62 Tasting Notes
This isn’t very impressive a tea. I could barely taste any vanilla, and the apple flavour was fairly weak. I thought these problems might have had to do with the fact that I used too much water, but I added another tea bag, and it hardly made any difference, except for increasing the acidity somewhat. The tea has a pretty nice aftertaste that reflects more of a dessert-y vanilla-apple mixture than the weak, acidic apple flavour you actually taste when drinking the tea, and the flavour’s just not adequate when you’re actually drinking it. It needs more vanilla and a bit less acidity. In short, the whole taste should be the taste of the aftertaste. How could more vanilla in anything ever be a mistake, anyway?
Not that much going on flavour-wise, but perhaps a little bit more dimensional than Teekanne’s Spanish Orange, especially at the end of the mouthful. It’s very sour (even with sweetener), and as you might anticipate if you’ve had oranges and blood oranges before, the flavour is less obviously orange-y.
I thought this would be unappealing because a lot of ayurvedic products I’ve had in the past have tasted yucky. It wasn’t bad, though, especially for a tea with fennel. It needed sweetener. The flavour is predominantly fennel, with a bit of orange, and maybe a tiny quantity of cardamom.
The company calls this a “bold jasmine handiwork.” I don’t think “bold” fits. The jasmine is noticeable, but the green tea flavour is strong and dominates it. I really love jasmine, and want jasmine teas to be pretty strongly floral. This tea is very green, and although the jasmine is clearly present, it’s not a satisfactorily significant element. The last jasmine I drank before trying this was Kusmi’s, and I think that was way better.
There’s nothing unpleasant about this tea, and it smells and tastes pleasant, but for those looking for an assertive jasmine taste, this tea isn’t so good. I’d recommend it for something like a worn out Sunday afternoon cup of tea, when I’d wanted more of a hot, strongly blossom-y morning cup.
I thought this was pretty good. There’s one slight problem with it—a problem shared by many earl greys I’ve tried with the exception of Lipton’s Imperial Earl Grey and some British one I haven’t logged yet—something about the floral element of it tastes too lavender-y to me. In the German version I’ve got in the pantry, I’ve found it to be a much bigger problem than it was in the case of this tea. The bergamot in this case blended right in with the tea base, and there was no bitterness. Lipton’s Imperial Earl Grey doesn’t taste like lavender or ever have that peppery element I’ve experienced in some bergamot-containing teas, and I still think it is my favourite earl grey, but I’d probably put this one second. It’s kind of weak, though. It’s a bit like the second steeping of the Lipton. Longer steeping could change that, but I didn’t want to get bitterness, so I heeded the recommended few minutes. Good with sweetener and no milk.
Not as good as my holy grail chai, but pretty good! Dominant ginger and cinnamon notes, and a smell of gingerbread. Great with soy milk and sweetener. Sad I only got a single pack og this now, because it’s really quite enjoyable. The spices aren’t particular spicy or dominating, so if that’s what you’d like, I’d suggest you look elsewhere, but if you want a smooth chai, I’d recommend this. It might be better steeped with more than the recommended amount of tea for a stronger flavour, but it’s really good, and unlike the Celestial Seasonings chai, it doesn’t have that heavy vanilla that makes it seem inauthentic.
Overall, this is a good quality, easy-to-drink chai for people who are keen on ginger and cinnamon as the key players of the flavour, and who are perhaps not looking for a dessert-y experience heavy on vanilla.
This is the first tea I’ve tried from this brand. I was optimistic, because the brand’s tea selection is comprehensive and the staff were lovely. I’m not very impressed with this one, though. For some reason, the smell reminds me a little bit of rubber gloves, and the taste just hasn’t got it. Lemon myrtle can be great, but I think mixing it with vanilla is a bad idea (although I actually didn’t taste any distinct vanilla not in this tea at all, and it was more like a weak tea base with some myrtle chucked in.) Lemon myrtle really needs more of the grassy, green flavour to set it off, and white tea doesn’t have enough of that leafy flavour to work effectively with it. It just tastes kind of wrong here. Sweetening didn’t improve the flavour, either. The tea base seemed kind of forgettable, and the precise lemon flavour that came from the combination of the lemon myrtle and the flavouring just made me think back to Kusmi Detox, which is deplorable. I’d drink this tea if there was nothing else, and it’s not so bad as to be a disgrace to tea, but I really didn’t enjoy it, and because I let it oversteep a bit and it got ridiculously bitter, I just gave up and threw it out. This tea’s flavour was ultimately disappointing to me, but with more attentive steeping (the package said only two minutes), others might find it tasty. It did leave a nice flavour in my mouth that reminded me a little of jasmine tea.
I think this is the last straw in terms of my ignoring brewing instructions. I don’t think it’s what ruined the flavour, because not only did I try some of the tea before it had been steeped too long, it smelled weird from the beginning. Even so, I probably would have put up with the mediocre flavour were it not for the extreme bitterness this tea took on. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a tea that’s become so bitter, and I don’t think I ever want to do so again.
Not bad, but I think the combination of chocolate and chai spices isn’t really that good. It’s not good without milk and sweetener, but with them, it’s still not great. I’m not the biggest chocolate fan, which is probably a good idea to say, but actually, I didn’t find this tea strongly chocolatey. It was mostly spices and black tea.
