I was really excited to try this tea, as I have a love for white teas that is unfulfilled much of the time. Tea Forte’s website says that this tea is supposed to have vanilla, coconut, and fruit flavours. To start with, I am already a bit apprehensive about the coconut, since the last Tea Forte tea that I tried with coconut ended up with the coconut taste and smell fading away quickly.
Upon opening the tea bag container, I could smell the vanilla a lot. The coconut was very prominent in the scent, though the underlying hints of fruit (mango especially) definitely came through.
The website recommends steeping 2-4 minutes, so I decided to go for a happy medium of 3 for this first steep, in a single Tea Forte Cafe Cup.
While the tea was steeping, I thought I would inspect the packaging. Inside the cardboard tea bag container, I found a lot of tea dust. The leaves in the pyramid bag had sadly looked a bit crushed and small. I also found a couple pieces of tan fuzz in the container, which was weird.
Mmm, the smell of this tea is a delicious medley of fruit and vanilla and…barely any coconut. The taste of this tea is very fruity, but not so much that it overpowers the white tea aspect. Vanilla tones float along and mingle wonderfully with the fruit, and comprise much of the aftertaste. In fact, the fruit flavour is reminiscent of a tropical trail mix of dried fruit. One can taste the coconut, but it is not prominent at all now.
Truly, it is a delicious tea. I’m not disappointed at all. The smell is sweeter than the taste. As my friend who tried this tea with me said, “You smell the flavours more than you taste the flavours.”
This tea would taste excellent iced. It is certainly something I would recommend, especially for lovers of fruity teas. On my personal enjoyment scale, I’m going to give it an 80/100. That fuzz was just really strange…