T2

Almost out. This is the worst news when I’m trying to run down my tea supplies. Maybe I’ll make an exception for this guy.

Best.

My favourite bedtime tea, which is funny because T2 specifically tried not to give this relaxing herbal blend led by chamomile and lavender a “sleepy” name. But it’s hard to resist letting this lull you off to sleep! I love love love the spearmint notes in this. It’s just a lovely soothing tea. Two people who’ve tried it at my place in the last couple of months have gone out and bought it for themselves.

A very warm and sweet flavored tea, meant to be drunk with milk and sugar, but I find it is also quite good just on it’s own. Probably a little too fragrant and sweet to have all the time, however it is nice to have now and then.

Sipdown #10 and I’m kinda disappointed that I saved my last cup of this for an iced tea as the berry flavour doesn’t come out at all. How strange! I really thought it’d explode.

Haha my accidental 20min first steep has totally sucked the majority of the berry out of this blend. Still a beautiful oolong though, and a lovely rich colour. The faintest hint of berry remains for the second steep!

One away from a sipdown, though I’ll save that for an iced beverage (maybe tomorrow, with highs of almost 30°C on my day off?).

Lower steep temperature than recommended if only because I am at work and forgot to throw the tea in. I’M THE BEST. Because of the lower temperature I went for the max recommended time… and then overshot by a mile because I got stuck on a call and got too focused on it! (Probably a good thing when at work that my tea suffered rather than my customer.)

IT’S STILL DELICIOUS

This is a favourite of mine and it’s going to be tough for me to not go out and restock this ASAP, but my current rule is that once it’s gone, it’s gotta stay gone until my total cupboard count comes down a bit. As soon as that rule’s relaxed, I’ll be restocking this one. I just hope T2 still have some in stock when I want it! This one’s known to come and go…

This guy’s been my work tea for the past few weeks, consistently getting three solid and lovely steeps from each teaspoon. Yum.

love in a cup

My current favourite from T2. Amazing berry smell that translates to the cup in a deliciously light and fruity way. I can’t get enough of this tea. I really want to try it iced but I haven’t had the patience yet, I keep gobbling it up!

Love it!

Really nice, not too sweet but still refreshing

Tastes like mint slice in tea form! Really good hot by itself- steep for the longer time to release the more subtle mint and chocolate flavours. Good before bed as it has no caffeine.

Tropical fruit in the Temperate and Polar zones, strawberries and currants in the tropics, wheat in the Americas, tomatoes and potatoes in the Old World: there’s a lot to be said for the modern day supermarket that allows what was once regional and season food to be available year round and worldwide. As a regular drinker of tea, and a curry addict, I would be the last person to criticise, but there has been something lost in contrast to what has been gained. There is a part of me that longs for the time when spices like pepper and cloves, or fruits like pomegranates and bananas, or other consumables like tobacco, could invoke a sense of the exotic, of faraway places like the glittering cities of Arabian Nights or fading lithographs of Cairo and Calcutta.

Which brings me ratherly neatly to this fruit tea by T2. Pomegranates were something I had never tried until recently, but was aware of from Greek mythology and Persian cuisine. The first time I tried it was when I went berserk in a spice store in London and spent about 100 pounds on various spices including dried pomegranate seeds. Unfortunately, the one or two occasions I had bought a pomegranate, it was so tasteless and colourless that I threw it out. An Iranian flatmate a couple of years ago had given me a small bottle of pomegranate molasses which I used in various pilafs and salads not just for its sweet and sour taste but also for its hint of the exotic east.

The description on the box says “The essence of the Turkish grand bazaar . . . a sweet, tangy and mystical flavour” which was enough to sell me. Sitting here nursing a glass, it got me thinking how even two or three generations back, my Scottish or Russian ancestors would never taste or perhaps even heard of foreign flavours like pomegranates, almonds, chillies, etc.

This tea is such a beautiful, deep red. There is the ubiquitous rosehip which I imagine is for the colour as much as the Vitamin C. Does it actually have a taste of its own? There is a full-bodies flavour, a touch of sweetness and a nice little tang of sourness. I wouldn’t mind a little bit more sourness to balance out the sweetness, but I realise a lot of people will refuse to drink anything that is bitter or sour whereas I quite enjoy having a range of strong flavours throughout my day – I can’t think of anything worse than the usual bland sweetness of the modern diet.

I really hope that there is something similar in the US and Europe, but for everyone in Australia this tea is worth trying. It makes a nice counterpart to Hibiscus tea, or lemon tea when you need a change from black or green tea.

