Wize Monkey

I bought a little sampler pack of these with the condition that I finish them before the end of the month. I’ve been considering it for a while so when I saw the sampler pack for $7 in whole foods I decided to go for it.

Mango madness has been my favourite so far. Quite realistic mango flavouring, very creamy and aromatic. The coffee leaf base gives a similar roasted flavor as yerba mate. The juicy fresh mango flavor really comes out strong and it makes a good iced cup or hot (with or without milk).

It was good enough that I’m considering keeping this one in stock in my cupboard. It is low caffeine and I like the company. By providing income to coffee farmers the rest of the year (non coffee cherry/bean harvesting months) the farmers have a more secure yearly income and can afford to have fewer plants (less rainforest cut down) and spare income for food and whatnot. I like this principle and want to support alternative ways of supporting farmers.

Sipdown (704)!

Finished off the last of this sample as a giant pot of Western steeped tea, which I sipped on throughout the course of an evening this week – mostly while cooking. I believe Wize Monkey has updated the recipe for this tea, so what I finished off was the older formulation.

This is probably my least favourite of the flavours offered by Wize Monkey (again – older version of the current recipe for this blend) but I actually did enjoy this pot of it more than my initial tasting, which I felt was a little thin/lacking body for a Chai. This was still pretty simple in terms of the flavour notes coming through; coffee leaf, cinnamon, and ginger. However, I was getting much more body and heat from the spices – in particular the ginger, which was very strong and actually created some noticeable heat for me with each cup. I was getting that peppery tickle/burn at the back of my throat, but in a pleasant way. So, the experience was an improvement on the initial tasting for me.

Still – Chai isn’t largely my thing and I have a fickle relationship with ginger so I don’t think I’d order this one again, even with an updated recipe.

Evening cuppa earlier in the week.

This wasn’t bad, but for a ‘chai’ I found it lacked body and the spice elements felt very surface level. Also, really just the cinnamon/ginger stick out in terms of flavour: where is the cardamom? The clove? It wasn’t a bad cup of tea, but it just felt like it was never really the full potential of what it could be.

Sipped on this over the weekend. I feel like I saw I dislike bergamot a lot, and it’s not untrue but this really is a very lovely Earl Grey. However, the thing (in my opinion, anyway) that makes it so nice isn’t really the bergamot at all but the truly delicious silky vanilla/cream flavour the accompanies it! It also really, really makes me want Wize to put out a plain vanilla flavour…

Still. Not. Over. This. Tea.

Seriously, it’s one of the best EG blends I own. The bergamot compliments the coffee leaf so incredibly well.

Current cuppa.

Every time I make this I’m reminded how absolutely incredible it is; it’s like, for one mug, I forgot that I typically just don’t enjoy bergamot. It’s rich, flavourful, and citrusy with a brightness and oddly creamy/vanilla finishing note. I don’t think there’s cream or vanilla flavouring in the blend, though I could be mistaken. If there is, I still enjoy this tea so strongly. If there isn’t, it’s all the more incredible and impressive.

There are other teas that I reach for and drink from Wize Monkey a lot more frequently that I would typically say I prefer to this one, like the Chocolate Dream or Lemon Ginger Blends, but this is the one that consistently makes me go “WOW” with every single cup.

Early morning cuppa from last weekend! I’m honestly just continuing to really enjoy this Earl Grey – and it’s weird to me because that’s usually not a type of tea I’m into but something about this one is just really good. I wish I understood why; I’m sure it has to do with more than just the fact I enjoy the coffee leaf base. It’s something with whatever the bergamot Wize Monkey is using is – it’s just very nice.

So, this is a little different for me – not because I’m new to coffee leaf teas and certainly not because I’m new to Earl Grey but just because this is the first tea I’ve ever had from Wize Monkey that was loose instead of in sachet form.

I have to say, I’m more partial to loose. I think I will always be more partial to loose over sachet. The leaf cut just seems nicer in general, too.

