Drink the Leaf | Organic Hong Tao Mao Feng

I started sampling tea from Drink the Leaf this week, and I have to say I started out with a winner.  This organic black tea has a wiry and long shape to its dried tea leaf.  There is a natural sweetness to the dried product that makes it very enticing.  I steeped the tea according to the recommended directions of 1.5 tsp/200°F/3 min.  The tea retains its sweet scent that rises from the steam after it is steeped.  The flavor had a rustic component to it that made it enjoyable for me.  It had a very warming nature to it.  You get a slight earthiness mixed with a natural sweetness in every drink.  At times, I could detect a nutty flavor when the tea was at its hottest temperature.  As the tea cools, the rustic flavors mellow and the sweet notes shine through with just a delightful and lasting classic black tea flavor.  I really enjoyed this tea.  It has a good mix of character, but it really is a relaxing black tea.  The flavors are mellow enough to calm yet pronounced enough to keep it interesting  The combination of the nose and flavor makes for a very pleasant tea drinking experience.

Drink the Leaf describes the tea as: “Keemun grown in the Anhui Province, near a high mountain lake. The dry leaf is black and golden. The color of this tea is one of my favorites in our selection- like a “red peach” but with a darker amber hue. The aroma is great, but the flavor is the key to this tea. Medium to full, with caramel and honey notes,and a long finish. Enjoy this tea- a new discovery for us.”

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I’ll still be drinking and blogging about iced tea over the fall and winter months, but I have to admit I look forward to hot tea once the weather starts to cool.  It’s time to get the gongfu tea tray out and round-up all of my Yixing clay pots and start enjoying some tea.

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Tazo | Chai Latte

For those of you new to tea (chai), Chai is an excellent introduction to the tea world.  Although the word “chai” translates to the word “tea”, most of us refer to Chai as a specific blend of herbs and spices with tea (originating from India’s famous Masala Chai).  It’s often spicy, sweet, and creamy.  Most Chai suppliers have a flavor that will appeal to you.  Concentrates make it easy and convenient to prepare the beverage and enjoy the experience of chai.  I’ve been drinking chai for years, but I still enjoy a good concentrate for its convenience factor.  My family and friends really like chai prepared this way.  Tazo’s Chai Tea Latte surprisingly has an authentic chai flavor.  I only say “surprisingly” because most ready-to-drink chais tend to lean toward the overly sweet side.  Tazo wasn’t afraid to add some spice to the mix.  It had a nice balance of spice and sweetness.  With each drink, there was a slight tingle on my tongue that was mellowed by the sweetness and cream that quickly followed.  The chai concentrate is very simple to prepare.  I go with about 55% concentrate and about 45% milk (you can use your favorite milk substitute).  I pour the concentrate into a microwave safe cup for about one minute.  Then I add milk.  At that point, I put it back in the microwave for another 30 seconds (shake carton before pouring and stir the chai as you add milk).  There’s no exact science to it, just heat the chai to your liking.  The more concentrate you add, the spicier the chai.

Ingredients: Black Tea, Black Pepper, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Ginger, Cloves, Natural Flavors and Star Anise, Cane Sugar, Honey, Ginger, Natural Flavors, Vanilla and Citric Acid.

The box label states about 70 calories per 4 fl oz (to make an 8 fl oz drink).  I highly recommend this product if you are in the market for a convenient way to make an extremely flavorful cup of chai.  Again, you have to enjoy the spices listed above.  They are well-balanced in this mix and shouldn’t be too much for you.  Keep in mind you can always mellow the beverage by adding less concentrate and more milk (or milk substitute).

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Fuze | Black/Green Acai

Black tea and green tea mixed in the same bottle – I like the concept.  I wasn’t sure how it was going to taste, but I assumed Fuze would make it tasty based on my past experiences with Fuze products.  Keep in mind, this is also Acai flavored…

It literally took me three drinks to figure out what I was tasting.  One thing I can say for sure about this beverage, you’re not going to be bored drinking it.  The first drink is just a super sweet berry blast (grape-like).  I’m talking big-time sweetness in every drink of this beverage.  I was really stretching to taste any tea in this mix.  The big tea flavor just wasn’t present.  I’m getting a light black tea flavor, but I can’t find the green tea.  The sweet berry flavor (Acai Apple flavor) just totally dominates this beverage.  You have to be in the mood for a sweet drink when you grab this bottle. There are more than 30g of sugar in each bottle (Crystalline Fructose).  The bottle label  boasts 133mg of Polyphenols, 225mcg Folic Acid, 138mg Vitamin C, 17 IU Vitamin E, 37mg Vitamin B Complex (for the label readers).  For me, this is a fun ready-to-drink beverage.  It has an enjoyable smooth berry flavor with soothing sweet notes, but the tea flavor was really missed by this consumer.