Being in the middle of a heat wave, the various T2 stores in Sydney have different ice teas to try which has been an enjoyable part of my visits. I was interested to come across a flavour called “Turkish Apple” which seemed to be a component of many of the iced teas. Doing a little research on google, I learnt that this is a popular fruit tea in Turkey.

It is unfortunate that in England, and to a lesser extent Australia, that all of the many lovely tart apple varieties are disappearing from supermarket shelves due to the refusal of many children to eat fruit that’s not sweet. As children, my sister and I loved having mouth-puckering tart or sour fruits like various citrus fruits, pineapples and some varieties of apples alongside the more traditionally sweet fruit like, say, watermelon and mangoes. I also love various dishes, teas and tisanes from the Maghreb and Anatolia so with this in mind, I set off to the T2 store to purchase some of this Turkish Apple tea. On arrival, I was dismayed to learn that this apple tea is nothing more than sugar and nasty chemicals – if this was what I wanted, then I would just purchase a can of coke for a dollar rather than almost fifteen dollars for this tea. The leading brands of apple tea sold in Turkey and the Middle East were also just sugar and chemicals so I thought this was just going to be a write-off.

Chatting with some work colleagues, I was told about another apple tea by T2 called “Chunky Turkish Apple” which is pieces of dried apple and some apple flavouring, but no sugar or chemicals. I followed their directions to the letter – one teaspoon per 250gm and brew for two or three minutes – but what I got was just a drink that tasted very vaguely of apple juice almost completely diluted in hot water.

Before writing this off completely, I tried again but increased the amount of the Turkish Apple and the brewing time. This was more like it – a strong taste of apple, slightly astringent but perhaps could have been a little more tart. It brews almost completely clear with a thin film of natural oils at the top and a fairly generic “fruit” smell.

This makes a very good iced tea. I used five teaspoons of the apple, five teaspoons of T2 Very Berry and steeped in one litre of hot water for ten minutes with some slices of apple.

In future, I will experiment with making my own as it just seems to be dried apple pieces and flavouring so it will be significantly cheaper to prepare myself but I think this will become another ‘ethnic’ favourite alongside Moroccan Tea (with various combinations of mint, wormwood and orange blossom) and Chai.

Twinings, you’ve broken my heart. After fifteen years of love and dedication, I can’t help but feel that there is some sort of je ne sais pas pourquoi . . . a distance growing between us. Where once every brewing pot was a joie de vivre, the thrill has gone and the experience is flat and uninspiring.

Take Earl Grey for instance. This was my Grandma’s tea of choice for everyday drinking; my Granddad was an anachronism – born a Scot but a Slav to the core, he preferred his Russian Caravans and his Lapsang Souchongs, brewed strong and black. It had to be loose leaf teaf and her preferred brand was Twinings and God help you if you served the tea in a mug or with milk. And so, over time, Twinings Earl Grey had also become one of my favourite blends. In fact, much as I enjoyed Russian Caravan, Prince of Wales and Ceylon Orange Pekoe, Earl Grey was my absolute favourite above all else and consumed throughout the day whereas the other blends were restricted to certain periods of the day.

If there was one thing that my ever so English Grandma despised – well, alongside the Scots despite marrying one, and the Irish despite having an Irish daughter-in-law and two Irish grandchildren (myself included – it was milk in Earl Grey. I actually enjoyed a splash of milk – it tempered the bergamot and I rarely drank tea black until the last year or so.

And therein lies the rub.

Milk and sugar tempers the tea, it eases the astringency and the tannins and harmonises the various flavours and tones much like salt does in food; and like salt, milk and sugar can also hides a multitude of sins – poor quality tea and ingredients, artifical or chemical tasting flavours and overpowering fragrances. Many teas which I use to enjoy with milk, I have found just not particularly enjoyable without. I can forgive blends like English and Irish breakfast, CTC blends or some of the Assam teas which are designed to be consumed with milk but I can’t turn a blind eye to a relatively expensive – although by no means a luxury or premium – brand that markets a tea designed to be consumed black.

There has been a lot of talk in the last couple of years of Twinings changing their Earl Grey blend in the UK and allegedly reformulating to a lesser extent their blend in other markets. There has also been mention of a gradual decline in Twinings products in the last ten years or so. I don’t know if this is necessarily true and perhaps my tastes have changed along with the way I consumed tea, but I now find the Twinings blend to be dull and flat. I love citrus fruits and the essential oils, whether it be eating the flesh of a blood orange, or a few drops of lemon or lime juice on food or in tea, the zest in salads and sweets, or the essential oils massaged into my skin on a summer’s day. Nothing seems to distill the essence of spring and summer like the fragrance of lemons. The scent is immediately uplifting and vivifying, so it seems wrong that a tea with the scent of the bergamot orange should be flat.

