Saïgon

Tea type
Green Tea
Ingredients
Bergamot Oil, Cornflower Petals, Flavors, Green Tea, Lemon Oil, Papaya, Pineapple
Flavors
Candy, Floral, Fruity, Grapes, Pineapple, Rose, Sweet, Tropical, Fig, Grass
Sold in
Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Medium
Certification
Vegan
Edit tea info Last updated by Cameron B.
Average preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 3 min, 30 sec 5 g 17 oz / 515 ml

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7 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Soooo, lotus. I have never (or not yet) had plain lotus tea. I have seen it for sale, plain lotus on chinese grocery stores, but never quite dared (most of tea in the local chinese grocery stores...” Read full tasting note
    69
  • “Thank you Barbara for sending me this sample! It’s fruity, it’s floral, it’s something I can’t quite put my finger on. The smell of this tea brewed didn’t really stand out as anything unique, but...” Read full tasting note
  • “You have to be careful to brew this tea according to the instruction or the lotus and fig will not be noticeable. However with correct brewing temp and time it’s a wonderful and very refined tea. I...” Read full tasting note
    90
  • “French Friday! Trying to finish off these samples this month since I’m so close to the end… I prepped this one last night as a cold brew, and strained and filled up my water bottle during my lunch...” Read full tasting note
    74

From THEODOR

Saïgon’ by THEODOR is this flavored green tea, fruity and floral, that makes me want to escape reality and to travel…

When I was a child, I repeatedly and endlessly heard ‘Old times were better times!’ or ‘in my time… we were drinking tea in Saigon with flavors of lotus, lemon and fig and there was no telling what tomorrow would bring…’.

Who do they think they are? Every single day, in Paris, I go shopping, visit museums and stand by the Eiffel Tower to look at the sky… What else could I do?

MAJOR NOTES: Exotic fruits

INGREDIENTS: Green tea (Origin: China), Papaya pieces, Pineapple pieces, Cornflower petals, Flavors (Prickly fig, Lotus), Essential oils (Lemon, Bergamot).

INFUSION TIME: 2 to 3 minutes
TEMPERATURE: 175 °F (80°C)

About THEODOR View company

Company description not available.

7 Tasting Notes

69
362 tasting notes

Soooo, lotus.

I have never (or not yet) had plain lotus tea. I have seen it for sale, plain lotus on chinese grocery stores, but never quite dared (most of tea in the local chinese grocery stores seems to be intentionally medicinal and/or for slimming and taste even worse than you would expect. Very dangerous places to buy tea if you are not totally sure what you are doing).

I think I am learning what lotus brings as a flavoring by comparing mentally teas that I have had which have had lotus as a flavoring (this, elixir d´amour), though not sure that is leading to the right image. Sultry and floral maybe.

Barbara and I have been swapping teas and since we are both fans of Theodor teas, we have been sharing a lot of our Theodor purchases. This is an interesting blend she sent me, one which I have been half eyeing towards purchase. Green tea with fig, and named saigon, ah, tempting (though admittedly just about everything from Theodor sounds tempting). Barbara has warned me about being careful when brewing this. I got to test with the rest of the sample, but I think I followed close enough. The result was lovely but I think I am probably not a lotus person (if I can figure out what lotus is). The fig was maybe in the background a dried fig like flavour and it was mostly a sultry floral-type. I could not detect the lemon. The tea base was lovely and not bitter.

Not rating this right now, since I want to try brewing this a couple more times to figure out if I am really brewing this right. And what lotus is supposedly to smell like!

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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1711 tasting notes

Thank you Barbara for sending me this sample!
It’s fruity, it’s floral, it’s something I can’t quite put my finger on. The smell of this tea brewed didn’t really stand out as anything unique, but the taste has much more depth to it. At first I thought I was tasting peaches, but now as I taste a slight perfume like freshness on the sides of my tongue, I’m thinking roses. Not the overdone synthetic perfume rose flavor, but a true fresh rose petal flavor. The more sips I take, the stronger it tastes. My mouth feels a little dry after each sip with inviting me to drink more.

Now I’m reading the description of the tea to see what the flavors were… fig and lotus! Fig?! I mistook fig for roses? Now that I know what that flavor was, I can clearly taste how it is fresh fig off the tree, reminding me of how much of my childhood I spent up a fig tree. It amuses me that fig and rose have similar taste qualities, something I had never linked in my head before and I wonder how well they would pair.

This tea is really well rounded and has a rich quality to the taste that I enjoyed to the last sip. I’m intrigued by the unique ingredients, but I think I need to have another cup before I give it a rating.
Barbara

Funny to see how tastes differ. I put the floral note to the lotus and the sweetness to the fig :-)

Dustin

I don’t think I have ever tried lotus flavoring before, so I really can’t say what it tastes like. I wonder how similar the taste of lotus and fig are.

