Pukka

Happy National Pizza Day! One of my local favorites is a chicken garlic that has lots of veggies and basil on top, so I decided to brew some tulsi (holy basil) as my nightly tisane. This was one of the boxes of tea that Todd brought me back from his once-ago trip to Ireland. Thanks, Todd!

This is a blend of the three different varieties of tulsi (my preference!) I am pretty sure I’ve only ever had tulsi in blends, not straight, and it is interesting taking in the aroma as is… the pepperiness I’ve always gotten in the flavor really comes out on the nose, as well as a sharp citrusy scent, and something that smells like a cross between sandlewood and cinnamon, with an herbaceous/woody undertone. The flavor is mostly what I’m used to with tulsi — a little minty, though lacking any sort of cooling menthol, a little citrusy, and a little peppery, though I’m also tasting a slight roasty note here… tastes a little like chicory, though leaning a bit more dry/herbaceous.

Pleasant and relaxing… I will probably also have a cup of Aesthete’s “La Vie en Rose,” which is a tulsi blend with a strong fennel presence, as I just finished a bowl of Minestrone soup with some very fennel-forward sausage! (Mmm, sausage!)

I have received this UK produced tea from a postcrossing member located in Ontario, Canada. And well, I am located back in Europe. Okay, a big carbon footprint behind this tea.

Anyway, I am always happy to get a tea that I haven’t tried yet. And this one seems summery for me. The suggested brewing time is up to 15 minutes, so I did around 6 maybe? It wasn’t changing colour too much, so I kind of forgot about it.

It’s okay and quite sweet. Licorice sweet. But it’s mellowed by elderberries, which are kind of tart. And it’s somehow decently herbal. In last sips roships took the place.

Ah well. Quite common a bit of fruity tea. Not even sure if I should consider it as fruit or herbal tea. Probably the latter.

Pukka Days of Christmas#12

This is the last of the teas included in the Pukka advent calender. It was far better than what I had feared (not too fond of ginseng, and very fussy about green teas in general as well), refreshing in a way (quite strange for teas in an advent calender, I think), but I must repeat here as well that using matcha for a blend that includes only 2% of it is a huge abuse of the name!
Lemongrass especially and ginger dominate on a very enjoyable sencha green tea base, which gives it a refreshing citrusy touch. I can even imagine taking this blend more often, for it´s very easy to have. And this makes it a nice end of the tasting of the 24 teas in this calender.

Pukka Days of Christmas#4

English Breakfast isn´t exactly what Pukka is known for, but I guess it was a no brainer to have at least an EB in its portfolio. Also, for me, it´s quite strange to combine “elegant” with EB, as the standard EB blend is supposed to be quite strong to wake you up in the morning, while an elegant tea is intended to savour at a moment when your senses are in top shape. So be it…I tried this elegant EB tea this morning, and because I like my breakfast teas strong and full of character, this blend didn´t really impress me, but then again, it was quite OK for a teabag , and also the taste was clean and crisp without too much bitterness at 3minutes steeping. I wouldn´t steep it longer though.
Anyway, from tomorrow I´m back to my normal – loose leaf – breakfast tea, preferentially an African Assam.

Pukka Days of Christmas#9

Although I´m not a berry tea fan, and I´m not particularly fond of blackcurrant either (it must be the only type of berry I don´t like fresh), but I really enjoyed this infusion! Maybe because the dry bitter bite of the blackcurrant is nicely balanced by the other ingredients? Maybe because the resulting infusion isn´t sweet and it rather tastes like a natural blackcurrant juice? As far as I am concerned, Pukka managed to make a great blend here.

Pukka Days of Christmas#3

“A welcoming cup of spicy-sweet bliss”??? When I brewed this cuppa, it didn´t have a lot of clear “welcoming” indications, according to me : the yellow broth wasn´t inviting, not in colour not in aroma and even less in texture. Not too citrusy, and I cannot really tell where the honey (2% according to list of ingredients) has gone either.