So I have started looking around for the perfect Earl Grey and will probably edit this post when I do a side by side comparison with three or four Earl Greys. Ideally, I would be looking for a strong bergamot which is pleasingly bitter and brisk, with an equally good strong tea base.

First on the list is the T2 Earl Grey. The very helpful lady in the Parramatta store gave me a whiff of the various Earl Greys available and suggested their standard EG blend. I tried a cup last night and I wasn’t overly impressed by it but I am sitting down now with another cup for review.

A few people had recommended a shorter brewing time with more water, so I steeped two teaspoons in 500ml of water rather than my usual 400ml. After three minutes, I took a few mouthfuls and while the bergamot was pretty close to perfect, the tea was so weak that I was essentially drinking bergamot oil in hot water, so I steeped for an additional minute.

The fragrance is beautifully strong which is just how I think it should be. Some people have commented that it is overwhelming, but this is down to individual taste and I love bergamot as noted above. The tea is serviceable, but the bergamot is the dominant taste – piquant and zesty, with gingery and slightly peppery tones, slightly bitter but an enjoyable, palatable bitterness. The colour is a strong, dark amber and the aroma is almost indentical to the taste.

I can’t say I enjoy the tea base, as this really needs to be full-bodied to stand up to and complement the bergamot. This tea base is mild with no real identity, which is all well and good if the bergamot was not as strong. I believe a strong bergamot really needs an equally strong tea base like a Ceylon Pettiagalla, but not as strong as, say, an Assam or a slightly smoked Chinese tea.

I will try my next cup with less water and brewed for three minutes and see if that makes a difference.

Special thanks to Azzrian for this one!
It’s tasty! I can taste a bit of chocolate, yes, but the spices are near muted so it’s lacking that chai-ness. I like the oolong base idea but it doesn’t really taste like Oolong. It’s quite tasty, regardless. Very cocoa-E.

I had read good things about this tea online, but was put off by the high cost. Then yesterday I was lucky enough to try this tea thanks to my dad’s partner having a sample in her cupboard.

I love how the little buds unfurl right there in the cup. The flavour was very light – we used 3 buds as they recommended 2-4, but I enjoyed it. We did use boiling water though, as we don’t have a tea thermometer, but it didn’t make the flavour bitter for me.

Thinking about it, I realised 100g of these little buds will go a long way with me using 3 per cup, so I took the plunge and put in an order from T2!

Gorgeous smell- the taste is quite sweet but nothing to rave about. It is a very gentle understated green, quite nice hot but even nicer iced. The sencha is very grassy but still quite subtle- good for those who are still beginning to drink green tea and don’t really like the taste yet, as the strawberry taste is quite pronounced (much more so than in the other T2 tea ‘strawberries and cream’

On a recent trip to Australia (from the UK) I stumbled upon this chain of tea shops and immeditely believed I had found heaven. I ended up buying 12 of the regular sized boxes of tea to bring back with me, and of them all, it’s Melbourne Breakfast that has worked it’s way to the top of that list as my go to brew in the morning.

I use the large infuser cups, so my brewing advice is always based on that.

This tea has a real depth of flavour, and while the most obvious note is that of vanilla – like other reviewers have said – it doesn’t overpower, and to me tastes more like a very mild chocolate, especially towards the end of the cup where it sometimes even tastes a bit like a hot chocolate to me.

Despite that, for most of the cup it is very much a tea – and although there is a slight smokiness, it doesn’t come out too strong against the sweet vanilla.

for my infuser I use a tablespoon of leaf, and infuse for the instructed three minutes. Being a Brit, who adds milk to every black tea, getting a deep flavour and colour is essential. Using less than a tablespoon gave a weak and grey murk.

As an introduction to flavoured tea I would say Melbourne breakfast is perfect for those who don’t find vanilla flavoured products distasteful.

Yum yum yum! So warm and lovely and aesthetically pleasing – full of spice and heat. The only better Chai I have had is a house blend, freshly made to order, so this is brill!

I really feel like I am possibly the only person who is not completely enamoured with this tea? I found it quite bland compared to other green teas. :( :(

Turkish Apple is okay as a hot, sweet drink, but is so much better as an Iced Tea. Mix with peppermint and enjoy in summer!