Green Tea Tropical

I used to drink this tea very regularly. In general, I find that Mighty Leaf tea is a solid brand that can be found locally most anywhere. If it’s not in your main supermarket, it can typically be found at a local co-op or natural foods store. After drinking the Goji Green Tea from Two Leaves and a Bud yesterday, I remembered this tea and wanted to try it again for comparison.

However, it has been quite a while since I’ve partaken in any and I must admit that I’m a bit disappointed. Maybe my tastes have been too highly tuned and become too used to more natural teas, but it’s sort of bland to me now. There is that light sweetness from the “tropical” aspect of this tea, and I do still think it’s a pretty solid tea for being in a bag as it is, but I guess I’m just a bit underwhelmed.

I know I’m comparing it in part to my previous opinion of it, which was quite high. So that has bearing on this rating, absolutely. I’m sure I’ll be having more in the future in either case. It still is a nice tea!

So I said I wasn’t a fruity tea fan…well, that’s generally true, except in some cases. This is pretty exceptional. The bouquet of the dry leaf is delicious, and after the steeping begins…oh man. All sorts of tropical lovelies that blend into something I can only call Papayapplango. The green tea, surprisingly enough, really comes through, even though it’s got the fruit as a potential obstacle. A nasty fight could ensue, and with my rather iffy experience with fruity teas, I was honestly expecting one. But…they work together almost seamlessly. And the fruit tastes full and juicy and sweet. Not the most natural-tasting of fruit, but it tastes good all the same. To keep it from going overboard on the sweet side, the soft, vegetal green balances it out. Wish I’d had enough time this morning to re-steep this sachet before I left. One of the better fruity teas I’ve tried.

Mmmm… This tea smells quite yummy. Both the dry tea and steeped tea pour out the scent of pineapple. It smells sweet, fruity and refreshing and it tastes the same. I bet it would be awesome iced! I started craving it a few hours after I finished my cup!

YUM! thanks lovelylotus for sending me this in a great tea swap. I don’t normally buy any bagged tea, I like looseleaf, I like the ability to control exactly how much I am using, and how it will turn out. I find bagged tea quite unpredictable. However, I have found a way to make it work for me and it is something i’ve been doing quite frequently lately. I have started cold steeping it. Cold steeping takes longer, so it makes it way less oversteeped. I I like this blend because to me it tastes like mango, without actually containing it. I am very allergic to mango so this is a good thing! .. I have indulged in many mango flavoured things that don’t normally have it in it but have found them to taste very artificial (and I don’t even know what a real mango tastes like).. this one to me doesn’t.. and the green tea in it compliments it very well!

Grabbed a little sachet of this at the Blue Banana months ago, but I haven’t tried it until now. Met up with the devilishly interesting Toronto tea partiers at Fran’s and swapped this out for the Red Rose in the pot of tea I ordered. The conversation and the meal was much more memorable than the tea.

Sweet and fruity, maintained its flavour and didn’t go bitter through multiple steeps (steeps varied in time from two to four minutes, maybe a bit more. Tried to keep the temperature low.). No single “tropical” flavour stood out to me, and the green base was a little grassy without being off-puttingly vegetal. I may have to try this again when I can devote more attention to it.

First of all, I need to address a pet peeve. Don’t give a tea a poor rating because “it’s bitter,” and then admit to over-steeping it. Good lord. Smh…

ANYWAY! This is my favorite tea from Mighty Leaf. I love it hot and iced. It’s a little bit fruity, a little bit floral with a sweet green tea base. Just an overall deliciously mellow, fruity green tea. I love it! (I’m drinking the loose tea version; Not tea bags.)

I was out for Father’s Day dinner tonight and noticed Mighty Leaf’s Hojicha on the drink list. It’s kinda hard to screw that tea up with the blasting hot water restaurants tend to use and I knew Hojicha would be good on my stomach after the inevitable overstuffing I was bound to commit. However, the server gave me this instead. I tried SO hard to give her the benefit of the doubt – it’s not like I expect a server to really care about tea like I’d expect them to know the food and wine – and tried to just go along as though it was a misprint on the menu. But I really couldn’t stand this junk.

Managed to suffer down about 70-90mL of this before the smell of the pot sitting on the table made me unable to eat my food any longer. Really it was easier to drink than just have it sitting around me… That sickly pseudo-tropical perfume aroma wafting off of it is just way to much. Reminded me of the smell of the trash area the dumpsters behind work smells like. Week old moist hibiscus flowers sitting with old used coffee grounds in a large sealed bucket would be close if some corn syrup smell was in there too. Oh, I KNOW! An old Capris Sun juice pouch left out in the sun by kids having lunch outside on a hot day.

Anyway, the smell from this leaves me unable to grant any positive score on the tea component that at least wasn’t cardboard, astringent, or bitter in spite of being brewed with water dispensed fro an espresso machine. But, hey, this made it hard for me to taste a liberally spiced meatloaf with sautéd mushrooms, garlic, and onions and made me feel a bit ill to my stomach from the liquor aroma.

Gross – I don’t wish this on anyone.

Plus note is that the Hojicha effectively obscured the remnant aroma and taste of this once I had the server swap it.

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 teabag
Additives: none
Water: hot water spigot, 1 mug full
Steep Time: a little over 3 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: I forgot to check
Steeped Tea Smell: floral, fruity, vegetal
Flavor: bitter, vegetal
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: bitter
Liquor: translucent green-yellow

Perhaps should have let the water cool longer? Maybe steeped less time?

I got it as part of a sampler so I can’t tweak it for better results but I am confident it could have been a 2/4

Post-Steep Additives: none

images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/04/mighty-leaf-teabag-green-tea-green-tea.html

This is my first Mighty Leaf Tea, and I like it quite a bit. Grassy notes.

As with the other Mighty Leaf teabags I’ve tried out, you can see big leaves and chunks of fruit through the fabric. It’s got a very strong tropical fruit scent, along the lines of pineangouava, if such a fruit existed. After three minutes of steeping time, the liquor is somewhere between green and oolong tea in color, a light brown with a slight hint of green. The tea smells nice, but not nearly as strongly as the dried leaf.

The flavor isn’t as rich as I expected; if I didn’t know it, I’d say there was no tea in it at all, but rather that it was a tisane. It’s got a light, fruity flavor but very little body – I’m getting very little of the green tea base. Might be worth trying again with a slightly longer steep time, but in general I’m underwhelmed.