Tea Forte

This was another one sent to me by Jaime! Thanks so much!!!

Let me start off by saying that I don’t really like pear-flavored things. Why? I have no idea. I guess that it’s not really the most rational thing, but I just “think” that I don’t like pear things. However, I am adventurous enough to try pretty much any tea at least once and I do like ginger, so I thought that I would give this one a try.

I totally have to agree with TeaEqualsBliss on this one. Her review for this tea sums up my initial thoughts perfectly when she talks about how the ginger pear ratios change before and after this tea steeps. This is another tea that definitely smells different before and after you steep it. Before I smelled more ginger than pear and after it was all about the pear with some ginger. At first I was like… Uh oh. Pear. But it actually smelled pretty good! The flavors blend together really well in this tea and there is just the slight bite of ginger that makes it interesting. Something pear that I actually like!

As this one cools, I notice the flavors come out more as well. In fact, I tried this as a small glass of iced tea the other day and it was very refreshing! In fact… I was at the AJ’s in town yesterday and saw that they had a few Tea Forte boxes and this was one of them, so I bought a box!

Thanks again Jaime for the sample! This is one that I probably wouldn’t have tried on my own, but I really like it!

I only had a one-shot of this – alas – so I could only try it as a tea, which is too bad because this just screams, “Latte me NOW!” Oh well, c’est la vie. As a tea, I still think it holds up where it should. It’s a guilty pleasure without the guilt part. Subtleties escape me in describing the flavor because there really aren’t that many. It’s all chocolate and hazelnut like its moniker declares.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/01/07/review-tea-forte-hazelnut-truffle-2/

If I only had one nitpick it would be that the black tea base doesn’t appear to be of high quality. As with a lot of dessert teas, I found it quite bitter on the forefront. That said, it does what it sets out to do.

A mild Sencha – very springy – very pretty

I like this ok… I brew it for only 5 minutes and I find that this is just right for me, it doesn’t give the hibiscus enough time to get overly tart and thick.

A very nice pomegranate flavor in this one. Not bad, but not my favorite tisane either.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me a pyramid of this tea to try!

This is an excellent Oolong, but I can’t help but think it would be even better if it were not in the pyramid. The leaves just don’t have much room to expand in there!

It has a very pleasant, buttery/creamy taste to it. Smooth. Yummy!

Tasty vanilla rooibos with a hint of berry. It reminds me of the berry flavored Creamsavers hard candy. It’s very nicely done, well flavored. A nice, soothing cup to sip whilst listening to the operations folk plot Monday (apparently, we’re supposed to be getting a nice, good-size snow Sunday/Monday).

ETA: Thanks, LiberTEAS, for sending me this one to try out! I don’t love it nearly as much as I love the Flora, but it’s still delish!

LiberTEAS has done it again! She sent me a tea that I wanted to try before I even read a tasting note on it. She’s that good!

TeaEqualsBliss logged this a few days ago, and the combination of cinnamon and hibiscus sounded so wrong it could be right. And, for me, this is full of win. It’s like a hibiscus cider in both smell and taste. Yes, the hibiscus is strong here (I steeped for 8 rather than my usual 10), but the cinnamon and licorice kind of calm the tart down. Reminds me somewhat of wassail (or, rather, the wassail they served at my college’s Madrigal dinner).

Again, for me, this is full of win. LiberTEAS, thank you so, so much!!!

I’m sipping on this tonight. Tasty! Here is my full-length review of this tea: http://sororiteasisters.com/2010/12/12/hazelnut-truffle-from-tea-forte/

Mmm… chocolate and hazelnut. Coconut too. Yum! Definitely one of Tea Forte’s best. Here is my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2010/12/12/hazelnut-truffle-from-tea-forte/

I quickly polished off that Coconut Chai, and now I am going to enjoy a cup of Hazelnut Truffle (my last pyramid of this! Bummer… it will be missed!) and watch a little bit of television while the kids are busy doing other things…

You can read my full-length review of this tea here:
http://sororiteasisters.com/2010/12/12/hazelnut-truffle-from-tea-forte/

This is Yum! I wish that the chocolate was stronger (of course), but I like the balance of flavors. Pleasant!

The black tea is fairly mellow but tasty. The hazelnut is the strongest component and it tastes nutty and yummy. I don’t get a lot from the coconut except that I do get a creaminess from it, and then a coconut note in the tail of the sip. The rose flavor is very faint.

Delicious.

Yeah, so this truly is very Assamallamadingdong-ish. I was really enjoying it at first, but then it seemed to become too aggressive for me. A line was crossed and I kinda felt “blerg” about it. Also remember: I pretty much drink my tea straight up, so perhaps additives would help this a great deal.

I do have several more single servings of this, so I may try to tweak it a bit steeping-wise. And I do plan on finishing the single servings, but I think that it’ll take me awhile. M

LiberTEAS sent me this to try…I think because I love hibiscus, and that’s the first ingredient. I’m beginning to think that a love of hibiscus is unusual around here…especially when brewed at 10 minutes!

I don’t really taste the hibiscus here at all. It’s a true, honest-to-goodness raspberry taste that I get. Like I just took a whole handful of ripe red raspberries (with about 4 not-so-ripe tart ones) and shoved them in my mouth and their juice exploded. They definitely got the flavor right with this one.

LiberTEAS, you have definitely figured out my tea tastes. Thank you so much!!

My cup is empty. :-(

The smell of the dry tea bag is ginger-y but sort of a candied ginger rather than straight-up, freshly-chopped gingerroot. Adding water brought out a delicious pear fragrance that reminded me of pear-flavoured hard candies with a hint of warm, spicy ginger.

