Artichoke Green

I love artichokes. They are my all time favorite salty food. Green tea with artichoke? Sounded promising… Must try it. Tonight, finally, I get around to this sample. It has been a very busy couple of weeks and I have managed to get carpel tunnel in my right hand from typing… So I believe my tasting notes will be a bit shorter than usual for a while. 

The dry tea smells vaguely fruity. It reminds me of a mild version of Adagio’s Guanabana tea. The leaves are bright green and inviting.

Once brewed it smells a bit like artichoke, but not enough. It is tasty, but not quite artichoke tasty. It has a pleasant sweet aftertaste, similar to the aftertaste of an artichoke. Still taste a bit of fruitiness.

I have to confess that I decided to add a dash of salt to see what happened. Turns out it was a bit more savory, but also reminded me a bit of drinking sea water…. So probably won’t be doing that again. I rather not feel like I am sipping watered down ocean… 

Adagio gets points for coming up with this amazing idea. It still needs some work before it is perfect, but I enjoyed it plenty. 

Enough typing for now. Time to rest my aching hand… Argh… Why did I work so hard!!! : (

Wow! I thought this was going to be scary, but it was quite good. Like the Sesame tea, this came from Adagio’s Savory Sampler, which I received in the mail yesterday. I actually drank this last night. I was very apprehensive, but when I smelled the tea I began to feel less so. The tea actually smells kind of sweet (my husband said fruity, but i don’t know about that) but still like artichokes. In my mind, artichoke flavor = tangy / salty. That is not what this tea tastes like at all. This is more “essence of artichoke”. Now, I did not use enough leaf when I brewed this last night, so I will have to re-try with a more correct proportion. But the flavor itself is very smooth, savory, soothing. Definitely worth trying. I will have to try a few more times before I can adequately rate it, but it surely falls into the “thumbs up” category.

My first reaction to smelling this tea was, “oh man, I was looking forward to this, what a disappointment.” I literally gagged a little on the overwhelming fruitiness. Its not even like a sweet fruity, more like semi-fermented fruity. I’m having issues linking this unnatural scent to any sort of edible plant, never mind my beloved artichoke. Eh, I think to myself, I’ve had tea that smell like woodsmoke and taste like carmel and creme, might as well brew it up.

Thank Crickt I did! This is absolute amazing in a cup! The taste of the green tea and whatever they did to make it artichoke flavor meld perfectly into one glorious note. This is the artichoke flavor that permeates the breadcrumbs in stuffed artichokes that makes it not stuffing. But distilled and added to a mellow grassy base that only enhances the taste. Also so natural sweetness from the green really gives it a nice solid finish. My favorite part has to be that first tangy high note that settles down into the whole artichoke taste.

Very, very good. I’m usually not a fan of greens or flavored teas, but I hope this sticks around for a long time so I can re-order it. Not a perfect 100, because I have a hard time declaring things perfect being the good skeptical scientist that I am. But this is damn close.

My turn to try this oddity!

The dry leaves smell sweet. Not syrupy or anything, just sweet. Can’t really link that to artichoke… While brewing, it has a different smell… some of the tang is coming through. It makes my mouth water just a bit. Almost like very diluted bread and butter pickle juice.

It tastes… neat. Different. Softer than I expected. The first taste is hard to place. Vinegar? But not like straight vinegar and not as strong as the smell. It just has a similar note to it… a clean sort of tang. The ending taste is the most fresh artichoke-like taste I think. As I inhale after the sip there is a very fresh green almost floral taste. I would say this gives me a very pickled artichoke feel but pickled artichoke has always been very mouth puckering to me and this isn’t sour/tangy enough to do that. Just tangy enough to add interest.

Anyway, so far I’m intrigued. It’s a weird flavor to have in tea but I think it is done well. Not sure how in love with this tea I will be once the freak-factor is eliminated from it but I won’t have any problem going through the sampler tin.

I’m not as well versed in green teas, but I do like this one. There’s a bright sweetness in this brewed, but it’s not sugary sweet. Almost like a slightly sweeter meyer lemon mixed with the grassiness of a decent green tea. I’m not sure I could pick out the “artichoke” flavor if I was doing a blind taste-test, but it is a very enjoyable cup! Thanks Awkward Soul for the generous sample!

Yep… you guessed it, I bought it because it was one of those “weird” ones. And, hey, artichokes are one of my favorite vegetables. So… I had to give it a chance.

And I am really glad that I did!

The aroma of the dry leaves is very unusual. It doesn’t really smell like artichoke to me. It does give off a certain vegetative scent but there are also sweet notes in there, sort of fruit-like, and maybe even a little floral. The brewed tea is much more vegetable, though.

Already I know that this is going to be a difficult tea for me to review, because when I steam my artichokes, I usually add garlic, lemon, pepper and laurel to the “steam” water. These additives give off their definite own aromas and flavors to the artichoke. I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever eaten an unseasoned artichoke… so like I said, it will be difficult to say definitively that this tastes like artichoke.

With that in mind, my first few sips, I wasn’t sure that I was tasting artichoke. I did, however, taste distinct lemon-y notes which is quite on par with how I would prepare my artichoke.

But I like it… and it was definitely worth buying, and it will definitely be worth trying again!

Well, I just dumped my first cup without giving it a full cup to judge.