Pukka Days of Christmas#11

I really don´t have a clue why this blend is called “Revitalise”, but I do know it´s a perfect Xmas tea, although some ingredients (green tea9 might give another idea. A burst of warming cinnamon, cardamom and ginger, it says on the pouch…well yes, a quite standard Xmas tea but very well balanced. The typical spices are present, but they don´t give you a huge punch in the face here, it´s more discrete, more elegant in a way, which means I could even drink more than 1 cup of this tea ;-) Ginger comes through in finish, so that´s OK by me as well.

Pukka Days of Christmas#2

Fortunately the teabag smells of mint as the colour of the brew is not exactly the colour you associate with mint. The brew smells less of mint, which is also confirmed in mouth with the minty freshness being far from dominating. It seems the fennel and licorice make this a more balanced blend, which I can appreciate. Also in sweetness they make for a more natural mix, if I can say it this way, not the typical minty sweetness which sometimes even can make me have a headache! Finish is very long as well, nice.

Pukka Days of Christmas#17

I was cautious about having this one after my last experience with chamomile, but I need to admit I quite liked this one. The chamomile is discrete, with the vanilla and honey making it smoother and softer in taste and smell! Especially the honey comes through in the finish, quite ideal I would think. It makes it, as far as I am concerned of course, a lot more enjoyable to have as an infusion before going to bed.

Pukka Days of Christmas#6

Temperatures have gone down, and then a ginger tea can sooth…but I´m generally not a great fan of the ginger, as a little can dominate all the rest of flavours. Well, this blend ends up better than what I imagined, although the ginger cuts through like a knife. Brilliant when having a cold, otherwise quite harsh, in my opinion.

Pukka Days of Christmas#22

What a strange experience. When I opened the pouch of the teabag, it smelled like a type of stock cube which bars in Belgium offered to make an instant stock (instead of instant soup) to have on a cold winter´s day. The brandname is OXO, so this reminds me of oxo. Also the colour (very dark reddish brown, like the pouch) is unusual. This all might seem very unappetising, but it does help digestion, I think.

Pukka Days of Christmas#7

I thought to give this one a go after a nice meal, and that was a brillant idea : it smells like the sugar coated fennel seeds they offer you after a meal in Indian restaurants! And it tastes quite that way as well, so I can only guess the function of helping with the digestion is clearly what Pukka intends with this infusion. As far as I can tell, it works.

Pukka Days of Christmas#5

I join other reviewers here as the name is very misleading, for a green tea with only 2% of matcha included. Furthermore, I was looking if there were other boiling (time, temperature) instructions because of it, and was quite surprised to see no specific indications concerning steeping temperature. I decided to use 70ºC water anyway.
Although the green tea is quite alright, I honestly don´t see the point of adding matcha here (apart from the marketing tool, clearly)…OK to try, but that´s all.

Pukka Days of Christmas#1

Catching up. Browsing a bit through Pukka´s webpage and on steepster, I think the blend I tried with the name “Feel new” corresponds to what was used to be called “Detox” (the change must have been carried out at the beginning of 2019).
The advent calender reads “for mornings after the night before” and that´s why I decided to have it when my stomach was a bit upset …I can see cardamom in the teabag, but the aniseed and fennel come through without further observation. The brew offers indeed those two in an enjoyable yet not too exciting “fusion” and I must admit my stomach felt good with it as well.

This was one of two boxes of Pukka tea that Todd brought me back from a past trip to Ireland. I’ve been running around like a crazy person getting errands done today (including a horrible wait in the kind of nightmare DMV line that is typically the punchline to some joke…) and just need to destress, and this with a slice of the carrot cake I totally didn’t impulse buy at the grocery store today sounded nice.

I’m getting a roasted cocoa and cinnamon aroma from the cup. Even on the sip, I am not really getting a strong licorice flavor like I was expecting (I actually love black licorice, and love herbs/spices like licorice root, anise, and fennel!) The cocoa and chicory are actually quite a strong presense; it is a surprisingly nice cocoa note for having the thin body of a tea rather than the thickness/richness of a hot cocoa with milk. The chicory and cinnamon just add a lovely depth to the flavor. The cinnamon is sweet, but not that “Red Hots Candy” sort of taste, as the sweetness is more of the sticky sweetness of licorice root, and a sticky sweet cinnamon flavor lingers a bit after the sip. All the flavors go together really well! I am loving this! It feels indulgent but comforting at the same time. Definitely on par with my other favorite bagged herbal tea, Tazo’s Glazed Lemon Loaf.

