Fusion Teas

I was in a foul mood yesterday so I didn’t post. Slightly improved today and keeping my mood positive with more of my comfort teas. I love the taste and smell of gojiberry and pomagranate. Yum.

So there hasn’t been a cloud in the sky for weeks. We desparately need rain, but that is another story. Last night we pack the telescope and all the 7000 pounds of gear that goes with it (yes I greatly exaggerate) and head to the state park. We meet up with a half dozen like minded families to put on a public star party. As it figures the clouds roll in and the evening is a bust. So I go outside this evening and of course we have cloudless skies. sigh. I consoled myself with this fruity delight. yeah tea!

I had the bright idea yesterday that I would steep this up and pour it into glass bottles to be chilled. I poured the first over ice and the second I just drank out of the bottle. Maybe if I had added sweetener I would have liked the result better. This tea is surprisingly too light to work iced.

I love this hot, so I am leaving the rating alone.

Fruity goodness :)

I kept the empty sample pouch from this and restuffed it for home from the bag I recently ordered and keep at work. To try and keep this short – the sample bag is almost empty again. I really find this refreshing, and it went with hotdogs and Fritos :)

I took the day off to start a long weekend – yeah! So I get to post my morning tasting note in real time. This seems to have become my new comfort tea. Pretty amusing for someone who didn’t think they liked fruity teas. This is just so good, hot or cold.

2 cups this morning. I have got to get a kettle for home. At work, where I do most of my tea drinking, I have a tea station set up and it works great. At home I don’t need the caffeine in the evenings and we are usually on the run on weekends, so I just use the microwave. I hate microwave water. I thought I had found a work around by pouring the heated water into my press. Sadly it is an improvment not a fix. This tea is fabulous at work and meh ok at home. Not settling for meh.

Sip down. But it’s OK, because I have more on the way. My wife went into withdrawal already on the Chamomile Vanilla Bean and it isn’t even gone yet. So since I am paying shipping anyway might as well take advantage right? Also grabbed the Earl Grey for a friend.

For those of you who avoid fruit teas for fear of hibiscus – this one does not have it listed as an ingredient. Super fruit is pretty accurate – pomegranate and gojiberry, but you can taste the Sencha base, and that is important to me. The lemon grass is just a hint. Definitely my favorite from Fusion. It is my second favorite fruit tea from any I have tried. (Number 1 is Empire Tea Services Peach Apricot – it is amazing.) I love this one steaming hot or room temperature. It remains consistently good through out.

I think I have tried six different Fusion Teas. I have liked all of them. This one I love. It has Goji berries, lemon grass, pomegranate, and obviously Sencha leaves. This fills the room with a wonderful fruity fragrance while steeping. The taste is hefty on the fruit without being overwhelming. The flavor while intense does not come off as fake or candyish. If you have had a RoT or Stash type pomegranate tea and kind of liked it, then try this one and taste the difference (I should be in advertising!). Seriously, this is on my must reorder list. I have kept this hidden in the back of the drawer, so I wouldn’t be tempted, and have slowly rationed it out. I have enough left for one more day of steeping. The last cup today I iced and it was excellent.

I also plan to try their chamomile vanilla bean. I haven’t seen any reviews of that one. My wife loves chamomile but all of them are crap as far as my taste buds are concerned. It would be nice to have one we could enjoy together.

I never really considered fruit teas when ordering before. My previous experience with them was mainly RoT stuff. They are ok and amused me at the time. This is not ok… It’s excellent. I seriously cannot think of one negative thing to say about it. 2 cups.

Wow does the dry leaf smell fruity! The sencha leaves are small grass clippings when dry and large lush dark green pieces after brewing. There are some stems and fruit pieces in the mix. I steeped per the instructions at 170d for 2 minutes.

The brew is light yellow green and smells really tasty. There is a hint of spinach in the wet tea leaf. The sip is very fruity and tastes like it smells but without the spinach. There is no lingering nasty or candy aftertaste. The leaf smell of the second cup, @ 2 1/2 minutes, was Trix cereal! The brew scent and sip remained consistent with the first cup. I am not normally a fruit tea drinker but this is really good.

