Mighty Leaf Tea

#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #74 overall / Tea #41 for February

Wednesday 2/24 — So I’m on a good roll to finish February on track with sipdowns, so figured I’d get a few in this morning at home since I was working the 3-11 shift at work today. I’m not a earl grey fan or much of a black tea fan so I grabbed two different earl grey teabags and figured hey half water half milk make a latte and knock two out. So two earl grey lattes in one day. Sheesh.

This was more subtle smelling not sure if flavoring wasn’t as strong as the steeped tea one or an older teabag? Oh! I did post a pretty picture of latte in my matching DT mug & handmade coaster from @teathoughts :

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLrtQWAglUK/

#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown #sipdownchallenge

A random tea bag in my stash, I might have snagged it when I was on a trip at the beginning of the year. I enjoyed this tea and would pick it up again if they changed their packaging to eliminate plastics. I found it to be light, slightly nutty, and smooth.

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Thank you Evol Ving Ness for sharing! With this being done, I’ve now finished off all the teas from our swap back in November 2017. Yay for finally getting to the samples!

This tea was better iced I think but it is better than I thought it would be hot. It’s similar to the iced tea in that you get the black base but also floral notes from the lychee. It’s floral like the fruit which is less offensive than the perfume quality most floral teas have. It’s a bit astringent and it’s not overly flavourful. It’s nice but a tea I am alright to not revisit.

Thank you for sharing this one, Evol Ving Ness! I had it iced today with our steak dinner and was worried since a lot of people said this was very floral, like potpourri. However, this sample is almost 3 years old in my stash, plus however love Evol had it before that and maybe age helped it mellow out. It’s floral but floral the same way lychee is, not overly floral. And the black base tea is a little sharp which dials back the floral nicely. It went surprisingly well with the meal because it provided a sweet counter to the savoury food.

I brewed it for 2 mins and 45 seconds in 200F water.

Yes, I know this says it’s iced tea. But as my body has shifted to standard time already (I’ll save the DST rant, as I’m sure you can find several in the archives), I needed a boot-in-the-backside wake-up this morning and decided to start with a strong and tannic tumbler of this tea from derk. A little milk to tone down the sharpness and I’m catching some of the subtler cherry wood undertones mentioned in other reviews. Eyes are open, albeit reluctantly. Mission accomplished.

This was a freebie in my freebie bag from the 2018 San Francisco International Tea Festival. And it has coconut in it. My bad.

It’s a bagged tea, in a rather nice sewn cloth sachet, and I couldn’t really make out from the aroma of the dry leaf if the coconut had turned, and being incased in the sachet, I couldn’t sample a bit of coconut, either. So I heated the water and prepared to brew the cup as normal. As soon as the hot water hit the leaf, the very distinct aroma of rancid coconut hit my nostrils. Welp. My GI has been hell lately, so I’m not about to take a chance with that. Down the drain it goes.

No rating on account of turned coconut. Though Todd drank his sample only a few months after the tea festival, and I see from his review he described it as “sour.” That almost makes me wonder if these already had turned coconut in them before they made it into the freebie bags for the festival…

Temperatures in the one-teens are unacceptable. Especially for 3 days in a row. This isn’t Arizona.

Our tomatoes are cooked on the vine. Watermelons have exploded. The 19-year-old cat thermometer reads loooong and miserable.

I want to sleep all day.

I want an entire bottle of cold white wine to myself.

I want a strong, unsweetened iced tea.

Only one can win. You all know the answer.

Thanks, Gary, for the cool-off.

Sipdown (1075)!

Finishing this one off now – thank you VariaTEA (and also Evol Ving Ness) for sharing with me! It’s pretty nice; I tend to like pistachio teas and this one is a really nice sweet pistachio with an almost amaretto/almond kind of undertone to it as well. Full bodied, enveloping in the mouth and weirdly just a hint spicy!?

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I think this is one of the last remaining samples shared with me by Evol Ving Ness.

This sample is like 3 years old. Plus I didn’t steep this as long as intended. As such it could be human error that is making this basically just a slightly nutty mediocre black tea. Still fun to try though so thank you, Evol Ving Ness!

I bought a lot of this tea but it is one that I have had to experiment with a lot to be able to drink this. It gets bitter rather quickly and it is not one you can drink without milk. This is one that is unforgiving to my lazy forgetful tea drinking.
I had this hot brewed with rice milk. It was actually surprisingly delightful today for the first time. I could really taste the vanilla. I do not usually drink my tea with sweeteners but the rice milk does have some natural sweetness to it which might have been the reason that it was palatable today. I did add about 3/4 cup of rice milk to 8 oz of tea. It is a lot more what I would normally drink.

not bad but
weak thin bland
dusty honey rooibos
artificial tropical-peachy flavor
faint short-lived caramel aftertaste does not redeem
i feel bad for sending this out in swaps unless you like it then i’m happy.

It is naturally sweet and has smooth creamy taste to it. It is in my top 5.

