Sweet Leaf

Quick Backlog … Before I went to St. Louis we took a quick day jaunt down to Kansas City home of Shang Tea. I wish I had more time there – they are SUCH lovely people but we were so hungry and both my and my daughter’s blood sugars were dropping fast so we had to go eat soon. Anyway after sampling a few teas and picking up two that I wanted – I had to grab some of this!
When we sampled it we all were so surprised! It is SWEET VERY SWEET like liquid all nature sweetener! Now I would not drink this straight myself although my daughter LOVED it straight, but it is PERFECT and let me repeat PERFECT to add only a little bit to your other teas to sweeten ALL NATURAL!
I LOVE this stuff should have got more but I do have a little to share. I am for sure sending some to Kittenna and TeaEqualsBliss in soon to come trades.
If anyone else really loves to sweeten their tea or is curious about this please let me know. Oh and I even got a discount on it when I mentioned I was going to share with fellow Steepsters! How cool is THAT for customer service??
:)
If you live anywhere near KC go into Shang and enjoy sitting and sampling all their teas and look around at all their lovely pots and also jewelry and other neat items!
Lovely place, lovely people!
I will be back when I have more time – consider yourself warned lol.

What a lovely surprise from Azzrian – thanks so much!

This was a shocker because at first glance it looked like a rolled oolong! It’s actually leaves from a type of rosebush! I’m game! Bring-It-On!

While infusing the leaves DO magnify and multiply! They plump up really nice! Some of them remind me of cooked kale. The aroma is savory and vegetal.

WOW!

The post-infused liquor is CRAZY Sweet! And naturally at that!

It sort of reminds me of Stevia Powder a little bit – like from nuNaturals, for example…but not quite. Many that paired with the hydration of celery might be a better description of what I am tasting.

The more I drink this the more I actually like it. Again, I’m diggin’ it because it’s different. Because it’s sweet but naturally sweet! Because it DOESN’T leave a funky after taste. Yeah…this is unique and surprisingly tasty after you get used to it.

Thanks again Azz!

Thanks for sending me a bit of this to try, Azzrian!

Had this not been labelled, I definitely would have assumed it was an oolong, by the appearance of the rolled up leaves. I have to admit that I wasn’t a big fan of the smell of the leaves while this tea was steeping. It was a very vegetal, somewhat familiar aroma, and it just didn’t appeal to me. It almost smelled… fridgey? You know, that sat-too-long kind of smell? Luckily, the tea doesn’t have that same aroma, and smells more like Nestea’s green tea with lemon, or something like that.

…. oh my. This is crazy sweet. It seems I should have used about half the leaf I did! This is quite good though, but honestly WAYYYYY too sweet for me at its current level. I used the whole baggie of tea that I received (I didn’t measure it, but maybe 1-2 tsp) in a large-ish mug, and it’s very, very sweet. Almost… like golden raisins… why am I getting that association?? I’m getting a bit of that fridgey taste, but I have a feeling it’s just something in the leaves that’s causing it, not an age thing.

The flavour definitely reminds me of when I’m plumping up raisins for oatmeal raisin cookies, so raisins in water in a bowl in the microwave, making lovely raisin water that I drain out.

Anyways, I don’t think this is a tea I’d drink as tea… however I noticed that the recommendation was to add a bit to other teas to sweeten them, and I think that’s a great idea that I’ll have to try sometime… because I think I spotted an extra baggie of this in my box from Azzrian so I do have some left (that must have been an oops?? :P)

Thanks for a sample of this one, Azzrian! I’m always up for trying new, interesting things! :D

Wow. This stuff unfurls to crazy size!!

And wow, does it ever sweeten. I used 3 pieces and steeped along with some Sungma darjeeling from Harney. There is a slight aftertaste that I associate with non-sugar or honey sweeteners. Enough so that I wouldn’t use this again with a tea not as light as this darjeeling. However, I will definitely try using it with the afternoon chai at work tomorrow. This should be a good compromise with those who don’t want sugar every afternoon and those of us who like our chai sweeter. :)

Rating is based on how likely I am to use it again, not as a tea to drink on its own.