Barbara

I’d think not too similar, but then again before this tea, I’ve only tasted lotus as part of tea and fig as dried fruit. So who’s to say how the one or other would taste fresh… :-)

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90
59 tasting notes

You have to be careful to brew this tea according to the instruction or the lotus and fig will not be noticeable. However with correct brewing temp and time it’s a wonderful and very refined tea.

I recently discovered Theodor and love the unique and often experimental flavouring and their packaging. I’m less thrilled by the fact that instead of lists of ingredients the website only gives a characterisation of the tea by way of a ‘story’ which does not always include a full recounting of the ingredients.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 3 min, 0 sec
cteresa

This sounds lovely – but like you I have had some very good experiences with Theodor teas. But you spotted precisely my pet peeve with their site, I could so do without the fancy stories! But my trick is to search for part of a tea name or an ingredient, the search results will be up to the point, short description!

Barbara

Thanks for the tip. I’ll certainly be trying that!

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74
1214 tasting notes

French Friday! Trying to finish off these samples this month since I’m so close to the end… I prepped this one last night as a cold brew, and strained and filled up my water bottle during my lunch break.

The tea had a sort of odd grapey scent in the dry leaf, and I’ve noticed a lot of these THEODOR samples that have “lotus flavoring” either smell or taste like grapes to me. In the flavor of this one, I do get a bit of that sweet grape flavor coming out, but mostly I taste a sort of floral-forward pineapple flavor. I’m not tasting the lemon or bergamot oils at all.

It’s nicely refreshing, it isn’t a bright and juicy sort of pineapple but a sweetly floral pineapple, and since I like pineapple and florals, I find it quite pleasant. It’s a tropical flavor with a sort of a rose and grape candy sweetness undertone. A pleasant enough cold brew.

Flavors: Candy, Floral, Fruity, Grapes, Pineapple, Rose, Sweet, Tropical

Preparation
Iced 8 min or more 5 g 32 OZ / 946 ML

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86
1831 tasting notes

Hello there…
my work is somehow more demanding than I thought, moreover no new teas being drank, so not much notes from me recently. Hopefully it will change soon, as I truly miss seeing the likes and sometimes even some comments from you.

I was in a mood of green tea today after work, and although I have a orthodox tea there (which I even had today), it is one of the oldies from White Antlers, which is just needed to drink, but there isn’t much to write home about anymore.

So, I have prepared this cup, and I think I have caught temperature just right. It produced wonderful green colour, very vibrant and fresh. I remember seeing a few pieces of pineapple when I was putting teaspoons in, but there weren’t much of them.

But, in flavours, it was a different story. It was very tropical, with very nice pineapple flavour complemented with grassy green tea, which tasted so fresh, even I have this pouch for 8 months already. Dustin, thank you so much for this tea. It has got some floral note as well, but honestly not sure if it is lotus, or anything else.

So yeah, this is a tea I would order myself. Hopefully one day!

Flavors: Grass, Pineapple, Tropical

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 30 sec 2 tsp 10 OZ / 300 ML
Leafhopper

I’m drinking through three 50 g packs of black tea and two 50 g packs of oolong, so I also haven’t been posting any new notes. Glad to hear you’re sipping down older teas.

ashmanra

I have really enjoyed my teas from The Odor. Pineapple sounds nice! I didn’t care so much for the pineapple green from Harney but my daughter loved it. I think it was the base that turned me off, though.

Evol Ving Ness

Leafhopper, I admire your focus. I do that—setting focus teas aside in baskets and boxes—and it works for about 5 minutes. Then again, I am all over the place.

Leafhopper

Evol Ving Ness, many of my teas are vacuum packed and lose flavour when I cut them open. This is the case with the two oolongs I’m working on. Still, I sometimes cheat on my focus teas. :) I’ve told myself that if I drink 300 g of tea before Black Friday, I might restock the tea museum.

Evol Ving Ness

Hahaha, that’s why I don’t OPEN my vacuum-sealed packs while I work on everything else. I’ve missed the past few Black Fridays. I’m trying to be strong, but yanno.

Evol Ving Ness

Yes, magical thinking that somehow if I don’t open them, they’ll last forever.

Evol Ving Ness

Crazy tea people.

Martin Bednář

I am drinking faster than usual, as I prepare two cups at least at work, then sometimes some at home. So, it goes down quite quickly, alhough the pace could be faster :D

I am glad you liked the teas you have tried from The O Dor ashmanra

Same here Evol Ving Ness, no focus at all! I am able to focus on vacuum packed oolongs though, or at least, I am trying! I have a few unopened yet too.

We are indeed all crazy tea people and I like it!

Leafhopper

Evol Ving Ness, yep, I also think that a vacuum seal will preserve freshness indefinitely. We’ll see how much willpower I have this Black Friday.

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