Anyway; this was my “something to sip on while cooking” tea that I made in one of those little “teapot for one” type of vessels where it’s literally like a teapot and a teacup built to stack on top of one another and be individual sized. It was the perfect size for me to sip on while I was doing my meal prep. I under leafed and under steeped a little bit, since it’s a little bit late for me and I don’t want to feel buzzed on caffeine right before bed. I mean, I know that there’s not a lot of caffeine in this – but there’s SOME and that’s enough for me to be cautious about it. I also added in a smidge of vanilla agave both because a London Fog coffee leaf tea sounded nice, but also because I thought the extra flavour of the sweetener might help compensate for the softer brew due to my out of the ordinary steeping parameters.

This was really delightful. I know I say, what feels like, all the time that I am NOT an Earl Grey fan and I stand by that statement as a general blanket statement for my opinions on like 90% of all Earl Grey/bergamot things. However, when I find one that I’m into it’s generally quite delightful. This is one of those quite delightful kind of EGs for me. It’s not TOO MUCH bergamot (maybe because I was so light handed), and it’s soft and sweet, with more of the citrus popping out to me than the florals which I often find harsh and perfumey.

Actually, think about it literally right now and in this moment…

I think of the 1/10 EG blends that I find pretty solid the majority of those are either “Earl Grey with a twist” (some other additional flavor like, say, chocolate) OR have more of a lighter base outside of the traditional black tea base – such as this tea with the coffee leaf or DT’s Vanilla Bergamot which was a white tea base. I wonder why the EG I’m drawn to is more delicate like that? Does it highlight the lighter, bright citrus elements more? I’ve never really thought about it too much. Someday I’ll have to do a more conscious study of that, I think…

Not bad at all!! I’m surprised. The mint is VERY subtle. More of a refreshing aftertaste than an actual flavour. But it works really well with the base. In fact, I may pick up more next year. (I say that about a lot of teas, so take that for what you wish!)
The base isn’t one I hate or love so the fact that this blend goes down so smoothly is a surprise. Easy drinking to be sure!

Intense! I guess the newest version of this got a little extra flavour. It’s almost overwhelming in scent when you open the packet. Mango bubblegum.
Steeped, the roasted notes come out to play. I definitely see what people mean by guayasa or yerba mate, in the other reviews. Though if I hadn’t been told it was mango I’d have guessed apricot.
There is also a creamy element in here that I wasn’t expecting. Almost buttery in texture.
Not something I’d keep in the cupboard myself as I’m not a huge fan of guayasa. The complexity of this appeals to me, so I’d never turn down a cuppa :P

I brought this sachet with me to the sugar shack when we went last Saturday; I anticipated either very poor tea options or no tea options so I wanted to have SOMETHING with me as a back up. I was right – the tea options were lousy, and I ended up steeping this tea after trying one of the teas they were carrying and not loving it. The water situation was also pretty awful though in that it just wasn’t hot enough to brew a proper cup. So, this one came out very light/mild and under steeped without a ton of mango and with a whole lot of that buttery taste I usually get from it.

This is growing on me, but slowly…

The mango notes really are quite nice and in this cup I didn’t even mind the weird juxtaposition between the sweet, tropical mango and more nutty and roasty sort of elements of the coffee leaf. What really messed with me, though, was the buttery element of the infusion. It wasn’t the same sort of ‘buttery’ that one might describe coconut as, for example – but more of a ‘movie theater butter’ kind of taste. I really feel like that sort of flavour note has no place with mango; and so it pulled me out of the cup a little bit.

Well, trying the second coffee leaf tea that I grabbed from Wize Monkey…

The dry leaf of this one smells really lovely; a strong, and very ripe mango aroma. I’ve been craving mango for like two weeks now, which I think is why I even ordered this one in the first place – so I was very excited to get this one steeped up.

However, I don’t think I’m really a fan of this one. The mint coffee leaf tea I tried earlier in the week is DEFINITELY better and there’s something just off about this one? It is very mango heavy and that’s not actually the thing in the blend that bothers me. I think it’s the coffee leaf base? There’s a strange buttery element and it tastes a lot more roasty than the other one did; like a really roasted yerba mate tea. That buttery roasty and almost nutty flavour just doesn’t suit the mango at all in my opinion and it really ruined the profile for me.

Ughhhh….

M is for… Minty Marvel!