Tea Fort’s teas have (in my personal opinion) a reputation for looking and sounding fancy but not really having much actual flavour or substance to them. But this tea proved me wrong. It tastes exactly like what it says it will – pear and ginger. The fruity pear dominates with the ginger complimenting it subtly rather than trying to compete with it for my taste buds’ attention. The whole thing is surprisingly sweet, almost like I’d added some sugar or agave nectar to it, and has a faint herbal-floral aftertaste.

I have to say that I REALLY enjoyed this tea and I think it would be a good one to convert someone who’s used to drinking Celestial Seasonings or Lipton to finer teas.

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 infuser
Water: 50ml Goldschläger
Steep Time: a little over 5 minutes
Served: Cold

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: spicy, peppery
Steeped Tea Smell: cinnamon
Flavor: cinnamon
Body: Full
Aftertaste: peppery
Liquor: translucent orange-red

O.M.G. the cinnamon burns

Post-Steep Additives: ice, seltzer

Mellower on the burning, it has potential, perhaps in a cream liquor?

http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/12/tea-forte-teabag-black-tea-silkroad.html

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 infuser
Water: 2 oz Bacardi Select, 4oz seltzer
Steep Time: a little over 3 minutes
Served: Cold

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: lemongrass, mint
Steeped Tea Smell: RUM
Flavor: Rum
Body: none
Aftertaste: rum
Liquor: translucent orange-brown

15+ more minutes, and then left the infuser in.

Steeped Tea Smell: lemongrass and mint
Flavor: rum
Aftertaste: lemongrass and mint

This is from the Tea Forte cocktails collection.

Meh, more interesting than straight rum. I’m not much of a drinker so take my review with a grain of salt.

http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/12/tea-forte-teabag-herbal-tisane.html

TOO much Hibiscus – way too much for my liking…and a little cinnamon…these two ingredients are really contradicting each other…eeeek

Altho this wasn’t a bad tasting tea…it did take me a little longer to get thru the cup! It’s fairly bold but quite peppery tasting. Not my favorite but not my least favorite either.

There’s nothing really remarkable about this tea – it’s just pure chamomile (sorry, but I can’t really detect the orange peel)! But sometimes a soothing, light tea is all you need. Good for bedtime, or when you are feeling sick.

A while ago, one of the local tea shops had a little class/preview session of the Tea Forte mixology set. You get 2-3 bags of each of their mixology teabags, two little steeping containers, and a recipe book.

I couldn’t resist. Booze + Tea? YAY!!!

My favorite of the set is the silk road chai – which I use to make white Russian chai drinks. Take the chai bag, steep in vodka, then mix with simple syrup and a milk product. Tres YUM.

Since I got this set, I’ve been experimenting with making a Earl Grey white Russian (and the testing process has been lovely) using other brands of tea. You can use any teabag to infuse in the liquor. And, if you go with Tea Forte, their teabags are strong enough to infuse multiple times (their literature leads you to think otherwise).

If you do not shun liquor, this may be something interesting to try. Their set is a nice way to start, but not necessary. Cheers!

Drank this morning. Got three decent infusions from one pyramid infuser.
Added milk each time for the perfect morning tea. Even though this blend is made entirely of Assam tea leaves, I did not feel that this tea was as robust as PG Tips. But, I did enjoy it very much this morning and would consider purchasing if and when I ever place a TeaForte order. I really should put TeaForte on my Christmas wish list along with a red Cafe cup….

I really thought I already logged this one but here goes (again)

I needed something to get rid of the super tarty hibiscus from my last cuppa. This did the trick! More Minty than Citrus but that certainly fits the bill! This is fairly gentle and I like it just fine!

After some debate, I bought a Hazelnut Truffle stocking stuffer. …For myself.

http://www.teaforte.com/images/361×285/3670.jpg

It didn’t say on the package how many pyramids were in it, but for six (nearly seven) bucks, I figured it had to be three or four, since it had room for that many.

No. It was two. Two. What a rip. The same favours are only five bucks on the site, but retail shop markup’s to be expected I guess.

However, they smelled delicious. Brewed, it’s still a wonderfully strong, sweet nutty smell. Holy crap. However, after I brought the package home, I realized it included rose petals (ick). I smelt a bit of rose in the dry bag, but I’m not getting any from the brewed tea, so I can hope it all goes well. I really need to read packaging more closely.

This has a wonderfully hazelnutty taste. The nut seems to be the main flavour, although I think I get chocolate as well… I’m not sure. I ate a cookie before I started sipping, which might have thrown me off. It may just be the sweetness of the hazelnut. They need to offer this blend in a canister. I’d buy it. And it’s such a STRONG nut flavour too—most nuts added to tea blends, I find, are usually very present, but still in the background. This one is definitely at the forefront.

So I’ve established hazelnut, and possibly truffle. Luckily no sign of the rose petals.

I like the ‘favour’ style of these packages. The christmas ones are meant to be used as stocking stuffers. If there were enough flavours, I’d pick up a bunch as actual stocking stuffers for my family.

Edit: Second steep. Hazelnut flavour is still goin’ strong. Delicious tea. They really need to sell a big tin of it. I’d get it.

My very last pyramid from my winter collection package. I really like this one too. I think of the five different flavors in the package, this and the hazelnut truffle were definitely my favorites.

You can read my full-length review of this tea here:

http://sororiteasisters.com/2010/11/10/peach-jubilee-from-tea-forte/