belgian chocolate, but, white chocolate curls too! Sure … the chocolate melts and there are some that will argue that the melted chocolate in the tea clouds up the tea. And it does. But, I don’t care! It’s CHOCOLATE! And when this chocoholic sees cute little chocolate curls mixed into the dry leaf of a tea … the inner child in me squeals with delight.
The White Peony tea leaves seem to respond to this blend differently … that is to say, this doesn’t taste like a typical Bai Mu Dan. There are similar qualities, of course, like the straw-like taste (imagine the air that surrounds a dry hay stack) but, I don’t really notice a vegetative quality or other notes that I often associate with a white tea. But one thing that I do notice here … is an earthy undertone to the white tea that is often overlooked. So … while the ingredients in this blend may have overwhelmed some of the nuances of the white tea, it has also brought forward some flavors of the white tea that is not usually noticed. Like I said … the tea responds differently to this blend … and I, for one, like it.
The mint was a little … difficult to detect with the first few sips. The whole “Whisper” in the name made sense … because the peppermint was indeed a whisper of a taste. And now that I am more than halfway finished with my cup of tea, I notice more mint taste than i did with my first couple of sips … it is still quite a delicate flavor, noticed mostly when I suck in a breath and allow the air to flow over my palate. It is then that I notice a crisp, clean note that is distinctly mint.
This tea is deliciously chocolate-y, and what I really liked about this blend is that even though it was a white tea, it had a pleasing amount of chocolate flavor … but not so much that I lost sight of the fact that it was tea that I was drinking. I liked that I could taste the white tea, and I liked that this tea offered me a different perspective of white tea. A very interesting blend – one that I’d recommend to any chocolate lover.
Organic White Tea (Pai Mu Tan) from Steenbergs Organics
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Steenbergs Organics
Tea Description:
Steenbergs Organic White Tea is an Organic Pai Mu Tan – literally White Peony – is an organic white tea from the Fujian Province of China. Pai Mu Tan is sometimes spelt organic Bai Mu Dan. Organic white teas – which were the favourite tea of Emperor Hui Tsung in 1100AD – are the least processed of all organic tea drinks. The organic white tea leaves are dried on the ground or on a shelf in the sun. Then, these organic white teas are immediately dried without any rolling and packed. It’s the rolling process that would normally have started the oxidation of the organic tea leaves – for organic green teas, firing occurs soon after rolling to prevent any significant oxidation. As a result, organic white teas release the least amount of caffeine of all teas (generally 5 -10mg per cup) and have a flavour as close to the fresh leaf as you’ll get.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I am so impressed with these leaves! They look so fresh – some of the freshest white tea leaves I’ve ever seen! They’re actually variegated shades of pale green to silver, rather than dull grey and brown the way so many other Pai Mu Tan teas that I’ve encountered appear. The look as though they could have just been plucked!
And the quality of the leaves is evident in the flavor. This tea is sweet and delicate in taste, with lovely notes of fresh hay and crisp, clean mountain air. There is a very pleasant creaminess to this cup as well as hints of flower in the distance. The creaminess, as well as the crisp, fresh flavors has a very comforting effect, making this an ideal tea to enjoy as evening approaches and you want to unwind a bit after a hectic day.
This is a really fine quality Pai Mu Tan – but then, I’ve come to expect nothing less from this company… one that a few months ago was rather unknown to me, but now, even though I’ve only tried fewer than a handful of teas from them, I’m very impressed with everything that I’ve tried. They seem to strive to deliver nothing but the best, and it shows!
Citrus Spice White Iced Tea from Nature’s Tea Leaf
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Nature’s Tea Leaf
Tea Description:
Citrus Spice White Iced Tea is an exclusive iced tea blend that combines choice White Peony tea with real pieces of spicy ginger, zesty lemon and fragrant rosemary herbs. Our specially blended iced tea allows the brightness and tanginess of the lemon to soften the distinctive piquant bite of the ginger while allowing the aromatic essence of natural rosemary to shine through. This perfect balance of sweet, spicy, citrus and savory is a taste sensation you will want to experience again and again by the glass or by the pitcher.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I hot-brewed this and allowed the tea to cool to room temperature before chilling it, but I admit to taking a quick sip or two of it while it was still hot to see how I liked it served hot. And while I did enjoy this as a hot tea, I agree with Nature’s Tea Leaf: this tea excels as an Iced Tea!
And yet, this is quite unlike any iced tea I’ve ever tasted … and I mean that in a very good way. That is not meant to slight any tea that I might have tasted in the past, only to say that this is so refreshingly DIFFERENT.
The white tea offers a soft, creamy undertone to the bright, sunny citrus tones and the SAVORY spices. Yes, that’s right, I said savory. This is not a chai … which is immediately what I think when I see “spice tea” … and that is what makes it so different. The ginger tastes zesty and peppery, but it lacks a certain heat that you might ordinarily experience with ginger because it doesn’t have other exotic spices like cinnamon, cloves or cardamom to enhance the spicy-heat of the ginger. Instead, the ginger tastes a bit more mellow – peppery, yes, but without the heat.
The rosemary is what allows these flavors to translate into a more savory kind of taste. The rosemary enhances the citrus-y tones while bringing in a delicate pine-like taste (and aroma!) to the cup. So the tea does indeed have an exotic kind of taste to it, but, not a spicy-hot-chai kind of exotic. Instead, it is more of a balanced taste with its bright citrus notes, sweet white tea, warmly spiced ginger and savory rosemary.
This is not only wonderful because it is so different, but it also gets BONUS POINTS for being incredibly soothing. With winter time right around the corner and with it comes the cold-and-flu season, this is the kind of tea that you want to have on hand when you’re feeling a touch under the weather.
Very refreshing … deliciously different. I like this very much! OH… and it tastes great cold-brewed too!