Distinctly Tea
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Had this tea in a thermos to accompany me to work yesterday. It was pretty good. The taste was like craisins. I think the flavoring was neither too strong nor too light. And the rooibos wasn’t too woody or medicinal. I’d say this is a good rooibos base. Green rooibos is still my favorite for fruity flavors though.
http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2514/tea-review-distinctly-tea-earl-grey-de-la-creme/
I think that one of the best things that ever happened to Earl Grey tea was meeting the vanilla bean. It must have been movie magic. I can see it now…
INT: A Parisian Salon.
Various teas and flavorings lounge about, chatting, discussing worldly matters and current gossip. VANILLA sits in the corner, alone, draped across a chaise longue. She is long, lean and highly sweetly scented.
The camera pans to the door where EARL GREY, a dark, swarthy yet citrus scented tea enters. He scans the room until his eyes fall on VANILLA. He beelines to her, drops to one knee, grabs her hand, and looks deeply into her eyes while kissing her hand.
EARL GREY (huskily): ‘Allo. I find myself inexplicibly drawn to you. I feel we could make amazing brews together.
VANILLA: (swoons)
Music swells.
….and scene. Only problem is that just like movie magic, there are frequent copycats that just don’t have the verve and je ne sais qua of the original. I’ve had varied luck with the different Earl Grey de la Cremes out there on the market.
Luckily, Distinctly Tea has got a pretty good version of this classic couple. The black tea base of ceylon and assam is sturdy and the flavoring agents blend beautifuly. The vanilla is creamy, and the bergamot avoids the trap of tasting like perfume. Highly scented, highly flavorful. Lovely tea. I reccomend it.
Yum.
WOW. This green/fruit tea blend has very overpowering fruity notes that confuse my palette. I found it really hard to down because the balance between the fruits in this tea and green tea were really off. It was a mismatch of fruits with cardamom. I would probably suggest using half for a full cup, or mix with straight tea to rebalance the fruits in this tea. I was disappointed. I purchased 100g of this too :(
Preparation
Perhaps I didn’t prepare it right; the water was probably too hot, or I didn’t steep it long enough, but it tastes very weak. Despite the weak flavour, it’s incredibly aromatic. The chocolate really comes through in the scent, which is delectable.
Preparation
As a former coffee drinker, I was excited to try this tea. After steeping this tea for about 8 minutes, it definitely smells like a coffee beverage which was aided by adding a bit of sweetener and milk. Although this does remind me of coffee, the underlying flavor is definitely that of tea which I appreciate. This is quite good!
From my review at It’s All About The Leaf, found at: http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2087/tea-review-distinctly-tea-pear-cream-supreme/
Wonderfully aromatic! Sometimes pear flavored tea will smell fruity but not specifically pear. This one definitely is PEAR. And cream. The aroma carries through to the brew. Looking at the ingredient list, I was suprised to see fennel seed – I don’t tend to mentally connect fennel and pear flavors, but on my first sip I was sold. You don’t taste fennel, but rather a lovely blend of pear flavors and tea flavors. Very nice!
This tea deserves sitting on a veranda with a friend, talking and sipping. Very comforting, very yummy. I tried this both hot and iced, and while I prefer hot, I bet this would be lovely sweetened and iced on a summer day. Yum.
I’ve only ever had lapacho – or Pau D’Arco – once. And felt it tasted pleasant but mediocre – like a lot of herbals. This was an interesting take on the beverage. Lapacho is the base for many requisite chai spices. And vanilla. LOTS of vanilla. Or at least lots of vanilla flavoring. Right outta the gate, vanilla dominates. I love vanilla, but sometimes too much is too much. That didn’t translate to taste, though. On the flavor front, it resembled a cross between hot apple cider and…TheraFlu. I found the oddity delightful.
Full Review: http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2035/tea-review-distinctly-tea-lapacho-vanilla-chai-2/
Of course I still have some of this left – I never finish anything, it seems. I made a cup of this to take with me to switchboard today in my never-ending quest to finish some GD tea! The smell of the dry rooibos is sweet and vague, kind of bubble-gummy (as flavoured things keep seeming to me lately). The rooibos pieces are really large, the biggest I’ve ever seen so there is nothing to escape through my infuser – huzzah!
Steeped, this becomes an orangey amber and has a very sweet faux fruit aroma. I have no recollection of this being stellar but it is hard to imagine it being BAD. Just so-so, I think. The flavour is very similar to the aroma, an imprecise and artificial fruit flavouring. Nothing cranberry and nothing tart. This is the sort of blend that I would to have hibiscus in, I wonder if it might be improved by a hint of hibiscus. I don’t think so though!
ps – It does actually have a hint of craisin flavour to it. Man, I like craisins but only in my trail mix. I wish I had some now, I totally need to make up another batch of trail mix for work!
Backlog from last night:
Had a cuppa this after getting home from the weekend/wedding (not mine!) :D
We threw a little extra in there to temp out the cranberry flavour, and it almost worked. Not terrible, but I’ve got so many better..
Preparation
OMG smells SO GOOD. My nose is in the bag right now I can’t take it out!! All the fuzzy white hairs on the leaves make me excited! The leaves actually look like tiny string beans! This is the second of my spoils from Distinctly Tea, and despite my terrible experience with Teaopia’s White Pear, I am encouraged about delving into white teas again.
When steeped, the leaves float in a vertical orientation at the top, looking a lot like (and kind of creepily??) like string beans perfectly stacked and spaced on an invisible vine. Weird! I’ve never seen that in a tea before.
In taste, it reminds me of Darjeeling, but less nutty. Very light, a little bit buttery, but altogether very very nice. I can’t stop sipping! Yummy!
Preparation
I am going to admit a very embarrassing fact: this is the second green tea I have ever had, the first being Tetley’s “Green Lemon” BLAAUGHHH. Needless to say, I had been turned off green tea like it was my job. I bought this mainly for the novelty of watching the pearls unroll. I was pleasantly surprised! I have no idea what jasmine smells like, I can only assume the delicious aroma wafting off the cup was it. The taste was much different, definitely grassy. Not normally my cup of tea ohohohohaha ahem. Still, I couldn’t stop drinking it. It had an incredibly calming effect after a very stressful morning. I’m not sure I want to call it tasty, but it was definitely good. At the very least it makes me want to try more green tea!
ETA: I just read one of takgoti’s reviews about green tea, and “celery” is definitely what I want to say this tastes like!
Preparation
The first steep was straight black, and once again I failed to appreciate a black tea all on its own. They describe it as “extraordinarily sweet” but by the gods I could only think “extraordinarily burnt.” This tea tastes like burnt things. If you like that kind of thing, for sure check this out straight-up, but burnt is not my idea of tasty.
Second steep was with my requisite milk and sugar for black teas, and VAST improvement. The only problem with thinking black teas are delicious with milk and sugar is the possibility that I just like the taste of milk and sugar. But, it has been argued that the flavour of the tea must be in there somewhere, so kudos to it for grounding my sweet tooth?
The “extraordinarily sweet” was true this time, it was much like other black teas I’ve had (English breakfast comes to mind) but actually without the burnt-flavour undertones! Just pure sweetness. It was ridiculously delicious. So sweet I might have to have to delegate it to a dessert tea. Yum!!