Sipdown (1402)!

This was my favourite blend from Wize Monkey for quite a while, but it’s since been over thrown by their Lemon Ginger and Chocolate Dream blends. Still, it’s an excellent fresh and menthol rich mint tea, and it compliments the coffee leaf base so, so well. It’s a bit bittersweet finishing it off and, as with anything from Wize Monkey, I have to fight the urge to just immediately order a replacement box – I’m just so in awe of everything they do.

However, I don’t need another box – and I have some other really good peppermint teas that I should be focusing on sipping through in the meantime…

Another tea that I packed with me to bring to Winnipeg during my workcation!

I brought two teabags of this with me, and I ended up drinking them both while I was sick. I couldn’t taste much of the tea itself, but in a way I was still very grateful that I’d waited to drink these two until I was sick because there’s just this amazingly soothing quality that’s also really good for clearing up a stuffy nose when you’re inhaling the steam coming off a freshly brewed mug of mint tea. Peace and comfort in a cup.

After work tea.

This one I just tossed into a tumbler along with some 80 degree water, and I let it do it’s own thing completely. It’s a pretty forgiving tea; no need to hyper monitor it. Taste very much like a normal peppermint, but also a very faint hint of cocoa? May be because we were snacking on chocolate stuff during the week day and I brewed this up almost immediately after that.

Made a cup of this for my trip to the post office today to pick up the travelling tea box.

Mostly I wanted something refreshing and minty to ease into the day with as this was my first tea of the day. This definitely checks off those boxes, plus I liked that it was mildly caffeinated – just the gentle push I needed to get up and get active. The weird thing, for me, though was that this tasted like a chocolate mint tea even though it’s most definitely NOT a chocolate mint tea…

Weird.

Just something super simple to pop into a travel mug so I had tea to drink on my way to work one of the mornings this week…

It’s basically like a greener/grassier tasting mint tea. It’s very simplistic in tasting notes – but simple doesn’t mean bad, and I really appreciated having something soft and minty to drink on the bus as a gentle backdrop to the more harsh things going on in the bus; like people blaring rap music from the back of the bus or someone who was clearly drunk at nine in the morning loudly shouting to the bus driver about just pointless garbage…

Tea makes bus rides better.

Cuppa from last week.

Kind of just tasted like a relatively minty green tea; but with just a touch of roast to it. It’s not bad; not something I find I deeply crave either. I think finishing this one off will be a slow process ultimately reliant on how often I find the fact these are sachets more convenient than brewing up loose tea.

Left the pyramid bag in the teacup to keep steeping as I drank this one, this time around. Doing so definitely produced a liquor with a lot more overall mint flavour to it, but it did pick up a very slight bitter edge too. It was worth it for the extra mint notes, imo though. Definitely prefer this one to the mango I also bought.

So, I placed a Wize Monkey order on Friday among many BF orders. They’re a company that I’ve seen off and on here on Steepster for the last few years and always been a little curious about and I was able to stack a Sipsby discount on top of their BF discount so it was a really good time for me to order…

What’s really impressive to me is that my order shipped out on Saturday and it arrived yesterday! That is some mighty impressive shipping times – especially for a company that’s not based in Canada like I am. Like, holy smokes!

Anyway, I cracked open one of the two boxes I got tonight and my mom and I each tried out one of the sachets. I did a little research on what coffee leaf is supposed to taste like before hand – I guess it’s a little green tea like in flavour? I mean, I don’t love green tea but Moroccan Mint (mint and green tea) is one of the more palatable greens out there in my opinion and so I thought that if this was anything like that then it would be fine! The aroma of the dry leaf was certainly minty – very pleasant smelling, and a little sweet.

Steeped up? I don’t know that green tea is actually the thing that this reminds me of. In fact, it’s much more like guayusa in my opinion or even a very softly roasted yerba mate! That’s definitely more pleasant than green tea, in my opinion. It’s actually not super minty though; like the aroma was a lot more minty than the brewed cup is. Still, it’s smooth and just sweet enough. I definitely enjoy it – which makes it all the more easy to support this company and what they’re trying to do for the environment and create job opportunities!