cteresa

This not strictly green tea. It is honeybush (normal I guess. I do not know if there is such a thing as green honeybush) with green rooibos and supposedly some mint flavouring. I say supposedly because I did not notice it – maybe my package is too old and mint too volatile, or maybe I brew it too long (it´s rooibos. It stays there till I am ready to drink it).

To me it tastes mostly like plain green rooibos – the first rooibos I ever had was green rooibos and I am quite partial. It is a totally different taste (and infusion colour) than normal red rooibos. Its taste is more herbal, “greener”, a bit more like green tea or linden or camomile or a mix of all of those. Not bitter at all. I like this a lot and might rebuy – though I am looking as well for good quality plain green rooibos as well, and good quality plain honeybush.

This Marco Rouge is lovely and nice – it is rooibos (duh) and upfront about being rooibos. If you hate or just dislike plain rooibos this one might not be a rooibos for you.

The tea smells heavenly on the package, brewed up its smell seems far less complex – but then again, it is rooibos, it brew very hot and long. But then again Berry Berry Nice (by Yumchaa, a small London tea company) which is my favorite rooibos ever and to which I can not help comparing this with, is also brewed very hot and long and seems more intense and complex when drinking. A lot more.

After brewed Marco Rouge tastes of plain rooibos (stating the obvious, sorry. But a good rooibos) and strawberry and vanilla. Nice. Not bad, but for this sort of thing, my beloved Berry Berry Nice is much better and deeper. IMHO and all that.

I bought a small ammount to test at home. And I do like it better if I brew it myself, on my small teapot and just so. Better.

This tea smells incredible in every stage. The tea leaves with a thousand fruity smell, then after brewed, like strawberry jam and green apples and maybe caramel. First taste is for me strawberry with green Granny Smith apples coming later at the back of the mouth. Nobody else seems to have tasted apples, never mind green apples, so my brain might be just wrongly assigning a particularsmell to a very complex blend of flavours.

Must retest, less brewing time I think and maybe try milk. Lovely indeed, though it did not knock my socks off as much as expected.

According to the ingredients, it is black assam tea with all “natural” flavouring of honey, cocoa and vanilla. A fair description apart maybe from the naturalness of the honey flavouring. It smells very strongly of honey before brewed, true, but it reminds me not of how true honey smells and taste but of “honey” lipbalms (particularly The Body Shop´s defunct honey lipbalm) and other “honey” products. After brewed it thankfully tones down a bit, the honey is still uppermost, but there is a nice aftertaste for the cocoa and vanilla. I like it a lot for that aftertaste, I wish the honey was not so intense, and dislike the assam tea base underneath, which seems a bit tanninic and bitter to me. In all I did not hate it, but both the flavouring and tea are a bit too strong for me.

This is probably too old or something – though it shouldn´t and the tea bags are sealed hermetically in a nice sealed packaging. But while it smells very nice (caramel though not really dulce de leche and red fruits) it tastes like nothing. Trying to rescue it thought to add milk. Bad bad idea, by some weird chemistry it now tastes almost dusty, slightly smoky but in a cigarette way, not a pine lapsang souchong.

Considering tossing this.

well, this is the scraping of the barrel, the last lost little broken dusty bits at the end of the tin. So this tasting might not be too fair, because of that and because the tin was bought a couple years ago.

It is lovely. I think by now the caramel overtone is topmost note, though I can also catch some vanilla and some chocolate. It tastes almost almondy to me as well.

Very very good, though I will probably take a break from it right now and buy instead maybe Thé sur le Nil. In Autumn I will reconsider buying – maybe this is a season prejudice of mine, but Wedding Imperial is in my mind, a very winter-ish type of tea.

It´s mostly a grapefruit flavoured (not that grapefruit is mentioned on tea description, but really it´s grapefruit) rooibos. I can detect the orange as well, a bit overpowered by the grapefruit, but none of the other flavours. Not bad, but not anything to write home about (or rebuy).

I was expecting to lurve Marco Polo. I didn´t – very nice and our relationship might develop and grow, but no love at first sip. I was expecting to not particularly like Thé sur le Nil, it has lemongrass(? erva príncipe?), which I do not like. And it´s not subtle about that lemongrass, it is the main taste note to me, though there are also lemons and I thought (without any foundations since nobody mentions it) a chamomile-y sort of flavour.

But I did love this Thé sur le Nil, and left me with a very nice inner glow that nice teas leave you with. I still do not like citronella, but here it works, even for me. Really lovely and I am definetely looking to buy.

I had this with a slice of lemon meringue pie, and the combination is highly recommended.

This will probably make a fabulous iced tea.

I was expecting somebody taller, I think. More intense maybe. It was lovely the strawberry smelt natural and delicious but it felt a little bit short of the OMG-ness I expected.

Still I mean to buy some to brew at home and experiment with dosage. And yes, it is lovely, even if it did not awed me.

I am really really liking this. The twinings mixed teabag box now made me discover two of my favorite, staple teas (fyi, the other being lady grey).