I love artichokes. I like green tea. But for me? This tea is utter and total fail. FAIL!!!* The smell of the dry leaf was very artifical and the brew smelled and tasted like someone dumped old perfume in it. I tried to not dump it, I really did. Nope. I sat here and stared at it for a full 15 minutes, wanting to not dump it, but NOT wanting to drink.

Dumped.

*(originally read “FAIL!! FAILITY-FAIL-FAIL with a side of FAILsauce and pureed fail with fail butter.” But I decided that I should probably cut back on the hyperbole.)

Thanks to AwkwardSoul! I am thoroughly enjoying this cup of tea! I used a fair amount of leaves (2 tsp to 8 ounces of water) and put it in my steeper. They expanded quite a bit. I only let the kettle get to the point of steam coming out, but I didn’t use a thermometre. It steeped 4 minutes. This tea is sweet and almost pepperminty. With grassy goodness! I may order some!

The Final Sipdown: Day 6.3

Another tea from Auggy that I received way back. As a person not enamored with artichokes, I was not super enthusiastic about trying this tea, but I decided to stop whinging about it and JUST. DO. IT.

The tea smells exactly like White Cucumber. Well, maybe not exactly, but exactly what I remember White Cucumber smelling like. Luckily, I had already developed a steely resolve towards finishing this sample and could not be deterred from dumping it in the Breville and sending it off.

The liquid smells of fruit.

It tastes of…I’m not sure. Fruit? Faintly. Blandness [because sure, you can taste blandness]? Faintly. Water? Yes. Bitterness? Yes, at the back of my tongue. White cucumber scent? Unfortunately, yes, in the finish. Artichoke?

…

Again, I’m not really sure. I think I get it a bit at the finish and in the aftertaste, but the taste of artichoke is rather distinct and I feel like it would be more obvious.

I think I put too much water in when I made this tea because it’s rather weak. Likely this was a subconscious effort to reduce the flavor of a tea I reckoned I wouldn’t like. Either that, or it simply hasn’t held up as well as the other samples I have tried thus far [though the smell would certainly protest loudly]. Regardless, the flavors I found were not fantastic.

As it cools, it is not faring any better, and so I will bid this tea adieu without regrets.

Teas Downed: 15

I got the savory teas sample collection with my Adagio order and tonight I decided to try the most intimidating-sounding one first. I’ve never really eaten much artichoke and it’s always been mixed in with other ingredients – such as in a calzone or an omelett – so I don’t really have a definitive taste pinned down in my mind except that it always tasted rather pickled and salty.

The smell of the dry leaves and the brewing tea is surprisingly fruity – in fact it almost smells like peach or mango to me. The dry leaves are of a nice size and a bright, fresh-looking green shade and they brew up to make a clear, pale-green coloured tea.

The taste is almost as fruity as the scent and it’s sweet, though in a rather subdued manner. It’s only on the aftertaste that I get a faint hint of what I’m used to thinking of as artichoke – savory and pickled.

its too fruity for an artichoke. i was a bit disappointed with this one because i am an artichoke fiend! i only get fruity from this. maybe if i steep it longer i can get more of an artichoke flavor out of it… it smells faintly like marinate artichokes thought so ill give it that. i sure hope the toasted sesame lives up to its name

i will be trying this one again to see if i can try to get that veggie artichoke flavor

Lovely! Half a cup! Full review tomorrow with my full cup!

Backlogging. I went to Ikea yesterday with my parents and picked up several pieces of furniture! woo! As I was putting them together, I had some of this artichoke green. :) yum!

My humans really had a good time reviewing this tea. See how it all went: http://bit.ly/5vOYAC

2 infusions, 2.25g of leaf steeped in 6oz water for 3 and 4 min respectively. Don’t let my rating fool you, this is a WONDERFUL tea… but I it wasn’t what I was expecting. While the liquor looks like the left over water from cooked spinach or artichokes, both the raw and steeped leaves smell fruity (kinda like their mango green) and it tastes fruity as well. Based on the flavor I’d give it a 100, but as far as it supposed to being an artichoke tea… it misses the mark.

Wow, totally unexpected. I thought this would be green (as in vegetal). Instead, it has a nice sweetness. What a nice surprise!

What in interesting tea. I smelled the leaves and was turned off by the strong artichoke scent, even though I like artichokes. After steeping, the artichoke scent was much less pronounced, but I couldn’t really smell the green tea. After cooling down a bit, the tea mellowed out, but I’m still not tasting much green here. Too much artichoke.

Not a bad tea, but to me the artichoke was a bit overwhelming.

Not what I expected an artichoke tea to taste like! It’s more like peach with a bit of floral flavor. Even more surprising, I’m enjoying it despite not being a big fan of sweet or fruity teas. Somehow artichokes’ sweetness doesn’t annoy me like other sweetening ingredients.

Giving serious consideration to restocking when my sample is gone. This could be handy for those times when I have a wild impulse to drink fruity tea, and am considering purchases that, in my heart, I know will disappoint me like all the rest.

It’s fantastic and has a strong veggie taste.
It overpowers the Green tea taste but does it justice.
Highly recommend

I made three infusions of this. The first one was just so-so. It had more of a bitter note than I was expecting. I liked the second brewing better – it was a little less bitter and had more of the umami of the 100% artichoke tea I’ve had before. The third infusion had very litter flavour – the second was by far the best and the most interesting.