69 Tasting Notes

76

Good lord, people. I have been bound and bleeding determined to get the perfect steep out of this, to get as close as humanly possible to making the delicious scent of this tea match the actual taste of it. I kept getting cups that just weren’t cutting it.

I finally went out and bought a tea thermometer to make sure I had the temperature just right. I’ve also been fiddling with the right steeping device – my regular strainers kept letting bits of tea through that I could never quite strain out, so they kept steeping and soured the cup, but the disposable filters didn’t let the tea expand properly. So this morning I basically combined the best of the two – I tucked an open tea ball (well, an acorn-shaped strainer) into a reusable bamboo filter bag, so the tea could expand without any bits escaping. I put the tea in at 160 degrees and gave it exactly three minutes.

After all that, I’m calling this a success! I’m definitely getting the most almond flavor out of this of any prior steep. It’s still definitely more of a green tea flavor than I was hoping for, given that the scent suggests you’ll be drowning in marzipan. The almond is there, though. I think I just keep expecting that teas will be naturally sweet and then I’m put off when they’re not. Maybe I just need to admit defeat and start adding sugar already.

It pains me to admit the success of this green tea steeping method (open tea ball + reusable filter bag) because it’s such a pain in the butt, but I think it genuinely does allow for the best cup since the leaves get to expand properly but there are no bits left floating around to keep steeping. Green tea, thou art the cruelest mistress!

Preparation
160 °F / 71 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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68

I have to be in the mood for this one, but when I’m feeling the need for a nice healthy cup of green tea this one hits the spot. I like to keep the steep short so it gets just grassy enough without getting all astringent on me.

I have a little tin of proper matcha that I can rarely stand to drink (it’s just so much! so much green tea! aaah!), so it’s nice that this one is around to make me feel virtuous about drinking green tea without overwhelming my delicate palate/soul.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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65
drank Green Mango Peach by Tea Forte
69 tasting notes

I keep being not as vigilant as I should be and ending up with fruity minty teas when I was expecting just a fruity tea. Darn you, peppermint and/or spearmint! Exit my melanges!

As you can tell this is the latest case of that happening. I think this must be where my fellow reviewers have been getting the menthol-y medicinal taste from, it’s that random addition of peppermint getting all up in the tropical fruit’s business. It’s unfortunate, because the tea smells really good when you’re bringing it up for the sip, but the mint just sits on top of all the other flavors and makes for a weird experience when you’re expecting to taste mango…or peach…or green tea, you know, any of those seemingly random words that ended up in the title.

That said, I don’t hate this! It’s a plenty refreshing cup and enjoyable on its own merits. But I certainly can’t say it does what it says on the tin.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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64

Oof, watch out on the steep times for this one – I let it go a bit long thinking it could take it because it’s rooibos, but instead the apricot just steeped and steeped this into a sour, undrinkable cup. Whoops.

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93

This is my favorite of Fusion’s mates, and luckily so considering I had a good feeling and ordered up six ounces of it. I can rarely resist pistachio anything, and the idea of this tea just seemed so weird and exciting that I couldn’t resist!

Though I had hoped for a profusion of pistachio flavor, it’s unsurprisingly a bit buried in a sea of lime and green mate. Not necessarily a bad thing, but good to know. It’s not very tart (yay!), more like the lime flavor that remains in your mouth after the initial shock of tartness has worn away. The brew smells pretty strongly of pistachios, though, which is interesting because you get pistachio on the nose as you go to take the drink and then in comes the green mate when you taste it.

Overall a good melding of all the flavors, but more importantly it has that elusive quality that keeps me coming back, wanting another cup. It’s very unique, like nothing else in my cupboard, good for any time of day but especially nice if you want caffeine in the morning without getting knocked out by a roastier brew. Highly recommended!

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 8 min or more

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88
drank Cocoa Raspberry Mate by Fusion Teas
69 tasting notes

Yum! Fusion does marvelous things with mates, and this is one of their best. The roasted flavor of the mate is still pretty strong, but over it there’s a flavorful haze of raspberry and chocolate, leaving behind a sort of cake-y aftertaste that I’m really into, like you just finished a chocolate cupcake with raspberry frosting. A delightful way to start the day!

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 8 min or more
LiberTEAS

I had some of this yesterday, and it is really fantastic.

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78

I definitely get the gingersnap feel in this one – Fusion’s pretty good at capturing the essence of dessert-y items, the Chocolate Cake Honeybush, if not precisely the flavor. It’s best when it’s cooled down quite a bit, then the flavors really come together. I was iffy on this one at first but the more I sip it the more I like it.

Note that this is an incredibly sensitive tea for a rooibos – the instructions recommend 5-7 minutes but I find that five minutes is about the limit, otherwise the citrus fruits will overwhelm this into a sour cup of undrinkable horror. Watch that clock!

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec

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84
drank Good Morning Mate by Fusion Teas
69 tasting notes

Mmm, this is a good cup. That roasted mate flavor dominates, but it’s about the smoothest preparation I’ve had so far with this particular type of tea – not too sweet, not too woody, just an easy brew that wakes you up without getting in your face about it. The cinnamon and clove in the background lend this a savory dessert feel, like the spices in a spice cake, without really being sweet. A good replacement for coffee if you’re trying to kick the habit, a good yerba mate if you like it straightforward and tasty. I’m glad to have this in my cupboard.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 8 min or more

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78
drank Cantaloupe Bai Mu Dan by 52teas
69 tasting notes

I’ve been reviewing a bunch of yerba mates and rooibos teas (rooiboses?) lately, and this is the perfect tea to cleanse the palate after the relative heaviness of those. The cup brews up light and sweet, but not too sweet, just the right amount of fruit sugar over a base that’s clearly a good quality white. Not quite summer in a cup, but it definitely gets me looking forward to the season…and maybe having a tall glass of this iced.

Preparation
3 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

Rooibi? lol :) I love whites for palate cleansing. Had some after the tomato basil tea.

Sara

Rooibi, I love it haha! It just occurred to me that fruit is a natural palate cleanser after heavy meals or between courses…no wonder I went immediately to the cantaloupe! Whites are definitely great for this in general! Like a nice light fresh dessert. :)

Cofftea

True! I personally don’t care for fruit flavored teas for the most part. This is one is an exception though.

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27
drank Caramel Cream Mate by Fusion Teas
69 tasting notes

Yikes. This is the mate that got me interested in ordering from Fusion Tea Room, as it came up when I was trawling through the results of my “caramel” search here on Steepster. (Give me all the caramel teas, allllll of them.) I tend to keep at least a few mates around and have had good luck with flavored ones in the past. I’m sorry to say, though, that this one was a disappointment.

I also picked up Fusion’s caramel-based rooibos (the Toffee Ole) and perhaps it’s the quality of the caramel they’re using, or their infusion process needs work, because this definitely has a similar woody, overbearing sort of flavor. I thought it was the rooibos on the Toffee Ole that was doing it, but I taste it here too with the roasted mate base. I very very rarely sweeten teas, but this one makes me think I might have to buy some sugar (yeah, I don’t even own loose sugar) just to get through the rest of it. Or maybe add a bit of vanilla soy milk? This is bumming me out.

It does get a little more bearable as it cools down, some of the harshness goes away. Looks like I’m still on the hunt for the perfect caramel tea.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 7 min, 0 sec

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I like ‘em sweet, spicy, fancy, and sometimes French. I’ll choose intriguingly flavored over single estate every time.

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