Monarch Tea Co.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea 17

This tea is much better if the two Monarch teas I tried. Maybe because I steeped it for less time?

It’s fruit and nice. Sweet. Not overly floral. Not anything earth shattering. But smooth and overall pleasant.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea 13

Made this earlier and was excited to try a fairly local shop. Alas, while this had a clear blueberry flavour, it was also very brisk/dry.

Backlog:

A very finely chopped rooibos blend. It appears to be both red and green rooibos and they’ve been chopped to a fine consistency. It looks to me like someone had put the ingredients into a food processor and pulverized it.

But it’s tasty. I prefer the flavor of green rooibos over red rooibos so it’s nice that both the red and green are in this blend – it makes for a tastier base. It ends up tasting more fruity than nutty. There is a light apple note from the chamomile and a pleasant caramel background note.

Overall, I enjoyed this.

Backlog:

The appearance of the dry leaf surprised me because the leaves look more like a CTC black tea than a green tea. The leaves are small and dark in color. I examined the leaves after brewing too – to see if maybe it was just a very fine pelleted gunpowder green but the leaves didn’t seem to unfurl into something more recognizable as green tea so these are just finely cut green tea leaves that are darker in color than most green teas I’ve come across.

The aroma is like green tea though, it smells earthy and vegetal. I don’t smell a lot of lemon or citrus notes.

The lemon flavor is very delicate. It seems as though the lemon flavor is reliant upon just the addition of lemongrass and lemon pieces and not on lemon flavoring here. So, it is, as I said, very delicate. If you’re looking for a distinct lemon flavor – this isn’t the tea for you.

What little lemon notes that there are are tart and tingly, softened somewhat by the buttery notes of the lemongrass.

The real flavor of this cup comes from the green tea. A sweet, refreshing green tea flavor that’s only very lightly vegetative. A gentle smokiness in the distance. There is a dry astringency toward the tail.

I don’t know how “detox” this actually is. I don’t know that I really consider green tea with lemon pieces and lemon grass to be a detox blend. That said, it’s an enjoyable beverage. Light and pleasant to sip.

Backlog:

This comes from Edition 7 from Postal Teas subscription. I was thrilled with the box because it featured a company from which I’ve not yet tried teas.

And this is a tasty tea. I like that the black tea notes are prominent – this is a tea first and the flavorings do not overpower the base – the apple flavors are subtle but develop as I sipped. The flavoring reminded me of apple pie filling, complete with a touch of cinnamon. It’s a gentle warmth from the cinnamon, again nothing overwhelming here. Just a really nice black tea with a level of flavoring designed to accentuate the tea.

I enjoyed the packaging from Monarch tea – they’re a company that can be found on Etsy and the packaging has a very ‘homemade’ sort of feel to it and I liked that. It’s rustic and attractive, cute and artsy.