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This is one of my favourite minty teas. The spearmint dominates, but doesn’t overwhelm, and while you can’t really pick out the other ingredients individually you definitely notice their effect in preventing this tea from tasting like just another mint tea.

When I’m in the mood for a mint tea, I just keep coming back to this one. It has a permanent place in my tea cupboard.

The leaves look more likely to be a Chinese green rather than a Japanese, I’d guess, but I could be wrong. The flavour of the tea isn’t a major issue, though, since the orange dominates pretty much everything I’m tasting here. I would have liked this to be just a teensy bit sweeter, but it’s certainly not as sharp as the lemon and lime flavoured green teas I’ve tried before. That’s definitely orange I’m tasting in this, rather than a more generic citrus flavour.

This really isn’t bad at all; it’s just mainly not the tea I was really in the mood for this afternoon so it’s pleasing me less than it probably would on some other day. I think it would be worth trying with a little honey added next time. I’ll keep experimenting with it.

resurfaces

I haven’t posted any tea reviews for a couple of weeks because… I haven’t been drinking much tea. hangs head in shame

Anyway, I’m back home now, and drinking tea again, so… here we go!

This is one of the teas I got when I was in Queensland. It tastes like… green tea with dill. g

Actually, it’s pretty good. It has that aniseed/licorice sort of edge to it that you’d expect if you’re familiar with the flavour of dill, plus something lurking around the edge that’s almost minty. The dill flavour doesn’t overpower the flavour of the tea because they’ve used the seeds instead of the plant – definitely a good move, since the flavour of the seeds is softer and more subtle.

All in all, this tea balances out the competing flavours nicely. I’ll definitely be drinking more of this.

I’m staying with my parents for the next couple of weeks. Since I’m nearly 1000km away from my usual haunts and I don’t know this area very well, just about every place I go is a new discovery. Today I went to a large weekend market that my father wanted to check out. Most of the stalls didn’t interest me much, until I spotted: tea! My parents watched, bemused, as I sorted through the teas on offer and ended up with nine little tins.

“No one buys that many teas at once!” said my mother.

“Oh, I know a few people who would,” I assured her, thinking of steepster. g

In the end, they offered to take me to the town of Tamborine, where Tamborine Teas is based, later in the week, so I may end up with a few more of their teas by the time I go home again. (As it is, I’ll be going home with more teas in my bag than when I arrived, which surprises me – though probably it shouldn’t. g)

This is a mix of oolong and green tea, with a little added spearmint and safflowers. It’s really not bad at all. The spearmint is there, but it doesn’t dominate the flavour as much as I expected. It provides more a refreshing edge to the tea and let the flavours of the tea come through. It reminds me a bit of Moroccan Mint, though more oolong-y (is that a word?) than green.

I liked this tea quite a lot, and now I’m really looking forward to trying the other teas I got from Tamborine Teas.

This week I finished up with work, finished writing the story I’ve been working on (six hours before deadline), flew north yesterday – and now I finally have the time to sit down and relax with one of the teas I brought with me. My bag had packets of tea tucked into every available nook and cranny. g

I’ve been so looking forward to a quiet cup of really good tea, and this is it. Not as sweet or floral as some Taiwan oolongs, not at all astringent, and smooth but not bland.

Ahhhh. I don’t know another tea that’s so beautifully floral in both the aroma and flavour as this one, and all while never straying in the direction of being sickeningly overly floral.

I remember distinctly the first time I tried this tea. It was a revelation. I’d never drunk a tea like it before. Now, of course, I’m a lot more familiar with Taiwan oolongs, and I’ve tried some really good ones which are as wonderfully smooth and silky as this tea, but none of them quite matches this one for the floral notes. This tea is up there with the best Taiwan oolongs I’ve tried, and yet it costs a fraction of the price. I’m not complaining. If I had to choose a single favourite tea, this one would be a strong contender.

I’ve been drinking a lot of this the past few days. I’ve been in the mood for something sweet-ish, and this really delivers. This is easily my favourite flavoured white tea, and I don’t think I’m going to get tired of it any time soon. The black version of this tea regularly tops the list of the Tea Centre’s most popular teas, so apparently I’m not alone in liking this blend of flavours.

This oolong is a little earthy. It’s nothing like as richly earthy as wuyi shui xian, but it still brews up a little darker than your average oolong, and the earthiness is there in both the smell of the dry leaves and the taste of the tea. I was in the mood for this sort of taste tonight, and this tea delivers without hitting you over the head with the flavour.

And there were a few fortifying cups of this consumed in the midst of everything else I’m trying to get done this week. Of course there were. :-)