Hebden Tea

This blend completely baffles me, though in a good way. The list of ingredients include apple pieces, pineapple cubes, flavouring and lemon grass. The apple chunks are massive and I can clearly see the lemon grass, but this smells mostly, to me, of lemon BALM and lime.

Brewed up, this is light and refreshing. I do get something in the way of apple and pineapple, plus there’s definitely a yoghurt taste going on, which must be from the flavouring, but I still mostly get lime and lemon balm. It’s really nice, though a little confusing. I think this would be gorgeous iced.

I made this before I left for work today. It was pretty good. Exactly as you would expect from the ingredients, with the bergamot and cherry both prominent, and the almonds giving it a slight marzipan-ish taste. There’s a bit of an artificial zip from the cherries, but it does manage to still taste quite fruity. Not bad!

Well, this was a fantastic surprise. I chose this as my ‘pre-work’ tea. As I’m unable to make my own drinks throughout the day (I survive on black coffee from a machine and my own bottled water at work), I try to choose something I’m relatively sure I’ll enjoy before I leave the house.

I currently have a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins sitting in my back garden, which I grew myself on my allotment plot and plan to carve this week ready for Halloween, so as I have pumpkins on the brain right now, the name of this tea shouted out to me.

Considering ‘apple’ was the first name in the list of ingredients, and ‘freeze-dried pumpkin pieces’ the last, I was expecting this to be more of a fruit infusion than anything else. But oh no, this… THIS was all about the pumpkin. Maybe it was because, y’know, pumpkins on the brain, but I don’t think so. I got a lot of apple, and it was gorgeously spicy from the cloves, but the pumpkin taste was so much stronger than I’d hoped for.

This was delicious! I could still taste the pumpkin when I arrived at work. I have a fair amount of this left, which I think will see me through my current craving for pumpkin teas, but I’d possibly carry on drinking this right through the winter months. The spicyness to it is enough to warrant the name Winter Warmer.

This was my first drink of the day yesterday. I always start the day with either a Yerba Mate or a black tea as I’m definitely not a morning person! As it was a Saturday and there was no rushing about getting ready for work, I made this in my teapot and took it back to bed, sipping on it while I finished the book I was reading.

In the packet, this smells so creamy! Given the name of it, this shouldn’t surprise me, but I guess I’m not used to a tea smelling of cream. I get wafts of the Yerba Mate, nothing of the liquorice, but an abundance of cream. It reminds me of the original Bailey’s drink. It tastes less creamy than it smells, (more like evaporated milk now) and the Yerba Mate is a lot stronger, but it has this seriously smooth, creamy edge to it that is simply gorgeous! The liquorice was still absent during my first cup of this, but it popped up in my refill and was there as a slight aftertaste.

Overall, I love this tea. It’s the second time I’ve tried it and I probably have another cup’s worth left in my sample pack, so I’ll definitely be placing an order for more of this. I’m still working my way through the samples I ordered from Hebden Teas and there are a few more I’ll be adding to my basket when I order again, along with this one.

We visited England and while in York visited this lovely tea shop. I bought a few teas to bring back home to Connecticut and this was one of them. It is one of my favorites that is close to gone – might have to go back to visit York England and Hebden Tea.

My favourite tea for a rainy day – or for a day in LA when I want to pretend that it can be here. A toned down black tea with an aroma reminiscent of a distant campfire on a cool autumn evening.

3g and 2 rinses.

The aroma of the dry leaf is hay, dried fruits, dusty, very pleasant, has complexity and is creamy. Leaves look chopped. There are some silver tips and some green leaves in there amongst the darker green leaves and some stems. In the wet leaf aroma the fruit is much more obvious and almost citrussy; there is warm apples, cherries and strawberries. It is also creamy hay again. This is delightful.

Brewed for 4 minutes in a cup, it has concentrated fruit, it is creamy, has some complexity and the flavour lingers for a bit. The aroma is fruity with plums and is creamy. I take a sip, it is mid-strength, it does drop off a little early and it is a bit drying, but the arrival and mid-taste are good and it has a bite to it.

7g used.

Dry leaves are very dark brown – this may have been in humid storage. It has loose compression. It breaks apart easily, suggesting it has broken down over time.

Wet leaf aroma is warm pastry.

5s – The liquid is dark brown. My guess is this has been in humid storage. Aroma is dust and sweet uncooked pastry. Taste is dusty, earthy, sweet with no bitterness.

10s – Dusty, sweet. Soil. Flat. Not very interesting.

1 minute – It has a staggered flavour profile, that is, it has at least 3 different flavours running linearly. Sweetness, dust and a woody base.

This tea reminds me of the 90s Hong Kong storage by White2Tea, only this is a less flavoured, simpler version, and has none of the raw beetroot flavour.

I came across a cute tea shop in York and picked up one of these because I never tried lapacho before, plus I like rhubarb and apparently Yorkshire is famous for its rhubarb.

Well, the tea is yummy. It’s currently my go-to herbal tea. I like having something like this around – it’s like a tea, but not actually the tea plant. Rooibos and I tend to not really get along most of the time, but I’ve had more luck with honeybush and I think of lapacho as a similar kind of ‘almost tea.’ The base is very pleasant but it stays mostly in the background which makes the flavour shine. The rhubarb is just very… rhubarby. Sweet and a little bit tart. Definitely very recognizably rhubarb. I am very happy with this one. I may have to go back to York to stock up in a while….

My wife was given this tea for her birthday. Naturally, she wondered if it was really for her! We have not tasted Genmaicha before and we tried it for the first time today. It is a hearty tea with a very toasty taste and aroma to it. I cannot decide how much I like it, but suspect that it is a ‘mood’ tea: great when you are in the mood for it. I did not notice much green tea in the flavour, because it seemed to be swamped by the toasted rice flavour that dominated. I think I was expecting something more delicate. Well, never mind. This is another tea that has its place in our cupboard for when we are in the mood for it. I shall try it again and report back when I have more time to spend working out the flavours and seeing if there is as much behind the rice flavour as the blurb from the website claims.