Sample provided by Fusion Tea Room http://www.fusiontearoom.com/
Slightly longer review can be found on my blog http://theeverdayteablog.blogspot.com/2012/03/fusion-teas-super-fruit-sencha.html

Additional notes: Sip down! Yes, I overleafed (I don’t even know how many teaspoons). But I have to sip down some of these things. I’m still amazed with the ingredients in this lovely. I just could have done without the hibiscus. I even tried to pull most of it out before going in the infuser. Sadly, the flavor is still mostly hibiscus. I miss the creamsicle flavor I noticed last time, and the dry leaf fragrance. It has so much here… why does it still need the hibiscus? It would be such a nice herbal without it.

Also! I looked up the actual winter solstice and it is December 21st! (I guess I do not normally need to know when it is, but it means longer days and I am wishing for a vacation that will never happen… at least the sun will stay up longer… not necessarily ever out from behind the clouds though.)

NO tasting notes for this one yet? How is that possible? I decided to try this one before the warmer weather hits, this being called ‘Winter Solstice’. (It’s apparently going to be 70 degrees tomorrow.) The steep was a light pink color. The flavor was different than any other tea I’ve tried, but there are many ingredients here I’ve never had in tea. It’s a bit tangy like a creamsicle flavor. Obviously, creamsicle is not something you’d usually associate with winter, but I guess it’s my best description. It has its own flavor! With herbal teas, I think they need a nice base to really bring out a strong flavor, but this tea couldn’t possibly be more crammed with delicious ingredients. Look at the list! Almonds! Rose petals! Even carrots! There was a WHOLE anise star seed in my steep fercrisakes. Those are bigger than a quarter!

Looking at the website (http://www.fusiontearoom.com/), every single tea there has an AMAZING list of ingredients (and picture!). They definitely get points for being inventive and going further than many other tea companies might go. They put their heart into this tea. This is the first I’ve tried from Fusion. I would love to try them all.

Swapped presses today with a co-worker. I got the second steep of this. This has become his favorite tea. It is a fine Earl Grey.

I traded presses with a coworker, giving him the black pearls, and getting this in exchange. We both get the second steep. The wet leaf in this smells very orange today. The Ceylon Yunnan base is solid and the French bergamot smooth. A nice cup.

Yummm. Passed the rest of the sample to a coworker – he’s hooked.

Actually enjoyed this more today than at my first attempts. I used water below boiling and a 3 minute steep. The bergamot in this one is not exactly citrus, flowery, perfume, or even artificial. The best I can describe it today is fruit punch. (Last time I called it bergamot/peach) I really like the base tea.

Why yes, Fusion Tea apparently does have black tea. It just isn’t on their website yet. The ingredients on this one are listed as premium black tea and bergamot. The aroma is very different than any EG I have had before. The scent reminds me of fruit candy (grapes and oranges?) or maybe fruit punch. One of the guys at work said it smelled like one of the Hubba Bubba bubble gums he used to chew. I followed the instructions but did shorten the steep time to 3 minutes.

The bergamot aroma is accompanied by the fruity wine-like scent of the black tea. The sip is very balanced There are equal parts tea and bergamot. I find that sense of balance is what I like most about Fusion Teas. The taste of the bergamot is fruity – maybe peach and orange. Again, not like any Earl Grey I have had before. There is some dry mouth astringency in the cup. The leaf itself is good sized broken pieces, and definitely not fannings.

The 2nd cup tastes like a more traditional Earl Grey.

