Adham

I’m drawing down my supply of random individual bags so I can focus on the teas I’m more interested in, and this one is on the chopping block today. The description on the package sounds promising, with its blend of Assam, Keemun, Darjeeling, and Ceylon. And I can see bits of leaf in the bag larger than the typical dust and fannings size.

In execution however, it’s less than wonderful. The color is a medium clear brown, and the aroma is light. The taste without additives is really bland; I’m not getting any of the distinctive flavors that I’d usually associate with the individual components used in the blend, but rather a very watered down “tea” flavor. There are vague notes of malt and pepper, but they’re very vague. With cream and sugar it’s tastier, but only because of the cream and sugar and not because it’s bringing out any flavors previously hidden. Disappointing!

It’s been a stressful and busy day, but it’s almost never too crazy for tea – especially one as good as this. The subtle flavors which emerge in this one continue to amaze me. Today I had just a very light note of anise which I had not picked up on before. This tea is most definitely a journey!

Back for another try of the Assam, this time with cream and sugar, and steeped just a bit longer than previously. My, that is tasty! More maltiness is coming out now, and I can see that this tea’s strategy is to try to get you to dunk cookies into it. Unfortunately I don’t have any on hand at the moment, otherwise I’d have to oblige.

Just wanting a nice mellow evening time cup right now, and have this bag along with me, so now is its time in the spotlight. Although the packaging says it’s 100% mint, the smell on opening the pouch isn’t as fresh and minty as other pure mint bags I’ve tried, or even mint/green blends. It does steep to the typical medium-dark green/brown mint tisane color.

The aroma of the cup once steeped is subdued too, and though the mint is there, I’m also getting an element which is more generically “herbal” that I’m also not used to in typical mint teas. The taste is okay – not as cool mint as I prefer, though there is some natural sweetness lurking around which is pleasant. I’m continuing to taste a medicinal herb note which is not so much to my liking.

Wow, not having much luck with bagged teas this week! I’m looking forward to getting back to my normal stash tomorrow.

Another sample packet I picked up, however my first impression of the concept – marrying berry with Darjeeling – isn’t very hopeful. The smell of the bag is lightly berry-like and pleasant, but steeping brings out the telltale bright red of hibiscus, which tells me to get the sugar ready. I don’t mind the flavor of hibiscus if I know that’s what I’m getting, just need to be ready with sweetener, as I find it really too sour otherwise.

The flavor is indeed really tart, so I’ve added twice as much sugar as I normally would. And it’s still pretty sour. In its defense, it does do a good job of bringing together berry and hibiscus flavors, but I’m having a hard time distinguishing the tea angle, let along something as specific as Darjeeling.

Nice to try, but I won’t be angling for this one again anytime soon.

I approach decaf teas warily, after reading so many less than stellar reviews here of both black and green decafs. Sometimes I don’t want the caffeine though, so besides having a stash of rooibos on the side for such occasions, I’m also on the lookout for a green or black decaf that can win me over. I picked up this bag as a sample recently, so it’s time to give it a try.

The scent from this bag is moderately strong, and features a little bit more lemon than ginger. As it steeps I can see the quite small chunks of ginger floating around with the other ingredients in the bag, but am still getting only a light scent from the cup. In three minutes I’ve got a medium-hued yellow-green liquor. One sip tells me to put the bag back in for another minute, as there’s not a whole lot of flavor there yet.

I’m taking it out after four minutes to avoid bitterness from the green tea. I can’t call this one a super successful blend for my taste – I can get the lemongrass and a light background wash of ginger, along with just a bit of astringency from the green tea, but it’s not really working well together for me. It’s just a tad too medicinal tasting and does not offer the kind of rich flavor I’m looking for.

The last of the three varieties of Twinings “Voyage” in my hotel room. Excited to try it because all I can tell from the single serving pouch is that it has coconut in it. I can smell it from the bag, though none too strongly.

I have to admit to being disappointed in this one. The coconut is too mild and just plain flat tasting, and the black tea is rather harsh. Here on Steepster I can read a fuller description of the tea than is printed on the package and see that it is also supposed to feature vanilla and cocoa…as if! Didn’t get that at all.

When there’s Tea Frog’s Coconut White tea in the world, I won’t waste time messing about with this one.

Now this sounds pretty interesting – a mix of black and rooibos. Never seen that before! Then adding pineapple and hibiscus to the mix? Well, let’s see if it works. I gave it about four minutes and ended up with a medium orange-brown liquor with a noticeably fruity flavor. On first tasting, I definitely get the pineapple element layered over rooibos, with the black tea adding astringency that I don’t think would otherwise be there. I’m hesitant to cite the hibiscus – I can’t find it in the flavor or in the color – but overall I’m not really missing it.

