Mango

I have two large tins in my kitchen in which I stuff various samples of stuff that are too small to be put in proper tin or I don’t otherwise know what to do with. Consequently the contents of these tins are frequently forgotten about. I had a rummage through them because that Stockholm blend thing that Luthien had was inspiring me and I wanted one of those ‘big’ blends with lots of stuff in it instead of these simpler things that I normally go for for a change. I found some lemon grass, honeysuckle flowers and some red rosebuds that I didn’t even know I had! Also a sample from previously mentioned local shop that I’m not sure why I got in the first place. It doesn’t really look like something that I would expect to like all that much… Anyway, this one is a teabag that I got through a trade at some point.

It has a number of things against it. 1) It’s bagged. 2) It’s ancient. 3) It’s been stored in a plastic ziplock bag. 4) in a tin containing other stuff too and consequently reeks of rooibos.

Obviously I’m not getting my hopes up here, but I’ve only got this one bag and I might as well get rid of it.

(I just realised now there’s a typo when I added the tea. ‘Manog’ tea, indeed. snicker I’ll fix it as soon as I’m done with the post.)

It smells a little bit of mango, still. It also smells like sugar and something sort of lemon-y. And of chamomile, weirdly enough. Quite a lot of chamomile actually. I wonder if, during the trade, tea bags might have been accidentally switched around so what I’ve actually just made is a cup of chamomile tisane. Well, there’s only one way to find out.

Nope, it’s not chamomile in disguise. There’s a little bit of astringency (yay learning this!) and that’s about it. It has very little flavour of any sort of in although it does actually vaguely remind me of chamomile. The reason I can say though that it isn’t actually real chamomile in disguise is that chamomile, even really ancient chamomile of dubious quality, in my experience doesn’t really fade in flavour the way this stuff obviously have. The dominant taste of the whole cup here is hot water.

I’m a bit wary of rating it because I would like to believe that in a better stored non-ancient bag it would have been better, but I have to go with what I’ve actually got.

This is very pleasant for a bagged tea and doesn’t get sour like some fruit bagged teas I’ve tried. That’s pretty awesome actually. The mango flavor is subtle but present and lightly sweet. If you want an adventurous flavor slap in this face this isn’t it. But it does taste like a real mango and the mango flavor doesn’t degrade as the tea gets cold so good job Bentley’s.

As for the green tea base… it’s got a little astringent kick… the mellowness of the green tea comes through and the flavor is rich and buttery which goes nice with the mango but at the end there is a little tiny annoying kick. Kinda like lipton bagged green but no where near as bad and it didn’t show up until the tea began to cool down. So not such a big deal just drink this one hot and enjoy it.
But would I buy it again… eh… prolly not

To try and put a positive spin on the sweltering heat yesterday, I decided to make sun tea with some of the bagged teas I’d set aside for just such a purpose. I’m not rating any of them, as they were a mix of two Stash decaf english breakfast, one bentley’s raspberry, and one bentley’s mango in a 2 L jug.

All in all, this was a failed experiment. The mango took over and it was gross. I did not like it at all. To me, there are two major flavors to mango, and one of them I cannot stand. Well, this just seemed to be nothing but the flavor I cannot stand.

I have four more of these in the Russian Roulette jar at the moment, but if anyone out there wants them, I’m more than happy to fish them out and send them on.

From my Christmas sampler pack.
Mangoey, in smell and taste. Kind of like real mango, but also like dried mango. Maybe closer to the dried mango side. Light colored tea, the green tea is not showing through a lot. It’s smooth though, very mellow green. It’s good, kind of like that mango coconut tea from Stash. Sweet enough on it’s own.