I had higher expectations about this tea based on the quality of packaging (a pretty neat sachet ) and the tea leaves in it, which were relatively large and unbroken. The tea tastes pretty generic for a bagged Ceylon, i.e. does not have any memorable taste at all. The bergamot component does not come off as particularly fresh or interesting.

I expected it being a step above similar products from Stash and Bigelow and it wasn’t the case. In short, there is nothing that differentiates this Earl Grey from others and makes me want to come back. It’s drinkable and it is definitely an Earl Grey but that’s that.

Kitchen cleanout, fresh but low quantity remaining so it’s gotta go.

Smells nice and toasty-nutty-seaweed. That all fades into something lighter and salty-mineral when I take a sip. I’m noticing that while there isn’t really an aftertaste, the aromatics do continue to kind of build in my mouth and some caramel becomes noticeable in that ether. I have my favorite loose hojicha but this isn’t too bad for bagged tea. It was a nice lead-in to this toasted croissant with the rose petal preserves we picked up from the new Mediterranean store in town.

Housemate, who I made a cup for, says “Oh glob, that’s good tea.” slurrrrrp

I am the first one to rate? :O

The sachet is quite big and clear.. So, what we have there? Small green pieces, probably a leaf. Few bigger ones – brown colour. Well it is hojicha after all. I have found about 6-7 pieces of stems! That is quite a lot. Let´s brew it!

After 3 minutes brew I got a nice, clear liquor with brown colour. In aroma it was nutty. Pleasant aroma, bit unexected from green tea though :) But that is hojicha.

While drinking, I expected also nutty flavour. But it was not. It was more roasted flavour, with little astringency. But lovely. Yeah, I bet there are better Hojicha teas, but this one was not in my opinion so bad.

Prepared in the morning as day boost. I wonder how it is going to work. Anyway…

Dry leaf aromas were quite floral, not bad at all, maybe bit pine.
80°C water in, then a tea bag in. Right away the water became greener and after 3 minute steep (?, I dunno) I took it out. While warm it was nice, drinkable, green tea. Colour is neon-green and cloudy (matcha did it),. Aromas were pleasant, quite buttery and vegetal, maybe bit of grass. Some umami too.

Now I have it cold and, it is really buttery with little bitter aftertaste. I have to say I don´t like it when cold. It is somehow unpleasant.

So, in conclusion – when warm it is good, maybe very good. But when cold, nah, not my favourite. Mea culpa I let it cold.

Derk, you described it very well and thank you for it.

I thought I need another cup today. But it is already 9 pm, so something caffeine-free will be a winner. Another chamomile? Okay, who another will drink it than I. Oh it is with citrus. That could work. Hmm, in sachet – there is lots of yellow chamomile buds, something wihich looks like lemongrass and few pieces of zest of some citrus. Probably grapefruit or something as it is slightly red.

I just kept the sachet in while drinking. Colour is quite light, with yellow notes. That can be caused by my lamp though. But even through white led from mobile it is same. So I can´t blame lamp.

Aroma is quite sweet, citrusy (no, really?), maybe bit medicinal. But that is the camomile, huh?

Taste? It works quite well together. Chamomile is quite weak and it is really fresh. Bit like some kind of lemonade – I can imagine it iced. Whoa, it really tastes good.

Dry aroma was surprisingly rather fruity and mostly pear. It reminded me a bit of Hong Shui oolong.
While steeped, aroma changed to quite woody and bit of honey I guess. It has changed the colour of water quite quickly too and it looks like dark copper, maybe with red notes. Quite nice one I have to say.

Taste, is unfortunately bit bland. Yeah, it is still rooibos as I remember (who knows when I had last). So it is woody with little vanilla notes. Apparently I expected something more from this one. I think because of big sachet. Drinkable, but far from something phenomenal. Just very good I think. The flowers do not change anything I assume. Only that bag is not so empty.

First impression was the beautiful peachy rosé color in my glass imparted by a small amount of rosehips? and hibiscus. I noticed the lemongrass first followed by lemon myrtle’s more powerful flavor. Seems like a well blended herbal tea underneath all that lemony flavor. I didn’t notice that strange taste I often get when chamomile is mixed with hibiscus so that’s good. Hint of mint. Only gripe about this tea is I got the odd whiff of perfume. Otherwise, it’s a dandy drink.

2 steeps.

This was with my samples at the SF Tea Festival.

It gives off a strong coconut smell while brewing. Oops, I steeped it five minutes instead of four.

Hmm, there is a strong coconut flavor, but it’s kind of sour somehow. It has a nutty note too. That sourness is throwing me off. It’s otherwise pretty good.

Kitchen clean-out teabag. No idea of age but it is the old style of Mighty Leaf packaging.

Not much aroma to the leaf — smells light green, leafy and strangely what I interpret as cherry blossom that can be found in some sencha. Brews up apple juice in color with aroma of nutty hay with some kind of bright note. First thing I notice on the sip is how mineral-salty it is, followed by hay-butter-nut. Mouth-watering comes next then a short butter-chestnut aftertaste. Astringency develops as I sip. Not worth resteeping. Meh.