This is a pretty “different” kind of black tea. It is supposedly mixed with green and oolong, and it does show something of that. It is lovely.

This is very british, but in a very delicate way. It is much lighter and delicate than most breakfast mixes. The official blurb compares its taste to roasted chestnuts – I would never have gotten there myself, but now I read it, it is a very good comparison. I had some teabags from a mixed Twinings box and this is the last, I am going to look for it, bagged (I am heretical, I do not mind that much, depending of course on age and circumstances) or loose.

I usually do not put sugar or milk (or anything dairy) on tea, but this is absolutely delicious with milk.

I do not like this at all. It is theoretically green tea “orient” mix. The packaging has star anise on it, and they are right, it tastes overpoweringly of anise ( not sure what kind) and a liquorice type of smell. I hate liquorice. After the liquorice there is mint (?) in a toothpasty way, too strong and too artificial and leaving a toothpasty after-tasting clean feeling on the mouth (I like that for toothpaste, for green tea no). Maybe some cinnamon as well. Green tea taste almost unnoticeable. I really did not like it.

PS – about brewing temperature, the packaging says to use boiling, even if it´s green. Well, I took their word for it, but I think no brewing temperature or steeping times could make this palatable for me.

This is definitely in your face flavoured tea – but a nice one. Ceylon tea, very nice base, strong but not bitter or tanninic and a lot of flavour. The flavouring does not seem too artificial to my tastebuds, though I am on expert on cranberry. It reminded me in strength and character of some russian brand (no idea which, packaging was in Cyrillic) flavoured teas, though perhaps this was nicer.

I am upgrading the rating to topmost. This is definetely my favorite rooibos based tea ever, so whatever, just as perfect as anything I ever had. Brewed very hot, with just a smidgeon too much tea, this tea makes me very happy indeed, and for hours.

Very nice, though I think I must brew it with more tea to really taste it.

A strange one, not quite what i was expecting. Though strange at first sip, I was definetely converted by the end of the cup. The cherries I suspect (and maybe the goji berries as well) add some texture to it. Otherwise a very light and delicate flavoured black tea.

Having this again, and I think this deserves to be brewed with non-tap water. It is as lovely as the other times I had it. It is a very ceylonish tea, though perhaps less strong than the usual. It tastes very coppery to me, and also malt-y – I like those! very orangeish in color. Not very tanninic, even when it brews slightly too long.

A bit meh, but not bad. A lot of flavour, tea not too noticeable. Flavour seems artificial-ish to me, but I am not an expert on cranberry!

I find red fruits black tea hard to find. Or if not hard to find exactly, hard to find one which is just right. They are either too strongly scented or not enough, too artificial or too diffident, the tea itself too strong or too weak. But this is as close as I have found yet to a good red fruit black tea, it´s perfectly balanced to my taste and not too strong, not too weak.

This has been tempting me for a while, even if I really do not trust this brand – it´s actually a supermarket´s own brand, which is not a problem except I do not usually like this supermarket´s own brands. But almond rooibos, pretty packaging and quite affordable I had to try it.

Sadly it´s a no-go for me. The almonds were there, visible but the taste is not noticeable. It tastes mostly of orange peel , too much of orange peel to my taste, and cardamom. Perhaps because so much of this tea is flavourings and other ingredients, the rooibos is not intense and hardy noticeable. But at the dosage i used the cardamom is piquant and almost overpowering, not sure I could dose this differently to bring out the rooibos.

Way too much wrong stuff going on this. For a rooibos with some almond done right (even if it does have hibiscus, in a miraculously subtle ammount) try Yumchaa´s Adventure.

This is indeed exquisite, and well worth taking extra care with brewing it just right – I would say mineral or filtered water is a must for this tea.

It might be the most bashful, diffident “oh, who me” flavoured tea I ever tasted – in a good way. The osmanthus is definitely there, by visual verification and scent before brewing, but it melds into just delicate tea-ness in the flavour. This is a wonderful very delicate tea. I was expecting something more like the standardish jasmine (green) tea, but it is nothing like any jasmine green tea I ever had.

I got to check about stocking another box of this, while the reseller has it on stock.

wow, this is very very french. Very very delicate and lightly flavoured, and I brew it wrong (tap water, maybe overdiluted and maybe too hot) but it´s very light and delicate in an exquisite way.

I have a major weakness for lapsang souchong. And the Twinings one, while maybe arguably not the best I ever had, is a rather canonical LS, and a comfort tea for me. Yes, it is smoky, but from somebody who hates cigarette smoke, it´s a very different type of smoke.

From experience, I do not think this is too high in caffeine.

From experience as well, and I know this is so heretical, i think I prefer the Twinings tea bags for this over the loose leaf. Perhaps I undermeasure, or the loose leaf has aged too much, or the contents of the british-market teabags are better than the continental tin caddy, but this is one of those instances I think the teabags (the black british no-string teabags) do taste more and better than the loose leaf.

It is certainly a different (to me) kind of tea, but this is one taste I might just adquire. Like it a lot, though to my palate I like it better when done with hotter water than the 70C recommended.