Mango Fruit Tea

Backlogging and based on memory

Experience buying from Harney & Sons http://steepster.com/places/2779-harney-and-sons-on-line-millerton-new-york

I bought this in the hopes of using it to flavor the later steepings on our mid-to-lower quality green teas. It didn’t seem to blend well with one green tea I tried it with, and it’s not that great on its own, either. It looks colorful, but it smells artificial, not really like mango at all, and it has an ‘off’ taste to it. It’s surprising, as I have found all of H&S’s ‘real’ Teas to be of a good quality. I might try one of Teavivre’s fruit blends instead, as theirs are very inexpensive (~$5.50 / 100g). I have found London Tea Room’s Mango ’n Friends to be MUCH better.

I think this was my first fruit tea, so I’ll leave off the rating.

Steep Information:
Amount: entire sample, approximately 4 tsp
Additives: none
Water: 22 oz filtered, boiling
Tool: Cast Iron Teapot with Mesh basket strainer
Steep Time: a little over 5 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: sweet fruit
MilitiaJim: hint of bitter
Steeped Tea Smell: fruity
Flavor: hibiscus, citrus
Body: Full
Aftertaste: tart, citrus
Liquor: translucent deep red / maroon

The name includes the word mango, I do not taste mango. We are having a bad time with mango tea apparently.

Tastes like hibiscus citrus tea.

Post-Steep Additives: none

images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/04/harney-and-sons-loose-leaf-herbal-tea.html

I had this iced today. It was GREAT! For me this is a caffeine-free favorite!

did not like. not one bit. made me sad. tasted super fake. Harney & Sons teas are among my favorites, not dissing the brand, just this particular tea. ew.

So much fun to break out the new herbals/fruit blends one by one!

Even though I’d never tried this one, I bought a big honking bag of it. I was feeling lucky and brave, and I also haven’t ever really had a fruit blend I couldn’t at least tolerate, so I figured it was worth a shot. Plus, if it was really good, I figured the BF would want some too being a mango fan. And what with the general need to seriously “overleaf” with these types of blends, I just went with it.

There’s a great mango/general fruit smell coming out of the big chunky dry mix that makes me want to eat it.

The mango is a bit overpowered by the other ingredients in the steeped blend’s aroma, particularly the hibiscus. It’s not that the mango isn’t there, it’s just that it isn’t as strong as I’d hoped. But sometimes with blends like this, the flavor varies from cup to cup depending upon what big hunks end up in your cup on a given day. So it may be different another time.

The flavor mimics the aroma in that the mango is there, but it could be stronger. The ingredients say there’s only mango flavor. I’m wondering why there’s no dried mango?

Anyway, it’s fine — and while it doesn’t live up to its name quite as well as the berry of yesterday, I’ll have no trouble polishing off this humongous bag.