Love Some Tea

From a looonnggg ago teabox.  Time to steep this up.. I have had their apple tea that I surprisingly enjoyed and this is also similar!  The hugest green tea leaves I have ever seen with an old-yet-still-present tropical fruit flavor.  I would say it mostly tastes like starfruit, which is interesting, on the green base which makes itself known but isn’t bitey.  Though the ingredient list says it should be papaya and mango… I say NOPE IT’S STARFRUIT.  I really like it.   I’m glad I nabbed this from that teabox…
Steep #1 // 40 minutes after boiling // 1 minute steep
Steep #2 // 27 minutes after boiling // 2 min
2022 sipdowns: 2 (Fusion – Peach Apricot Honeybush)

An Ode to Tea challenge #2– A

Started a second alphabet challenge to get more sipdowns in… I thought about it and then VariaTEA started, so thought I’d jump in!  I’m going in the alphabetical direction this time rather than backwards.  And decided to finish the last teaspoon of this.  Why leave it hanging?  Decent apple flavor on a decent green. It was good, now it’s gone.
2021 sipdowns:  90

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge Monday, July 5th: National Apple Turnover Day Tea #2

This poor tea.  It has just been waiting for Apple Day.  Still sealed and packaged well since it was harvested but this is from an ANCIENT teabox.  The green tea leaves are HUGE wow.  I haven’t seen green tea leaves this big.  Otherwise in the two teaspoon sample, I see two tiny apple cubes.  The description on Steepster says this should have quite a number of other fruits, so I’m thinking they remade the blend and the old blend was once just apple and green tea.  There is still some flavor here!   Distinctly sweet apple on this refreshing green base.  Not bad but not sure why they felt the need to flavor what is probably a great green. I would have also loved to try this with the other fruits.
Steep #1 // 1 heaping teaspoon for full mug // 30 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 25 min after boiling // 3 min

This is another tea from the Discovery Teabox (thanks to Skysamurai for coordinating and all who contributed!) I think I ran into LST (Love Some Tea) at the San Francisco International Tea Festival 2018, but considering I have a hard time remembering what I did last week let alone something from two years ago, I have no idea if this was one of the teas they had out for sample that day. Anyway, it was in this teabox, so I took a 2.5g sample to try. I prepared it cold brew style, letting it steep overnight in 350ml of water.

This tea is listed as a blend of black and green leaf, with lots of flower petals and dried mango and papaya with some natural flavorings. My sample, I’ll note, is only tea leaf, with no petals or dried fruit (maybe what was left in the bag?) I also don’t know the age of the sample… my brew is a light yellow color, and has a very faint sweet honeysuckle-esque aroma. The flavor tastes mostly like a crisp green tea — like sweet grass, with some subtle honey notes. I am not getting any fruit notes at all, and only a subtle florality that mostly reads as a bit of sweetness. I think this is mostly due to the selection/age of my sample more than the tea itself, though. It still made for a refreshing iced tea, based just on the tea leaf without the additives or flavorings.

I’m going to leave this unrated since I feel I didn’t get a fair representation of this one, but I appreciate the chance to try it all the same.

I love the super flavourful coconut in this blend. The one drawback (IMO a deal breaker) is the bitterness of the base. I finished up one of my samples of this from a few years ago be brewing it cold. Even cold brewed it has a substantial amount of bitterness and I find very unpalatable. The coconut is lovely and creamy; the vegetal notes from the base are nice too.

Coconut can be a scary ingredient, especially if you never tried a tea from a company before. While sometimes it can be awesome, other times it can taste like lotion. Happy to report that this tea falls into the former category. It ended up being a lovely coconut macaroon tea that peaked my interest in the Love Some Tea company.

Check out my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2019/04/16/dark-coconut-love-some-tea/

From the tea box! The green is pretty mild with a tiny bit of bitterness. The fruit flavor is pretty light as well. I taste maybe papaya or mango. So if you like light fruity greens, this is a tea you would enjoy. They’re not my absolute favorite, but I’m still enjoying this one.

Green apple, a nice green base (for short steeps only-will get very astringent and bitter if you brew for 3+ minutes). Slightly creamy, fruity, natural sweetness in the base. It makes a nice coldbrew if you can get the timing correct. I found more than once I ended up getting a lot of astringency before the majority of the flavour had steeped out of the leaves.

(coldbrew review – 1 taster package in 400 mL cold water, 30 minutes)
Thank you to Love Some Tea for the free sample. I reviewed this one before hot and think it deserves a coldbrew since there is some clear sky and sun out today.

Thank you to LST for this free sample! This is an unbiased review of one of their teas called “Kind Green” (queued tasting notes from yesterday)

One sampler package (~5g?) and 600 mL cold water in a gravity steeper for 12 minutes.

-Notable aroma of tropical fruits
-I can taste a smooth green tea base, not overly vegetal but a well-balanced green
-Flavours of tropical fruits (papaya is the strongest, followed by pineapple, apricot, pomegranate)
-honey note in the aroma

I enjoyed this coldbrewed. I imagine it would be good hot, but the flavours would be overpowered by adding anything like milk. This gets quite bitter and unpleasant if you brew it very long. I find this green does not do well if coldbrewed more than 10-15 minutes.

Thank you to Love Some Tea for the free sample!

3g (half a sampler pouch), 450 mL cold water, 5 minutes

The dry leaf has beautiful, whole leaves. It smells fruity, but not exactly like apple like I expected.

The coldbrew was quite tasty, but not distinctly apple flavoured. I can taste cranberry, red fruits, peach, and mango. The base is nice, but it is quite present. The base is actually the main flavour. Quite green, but with a note of stone fruits.

Lots of fruit flavours, but the green base gets bitter on longer steeps (eg if you coldbrew) and will be bitter in subsequent steeps. I do like this blend the best out of all of their flavours because of the complex combination of fruit flavours, however I really don’t approve of bitterness in teas.

First and foremost, thank you to Love Some Tea for sending me a generous amount of free samples to review.

The green tea leaves are very high quality, and you can taste it. I coldbrewed half a sample pouch 10 minutes (after 20 minutes it gets bitter, aim for 10-15 minutes) in cold water and am now drinking a wonderfully fragrant, fruity green tea that tastes like passion fruits. I can taste some hints of mango, apricot, papaya, and some indistinct floral notes. I really appreciate the green in the base. I’m not a green tea person, but I find this one very drinkable, although can become bitter on longer steeps.

I would recommend this brewed hot or cold, although I really like it iced.