I like flavored rooibos, but I usually choose it at times when I don’t want caffeine, so to have it blended with black tea seems a bit counterintuitive to me. Still, not a bad blend overall and I’m glad I got a chance to expand my blended tea horizons today.

I’m traveling this week and in a hotel that features some Twinings varieties I’m not familiar with, including this one. I had a quick cup of it this morning with sugar but no milk. It’s surprisingly tasty for a bagged chai, and has a nice balance of cinnamon and clove plus hints of cardamom and pepper. No real trace of an underlying tea character though. I don’t think I’d go out and buy it compared to fresh loose leaf chai, but I was happy to have it as an alternative to garden variety English Breakfast this morning.

Steeped it a longer than last time, and enjoying it more. The lemongrass is more prominent now, and so is a floral element I missed out on before. I’m surprised the rose hips aren’t making this more tart, but pleasantly surprised as I’m really liking the balance between sweet and sour in this one.

The last of my sample of this one. So warm and comforting! It’s got a nice level of chocolate and great balance with the tea flavor. With cream and sugar, it’s like drinking an improved cup of hot chocolate – not as rich and filling as the real thing but just as satisfying for me.

I’ll just have to get some more.

The coconut theme of today’s Steepster Select gave me a hankering for this one – the last of my TeaFrog sample of this variety. Buttery, rich and slightly toasty; I plan on ordering more.

Threw this sample in with my order of Hawaii-grown black just because it sounded good, and maybe to help defeat a bias I have against orange flavoring in tea. Fortunately the sample size is generous, if pricey, so I should be able to get quite a few steeps out of it.

I don’t usually rinse pu-erhs before steeping, but did this time because of the specific recommendation to do so on the sample pack. I figure if they’ve gone to the trouble of recommending it as the best way to enjoy their tea, I should probably try it. The first steep went for four minutes and ended up really, really dark. I was afraid it would be too far gone to be enjoyable, but it was actually quite delicious. Not at all bitter, just a little astringent, and the orange is strongly present without being acrid. There’s not too much of the typical earthy pu-erh taste in the foreground; it’s more a weight than a flavor.

2nd steep, four minutes. Just as flavorful this time around. The orange leaves a little bit of a tingle in the mouth. I’m enjoying this tea quite a bit and would consider buying it in a larger quantity.

Having the last bit of the Den’s sampler of this variety. It never ceases to amaze me how different these drinks can be and all still be tea – from the vanilla black I had this morning to the Japanese green this afternoon. I really like the buttery vegetable quality of this one, so clean and fresh, but still with a really rich body. Good stuff.

Always a sucker for vanilla, I had to try Demmer’s variation on the theme. The scent of the dry leaf is rich with vanilla and also has a fruity note to it reminiscent of cherry. I don’t see many pieces of vanilla bean in there, so I think the scent is probably from the addition of vanilla extract.

It steeps up to a clear medium orange-brown color with a much milder aroma compared to the dry leaf. The first sip is nice; I can taste the vanilla warmth and roundness in the back of my throat, and am still getting a cherry taste as well as some astringency from the Ceylon base. I typically doctor vanilla tea with cream and sugar, so I’ll try that on this now.

The tea has now settled into a medium full vanilla groove. Definitely there, but not overwhelming in complexity or body. Perfectly acceptable and drinkable, but no substitute for Mariage Freres Vanille des Iles or Black Orchid.

The last Ronnefeldt bag I have on hand – there’s no information on it to indicate just exactly what type of red berries might be in here. The bag itself is too gauzy to get much of a view through, though I do note that the material inside is mostly greenish with red flecks.

On steeping, the liquor becomes a garish pink-purple – keep this one far away from white furniture and carpets. I’m thinking hibiscus is probably playing a starring role in this beverage. One sip confirms it – really, really tart, to the point where I need to add two lumps of sugar rather than just one in order to make it drinkable. The hibiscus flavor is there, but others in there as well which make it more than just a Red Zinger rip-off. I’d guess there’s raspberry in there and something with a woodier taste, again I’m guessing but I think it might be acai.

As an iced drink on a hot day I think it would be super; hot, it leaves me a little, well, cold.

This is the one herbal tisane I picked up from Demmer’s, chosen because it seemed to have a nice mix of flavors across the sweet and tart spectrum. The mix is really chunky – big pieces of apple, orange, rose hips, snips of lemongrass, blossoms – and smells clean and fresh. The recommended steeping parameters are boiling water and 5 – 8 minutes, but I think I’ll use slightly cooler water at first to see how it turns out.

