Inspired Leaf

Had a pot of this loveliness while at afternoon tea in honor of my birthday. It’s become kind of a tradition. I’ll need to do a review of the place we went to – it’s called Brooklyn High Low and it was fantastic! Everyone got to choose their own tea, which came in a very generously sized pot. This was my pick. I loved it so much I ended up purchasing some to take home. Comforting, warm and sweet, this was such a wonderful tea. Not sweet like sugar sweet – I rarely if ever sweeten my tea – but more like the sweet you get when you add vanilla to anything. I had it with milk, of course. The vanilla is rich and deep, not that flat, marshmallow-y vibe you can sometimes get with lesser vanilla flavoring. Cardamom was perfectly balanced with the vanilla and didn’t overwhelm the tea. Loved it!

Backlog:

This tea was yum. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to given that it was a pu-erh. Yeah, yeah, I actually like pu-erh, it’s just still like an automatic response from me as I’ve said before.

I don’t taste any brine-y, fishy flavors from this (a good thing) and it’s not overly earthy (again, a good thing). Lovely notes of cinnamon, clove and ginger. The nutmeg isn’t as obvious as the other spices. It’s a warm and comforting tea – the spices are warming but not really ‘spicy.’

The pu-erh is a mellow tasting tea. I like the deep flavor of the pu-erh together with the rich, silky flavor of the caramel. That’s really nice. This is one I’d recommend to someone who thinks they don’t like pu-erh; this would be a nice intro to pu-erh.

Backlog:

I was pretty confident that I’d enjoy this tea, and I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would! It starts out sweet with hints of burnt sugar, then a slight saltiness, and then I taste the smooth, rich flavor of the black tea. The yerba mate gives it a nice earthy flavor and the barley gives it a grainy taste.

There is some malt to the tea, which complements the caramel tones. There is rooibos in this blend too, I didn’t really notice much contribution of flavor from the rooibos, but I’m OK with that since rooibos isn’t exactly my favorite thing anyway.

A really yummy blend. I gave it two thumbs up.

Backlog: Well, it would seem that my experience with this tea is different from the one other poster that logged this tea. I actually quite enjoyed it.

The black tea was smooth and robust, and there was a really lovely buttery note to this. I could taste the toffee and the chocolate and the sweet, nutty flavor of the hazelnut.

I didn’t really like the carob in this though. I found myself wishing it wasn’t there. It doesn’t really give it so much of a chocolate-y flavor as it does a “fake” chocolate-y flavor, and I like my chocolate. My advice would be to eliminate the carob and add some more cacao nibs or perhaps some cacao shells. I think that this would do much to eliminate that odd “artificial” taste to this.

Despite that carob note, this was enjoyable.

Backlog:

A really yummy blend. I like the combination of the black tea and Oolong tea base, I like that I don’t taste the rooibos much here. The apple and fig flavors meld together in a really tasty way. The spice is warm and I love the light licorice note. Really good.

Here is my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/02/08/berkshire-apple-fig-blend-from-inspired-leaf/

This is an interesting tea.

I can taste each of the flavors that are promised in the description. The chocolate is prominent, which I like. The strawberry taste is bright and sweet with tartness, like a fresh berry would taste, and I taste the hint of bitterness from the saffron. What I like best is how the saffron and chocolate interact, there’s a distinct semi-sweetness to the overall cup. The cup is creamy and rich, I taste notes of vanilla, and I also taste the currants in this, they seem to interact with the strawberry, giving it more tartness than a strawberry flavor would normally have. Tingly!

I think my one disappointment with this cup is with the black tea base, as I find it lacking. While I wouldn’t want it a lot stronger because it might overpower the flavors and I really am enjoying the flavors … I want a little more bite from the black tea. I think that maybe just a touch of Assam or Nilgiri might enhance the overall flavor, making this taste more like a tea and a little less like a thin, jacked-up hot chocolate.

I like it though, I just think that with a more solid black tea base, I’d really LOVE this.

Wow! This is really refreshing! The mint is strong, and that’s behind that wow impact, but, even though it is strong, it doesn’t overpower the lime notes or the hint of cucumber. And amid all these other flavors, the green tea is there, sweet and fresh and slightly buttery. A really tasty flavor combination. The one thing I wish this tea did not have is the stevia, because I personally prefer to decide whether or not to have sweetener added to my tea. I don’t want that decision made for me.

I’m sipping this hot right now, and it’s great. But if I can control myself, I think I might like to let this cool off a bit, because I think that this would be even better as an iced tea.

Winding down with this tea. I was a little worried about starting on a green tea tonight, but, then after I opened this package, I wondered if it really WAS a green tea. There are tons of fruit and herbal bits in this… it looks like a tisane. But it is a green tea. And, I can actually taste the green tea, although it is hidden a bit beneath the strong fruit flavors.

But … this DOES taste like watermelon and lime! While hot, the lime is the strongest flavor, and the watermelon comes in about mid-sip to soften the tartness of the lime. The watermelon really pops as the tea cools though … still not quite as strong as the lime but, stronger than it was while the tea was hot. This tea is MADE to serve as an iced tea. SO YUMMY!

I just got finished writing a review of my experience ordering from the Inspired Leaf, you can read that here: http://steepster.com/places/3053-inspired-leaf-online-bend-oregon?visit=1892

As I mentioned in that review, I was shocked that I have this order so quickly. It’s a little less surprising after learning this company is only hours away from me, but it is still impressive that they prepared the order so quickly, and I’m happy to be trying a tea from them now.

This is really yummy. The base is black tea and honeybush, which gives it a nice richness and a pleasing sweetness that offsets some of the astringency, leaving a very mild dry note toward the end of the sip. As the tea cools, I find that the astringency becomes even less noticeable … it wasn’t strong to begin with, but now I notice it even less.

Sweet, deliciously chocolate-y (although, I do find myself wanting more chocolate… then again, when is that not the case?) and a nice coconut tone to this as well. There is dried apple bits in the blend but they are there – I think – primarily for appearance sake and not for flavor because I really don’t taste apple here. Just smooth, sweet, delicious coconut and chocolate, with a pleasing note of black tea and a slight nutty tone from the honeybush.

YUM!