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Salada | Soothing Mint

If you are a long-time tea drinker, you’ve probably seen Salada Tea on your local grocery store shelf.  Today I’m drinking one of Salada’s new green teas called Soothing Mint.  The ingredients: Green Tea, Spearmint, Natural Spearmint Flavor, Peppermint, and Lemongrass. Combined, the ingredients create a very flavorful cup of tea.  Obviously you need to enjoy mint flavored beverages to appreciate this product.  Soothing Mint easily exceeded my expectations.

The minty flavors mixed with lemongrass create a very smooth and refreshing flavor.  I would like to taste more of the green tea, but I don’t think it’s necessary to make this a popular hot or iced tea option.  The fact is it has an appealing flavor.  Salada’s tea is very finely cut in a standard tea bag.  There’s nothing over-the-top about their products.  Salada aims to please based on a consistent, flavorful, and affordable product.

In the end, I found the tea to be delicious when it was iced.  Moroccan-style mint tea is one of my favorite iced teas.  With Salada’s Soothing Mint I can create an iced tea that has many of the same properties I enjoy about Moroccan-style mint tea.  As a hot tea, I would have liked more green tea flavors to be present.

Enjoy Salada Tea

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As I blog about ready-to-drink teas, I’m always looking for the authentic flavor of the tea.  If the bottle label says it’s black tea, white tea, green tea, or oolong – I should taste it with every drink.  Having said that, I’ve drank a lot of RTDs that taste like juice.  Typically the particular fruit that compliments the tea just dominates the bottle.  Maybe it’s just me, but when I drink tea (even from a bottle), I want to taste the tea.

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red espresso® (Rooibos)

This is an exciting product for Rooibos fans or anyone looking for a naturally caffeine free product packed with antioxidants and great flavor.  Rooibos has a silky sweet flavor that is an excellent substitute for both coffee and tea.  I’ve been drinking it for years, and it’s easily my favorite tea alternative.  It’s not easy for me to deviate from tea, but when I need to cut down on caffeine, Rooibos is a great choice.

Red Espresso® opens the doors for Rooibos into the coffee shops and homes of anyone with a coffee or espresso maker.  The great thing about this product is its versatility.  You can make many hot and cold beverages with this product (click here for recipes and more info). I was fortunate to try a few hot versions of red espresso® at the World Tea Expo a couple of years ago, and it was really good.  If you are a Rooibos drinker, just note that this is not the same Rooibos you would normally find at a tea shop.  The Rooibos of red espresso® is ground; which creates a powder-like form of Rooibos as well as a finely ground Rooibos.  You can still identify the Rooibos (it’s not like it’s completely ground to dust).

from red espresso®: “Rooibos tea espresso is made from 100% premium Rooibos tea refined under a patented process to an espresso grind similar to coffee – is a unique innovation that fuses two fast-growing global trends: café culture and good health, and is being embraced by tea and coffee lovers alike. It offers a sophisticated, delicious way to drink tea and a naturally caffeine-free alternative to coffee by allowing people to enjoy a rich-flavoured cappuccino or latte – with health benefits. Naturally caffeine-free, a shot of red espresso® has five times more antioxidants than a cup of green tea (per ORAC measurements) and ten times more than regular Rooibos tea and is known to be a potent immune system booster. Easy to prepare at home or in a café, red espresso® is best prepared using an espresso machine and stovetop espresso maker but can also be prepared using a French Press and coffee maker. Versatile, red espresso® is the basis for a range of delicious red drinks – including the popular red cappuccino®, red latte® and fresh red™ (a freshly prepared, natural iced tea).”

This product has a ton of potential.  It’s time for me to start perfecting some of the recipes listed on red espresso®’s website.

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Tavalon | Jasmine Dream

Many years ago, I tried my first green tea that was jasmine flavored, and I quickly realized what a powerful complement jasmine was to green tea.  To me, jasmine has a balance (sweet and flavorful without being too fragrant) to it that makes it appealing to those of us that don’t always enjoy floral flavored beverages.  Some floral and fruit flavors can simply dominate the flavors of the tea rather than complement the tea.  Having said that, this is totally my opinion and many people still think jasmine is too flowery for a cup of tea – as always, the consumer is the final judge.  If you don’t like jasmine, don’t buy jasmine infused teas.

Tavalon’s Jasmine Dream unfortunately didn’t have the balance I was expecting.  Since it was called “Jasmine Dream,” I was anticipating more jasmine flavor.  However, the lack of jasmine power was not my main problem with this tea.  The green tea used in Jasmine Dream, for my taste preferences, was too smokey.  A rough, smokey, and slightly bitter flavored green tea mixed with jasmine just didn’t appeal to me.  I made several cups of this tea trying to get the most out of it.  It’s very important that the tea be steeped in water that is 180°F for about three minutes.  In the end, I needed more jasmine in the mix.  I enjoy smokey flavored green teas, but it didn’t fit with this mix.

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