It yields a deep yellow liquor with a hint of green and just a little bit of cloudiness. The aroma is citrus plus a more general “herbal” tune, and that’s mirrored in the taste as well. It’s not at all overly tart, but I’m not sure what is giving it the body. It could be the honeydew which is in there, though I can’t pick this out as an individual flavor.

Definitely a pleasant drink and one I can see having when I want to avoid caffeine.

Squeezing in a cup of this – another bagged tea I picked up on a recent trip – between multiple infusions of the Hawaii-grown black. The steeping instructions indicate 8 minutes, which sounds unusually long, so I’m going to stop at 7 minutes and see where we are.

This is actually pretty nice – it is lemony, but not in the furniture polish direction. There’s a sweetness to it as well, but I can’t tell where that is from. Other than that, it’s not very complex. Pleasant enough for a fruit-based tisane, and refreshing without being parchingly acidic.

This smells like Hawaii. I’ve been spending time there regularly since I was kid, and was overwhelmed by memories in a Proustian moment when I opened the packet of tea. Warm rain, damp earth, trade winds, and tropical softness are all in there, somehow, magically. The leaves are huge and dark, their twists unfurling majestically in the hot water.

Several steepings all reveal intense sweetness, a definite roasted sweet potato warmth, maltiness and a little bit of roastiness. No astringency or bitterness at all. I don’t think I’ll ever put milk, cream, or sugar in this – I just want to taste the tea and nothing else.

I’m already alarmed at how quickly and easily this 25g pack could be used up, and in the back of my mind I’m trying to do cost/cup calculations based on multiple infusions to justify getting more…

Having another go around with this one to try and get a better handle on where the flavors are coming from. Same parameters for the first steep – 2 minutes at 180 degrees, but this time I am getting the hint of melon that the company mentions in its description. Still a lot of that sweet hay/grass taste too, which is very pleasant. I’m noticing the aftertaste this time more – it’s a sweetness around the whole mouth.

Still, all these flavors are so gentle and understated, it’s hard for me to get the purpose of putting a bunch of flavoring in with white tea, for fear of losing the essential qualities of the tea itself. I’m going to chalk it up to other people having more acute taste centers, that can pick out the white tea flavors among the melon, licorice, or other additions.

2nd infusion at 2.5 minutes and 180 degrees: Still very sweet and grassy, nice aroma and color. No real lessening of qualities in the second steep. I’m going to bump this one up a couple points based on today’s tasting.

I bought this one on the strength of the aroma alone. Sticking my head into the huge canister of tea in the shop, it was like falling into a vat of Bailey’s. Sweet, strong, and creamy! It brews up to a fairly dark brown liquor, and smells heavenly. They’ve definitely got the mix of whisky and sweet cream right there.

The flavor is bolder tea-wise than I imagined, based on my experience with a couple of the other Demmer’s teas I’ve tried so far this week. This one is clearly based on a strong Ceylon, with a fair bit of astringency which serves as an interesting counterpoint to the Irish Cream direction. Kind of like having a dainty glass of Bailey’s in a dark-paneled library, if that makes sense.

This one is also crying out for cream and sugar, which even in moderate amounts had the surprising effect of really muting the whisky flavor. Still there, but reduced by about three-fourths. Overall, feels kinda decadent to be having this at 10:30 in the morning, but fortunately there’s no actual alcohol in it!

Two infusions of this go-to Sencha. Great as an after-lunch “digestif”, especially if I feel like I didn’t have enough veggies in the middle of the day!

Another Demmer’s new addition to the cupboard. I had a whiff of this one in the shop and thought it rich without being cloying. The dry leaf is dark, so I’m expecting there to be a balance between almond and the flavor of the tea. The aroma of the steeped tea is characteristic of almond flavoring, but it has an additional fruity component to it.

The flavor after four minutes is medium strong; there is light astringency and I can definitely taste the black tea base playing nicely with the almond. For me, this type of tea is much more enjoyable with cream and sugar, so after a few sips of it straight, it’s off into the land of milky sweetened almond tea for me. Mmmm, that definitely brings out the dessert-like quality of the almond flavor and makes it feel like a much more decadent drink. I’m having it in the morning but think it would also be an excellent substitute for a post-lunch dessert. Yummy indeed.

My last serving of this from the Den’s sampler. I like this one and will probably order more. It’s got such a nice balance between the vegetal and roasty flavors, and a lovely level of natural sweetness to it. And, I’m finding it equally good in the afternoon as it is in the morning – gotta love versatility!