Thanks Todd!

One of the few Pukka teas that is exactly what it says on the label. I’m trying to clear down some old tea before we head into 2021 and this is the last teabag from this box.

Texture is surprisingly thick. Looking back at my review from last year, I describe as almost syrupy. It’s not unpleasant though, just unusual.

The three types of mint gives it a little more depth than a single mint tea. The peppermint brings the menthol coolness, the spearmint adds some sweetness, and the field mint adds some body.

A great tea for when you’ve eaten too many mince pies…

Pictures from a looooong time ago https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/pukka-three-mint-tea-review/

Pukka Days of Christmas#8

Tasting the teas of the advent calendar which were due before the calender arrived, one by one, in no particular order.
Smells like turmeric, yellow as the pouch of the teabag, tastes like a “decaffeinated” (to say it tastes less strong than the real thing) version of the taste of turmeric and makes a visually attractive cuppa…not my favourite, but OK for once.
I guess turmeric is considered now as one of the new superfoods, but in Spain it´s a very common colorant in food (which is good), often used instead of saffron in cheeper eateries when preparing paella (not so good)…so maybe, that´s why I´m not so keen on having a turmeric tea ;-)

Pukka Days of Christmas#24

I only realized it was a blend intended to help to go to sleep, when I read other reviews here ;-) I had it now, as later on I will change tea for wine and champagne (even in these circumstances, we need to celebrate what we still can and have to cherish)…and so far, I´m not really worried about falling asleep before roasting lamb for our Xmas Eve dinner.
This blend has a rather long list of ingredients, some of them in rather large proportions (and others which tend to overwhelm on their own), but the whole is balanced. Very easy to drink, tasty and although it´s a gentle taste, the finish is long and quite strong (licorice?)… nice, and worthwhile to stock in the future.

Pukka Days of Christmas#23

I love licorice, but as far as I know there is the black one (“drop” in Dutch) and the wooden one (“zoethout” in Dutch), and while the black one is very easy to get hold of in sweets and such, the latter is mainly a memory from my childhood. My mother would buy me a stick of it, and I would suck it for a long time, until I would be fed up with it. I´m pretty sure that there are still unfinshed sticks like that in drawers of my room at my parents´place. And the Dutch word says it all : zoethout = sweet (zoet) wood (hout). When I smelled the tea I went down the memory lane immediately…and I loved it, until – once again – I was fed up with it, mainly because I realized it was very sweet indeed. For once a treat, not to have regularly though.

Pukka Days of Christmas#13

As today´s tea from the advent calender is an “after dinner” tea, I picked one from the ones I missed at the beginning.
Wild apple and cinnamon…cinnamon clearly present in nose, apple not that much. Once brewed, the apple comes through, but far less than what I had hoped for. In taste, it´s not a bad blend, but it seems almost the “low taste” version, as if it was stronger before but had been left open for a while. I like fruit teas to have a clear and definite even strong character, and this isn´t the case here, I´m afraid.

Pukka Days of Christmas#21

Today´s blend is very herbal as well, but the presence of fennel makes it a treat to smell, and the presence of mint a treat to drink. I think it´s well put together, making it less sweet than a standard mint tea, and tastier than the average herbal tea. In finish the licorice comes through, which I can appreciate a lot.

Pukka Days of Christmas#20

This blend of 3 different types of chamonile might be a real treat for a lot of people, but for me it was a curse. I already mentioned that I consider a cup of chamomile tea more of a cure when having overeaten, but yesterday, that wasn´t the case and I started suffering from a lot of gasses after drinking this infusion. I have stomach problems, but this infusion caused a crisis which I don´t want to repeat every time I drink a tea, so no more of this for me, thank you. I don´t rate it either, as I´m sure my reaction to the tea is very personal and no real opinion of its quality and taste.

Pukka Days of Christmas #19

So, Tulsi leaf is a type of Basil sacred for the Hindus…also by trying teas from an advent calender one learns new things! Herbal in a nice way (I´m still getting over the herbal teas my mother made for me when I complained from anything when I was a kid ;-) ), and I surely enjoyed this brew. I had it steeping quite a while, maybe 12 minutes, and it was no problem.