I think the key to enjoying this tea is to get all the preconceived notions out of your head. It is a unique take on a classic. With that understanding this is a complex yet finely balanced cup. A longer review can be found at http://theeverdayteablog.blogspot.com/2012/03/fusion-teas-premium-earl-grey.html

Sample provided by Fusion Tea Room (www.fusiontearoom.com)

A sip down. I had more than I really needed for one last cup but not quite enough to stretch it into two. The dance of the leaf was an awesome event. Pulled the top off the press and holy cow the peach scent was strong – reach out and grab you strong. I added my usual yellow packet. The sip is nicely peach – not over the top. You can taste the green base and it is good, except I got the water a little too hot or I steeped too long as it is a bit bitter. That was not my experience with any previous cups. I am catching interesting pepper notes in this as well. I am thinking I should have used more leaf all along and just gone for a shorter steep time. Nice. Thank you again to Fusion Teas for the sample.

I am enjoying this even more this time around. I am used to peach teas that are PEACH teas. This is a much quieter cup. The main focus and flavor is peach but it doesn’t feel the need to smack you in the head. I think the other thing different here is normally I drink a peach apricot blend. The apricot lifts up the tail end of the sip. This one has lemon and marigold for support but doesn’t have that big tail end lift, and that has taken some adjustment on my part. Accepting this is a light peach citrus, it is a refreshing cup that tastes even better on the second steep in a glass full of ice. I had some chipotle cheddar pretzel crisps with the iced tea. I am not sure if it was the spicy pretzel or the ice but the green tea taste really shines through on this second glass. Didn’t notice it near as much on the first cup sipped hot.

When I first visited Fusion Tea Rooms website, this is the tea that immediately grabbed my attention. I love a good peach tea. This one is peach / green tea with some citrus additions. The ingredients as listed: green tea, peach pieces, lemon peel, flavoring, and marigold blossoms.

The first whiff of the sample packet is an obvious fresh peach scent. The citrus flavors add a nice touch. The tea leaf is flat strips that look like dried grass. There are fruit pieces mixed in with the leaf and the yellow flower petals make it attractive. I brewed this per the instructions, temperature and time wise. I found it a bit hard to eyeball the proper amount of leaf so I added extra. The brew is peachy and planty – not grassy. The liquor is light yellow green. The leaf is large pieces of olive green leaf. There are a small amount of stems present.

The sip is lightly peach. The citrus drops to the background to support the taste. There is a light bit of green tea grassiness in the late sip. This is a lovely drink. It is a lot lighter than I expected. I thought I would be bombarded with flavor but this is far more subtle than overstated. It gains flavor as it cools. I think lightly sweetened and maybe iced, this would make a great sipping tea on the front porch enjoying the spring weather. The taste seemed to me very natural and not at all artificial. Steeped twice. Another nicely done cup.

Sample provided by Fusion Tea Room (www.fusiontearoom.com)

This one is pretty good too, it’s different for me because it’s just so fruity but it’s nice, these teas from Fusion Tea Room so far have been very good, smell wonderful and are full of pretty fruit pieces that make it nice to look at also.

This is actually my first experiment with Mate. It’s totally new to me! I received a generous box of samples from the Fusion Tea Room (thanks again!) and decided that I’d give this one a try first, because caramel flavors are very comfortable for me.

I followed the brewing instructions carefully, because I didn’t really know what it is supposed to taste like. The smell of it is definitely caramel-y, but I think the smell of the actual mate is a little odd to me.

I’m first trying it plain, without any sugar or milk. I have to agree that the chicory is a bit strong, but it’s not entirely unpleasant to me. It just sort of adds a bite. I can see that preventing me from having too much of it at one time, however.

I went ahead and followed suit with LiberTEAS and added some milk, which definitely did mellow it out nicely. I then added some sugar (the packet did say to sweeten to taste, after all!). With these additions, it really is a fun, sweet, drink. Reminiscent of a caramel latte, as LiberTEAS described.

I don’t dislike it, that’s for sure. I’m just still new to this kind of flavor, so we’ll see how it goes for me!

Now i am going to have to buy some of this, it was just sample size and i drank it up already lol It is very good Thank You to Fusion Tea Room for letting me try this one, i’ll try the others soon.
Also side note i joined teatra.de last night and dont know anyone there if you are there please add me as a friend if i havent sent you a request yet, thanks :)