maldororsteagarden Send Message

In less than three months, this has become my all time favourite tea.

Two teaspoons in 400mls of boiling water, brewed for four minutes. Previously, I have consumed with lemon and also with milk on one occasion. Lemon is fine but tends to dominate the initial taste and this tea has virtually no bitterness that lemon becomes somewhat redundant. Despite the Tea Centre’s recommendation, I wouldn’t drink this with milk again as it made a very weak cup of tea with a grey, ‘washed out’ colour.

The loose leaf tea is long, wiry strands about 2cm in length which can make it a bit difficult to measure out. The aroma is intoxicating but I just can’t seem to put my finger on what it reminds me of. The colour is a good, strong amber. On the first mouthful, the astringency is immediately apparent but again there is no or little bitterness. After a few moments, there is a definite spiciness – vaguely like a combination of clove and pepper – to the tea with a faint hint of sweetness. On subsequent mouthfuls, the tea becomes more mellow and develops a real depth of flavour.

I used to regularly drink Twinings Ceylon tea when I was in the UK and enjoyed the light, refreshing taste and it was a nice contrast to their Orange Pekoe tea. This was how I came to sample this tea. Possibly because of the spiciness and the astringency, it lacks the ‘refreshing’ taste of the Twinings Ceylon and other Ceylon teas I have tried, which is perhaps the only negative point I could make. Although I am used to this tea now, it is very astringent and I initially found the drying feeling on my tongue to be a bit excessive at first.

I often consumed the Twinings blend with food, especially South Indian dishes but I can’t really imagine that this tea would pair well with food. Probably best as an afternoon tea with a few plain, digestives or just enjoyed on its own.

The Green Earl Grey is my favourite Fortnum & Mason tea, but their Christmas Tea is perhaps the worst tea I have ever tried . . . ever!

The tea base itself is fine, but the ingredients are listed as “mulled wine flavouring”. Now, this could mean spices to flavour wine to make mulled wine, but I suspect there is actually some sort of “wine” flavouring because there is a revolting vinegar-like taste somewhere in the mix. This is so repellent and unpalatable that I felt ill after drinking it and I couldn’t get the wine flavour out of my mouth. I ended up getting rid of all 200gms of the tea.

On the plus side, the special edition tin is beautiful – I love the contours of the tin and the old world lettering and gold print. When I was a kid, we used to receive tins of biscuits, tea, chocolates, etc. from Harrods and Fortnum & Mason and holding this tin brings the memories flooding back. We had kept the tins but they were all thrown out when I had lived overseas for 10 years, so the only reason I bought this tea was to own a good, quality Christmas tea tin that would last for decades. Initially, I had hoped to find a unique blend of tea for the season in time for Christmas but now it will have to wait until Christmas 2013.

It is definitely an unusual tea, so it is worth trying if only for that reason. Perhaps someone will like the tea and can post a review to counterpoint mine.

I was always disappointed with the handful of Fortnum & Mason teas I had tried in the past, but I really enjoy this tea. It was actually given to me as a birthday present by my parents who were unaware that it was a green tea. The scent of the bergamot is strong, but not overwhelming and the taste is sharp and slightly bitter as nature intended rather than the dull, flat taste in Twinings Earl Grey.

The individual leaves are long and beautifully green, and it brews a nice clear and emerald liquor. Personally, I enjoy the bitterness of the bergamot but two people who tried a mouthful of the tea found it completely unpalatable. In fairness, neither of them like Earl Grey tea particularly and I imagine anyone who is familiar with Twinings tea or similar would take a while to get a taste for this tea (myself included).

The only downside is the packaging. F&M use to make really nice printed tins but now they just used printed stickers with different coloured tins for different types of tea (black, fruit, green, etc.). Nevertheless, it’s a good solid tin that will stand up to a fair bit of rough treatment. I am reviewing the tea only and haven’t deducted any points because of packaging.

In brief, the best F&M tea I have tried.

In theory, black tea and vanilla should marry and compliment each other beautifully, provided that neither overwhelms the other. Some time ago, I bought a tin of Harney and Sons decaffeinated Vanilla Comorro and was enjoying a mug of this each night before bed. I started looking around for another vanilla tea due to the lack of retailers in Sydney that sell H&S tea – none of which sell the loose leaf refills – and I have always found decaffeinated teas to lack a real depth of flavour. First stop was Mlesna, if only for the little wooden box that it comes in.

Does natural vanilla actually have a scent? I can only detect the merest hint of a ‘vanilla’ smell but then the tea base is very strong. One whiff of the tea, I can immediately determine the tea base to be Ceylon tea from the Uva region. This is confirmed after steeping two teaspoons in about 400mls for four minutes (although I’m going to end up with egg on my face if I’m wrong).

With a splash of soy milk, this brews an enjoyable pale liquor with a nice spicy aftertaste and aroma. It takes several mouthfuls to really grasp the vanilla taste. The spiciness comes from both the vanilla and the tea itself. The flavouring doesn’t have an artificial or surface taste to it, and there is a real depth of flavour, so I’m guessing that the flavouring is wholly or predominantly natural and doesn’t overwhelm the taste of the tea.

Now the bad news. The remaining cups of tea from the teapot are consumed black. Unfortunately, the tea base is very poor quality and bitter and the vanilla taste and aroma are completely lost in the brew. My favourite cup at the moment is a Ceylon Pettiagalla so the issue is solely to do with the quality of the tea base. To enjoy black, it needs a more subtle and better quality tea base and a slightly stronger vanilla flavouring.

Still enjoyable with milk, but the search continues for the perfect vanilla tea.

I’m new to Steepster and writing reviews but I’ve lurked for a while (usually when deciding whether or not to purchase yet another box of some obscure tea for my collection) but thought it was a good time to start and this tea is as good as any for my first review.

I purchased this about a month ago and really enjoyed my first few cups. Soursop is one of those things that has lurked on the periphery of my consciousness for several years without ever trying it. I tended to confuse breadfruit, durian, jack fruit and soursop but I was vaguely aware of a similarity of taste and appearance. Soursop doesn’t have the repugnant aroma that durian does, but there is an immediate sweet – arguably, a sickly sweet – scent and this is present in the tea.

This was steeped with water off the boil, two teaspoons of loose leaf tea in approximately 400 mls of water for just over four minutes and then left for a few minutes to cool and for the flavours to develop. I haven’t yet experimented with different times and ratios, rather I used my default method of brewing tea. The tea is a light amber, and the tea base is medium strength, slightly bitter but with very little astringency. The immediate taste is the black tea with the strong sweetness of the soursop becoming evident after a few moments. It is similar in taste to Juicy Fruit (jackfruit is the alleged “secret ingredient” in the gum) but unlike JF the tea doesn’t loose it’s flavour after 30 seconds . . . There is a slight citrus ‘tang’ to each mouthful as well.

In all honesty, I really only bought this for the dinky little wooden boxes that the Mlesna teas come in, and also for the novelty of soursop but really liked this tea. I don’t think I would enjoy it with milk and it definitely doesn’t need sugar. It will make a nice iced tea as well so I will have to experiment with that at some point this summer. It is very similar to the Mlesna Blue Lady blend and I’ll post a review when I brew it next. I understand that Mlesna go by the name of Metropolitan Tea Company in the US and Canada but I haven’t seen Soursop tea of any brand outside of Australia and South East Asia.

Overall, I would give it a high score with a few points taken off for the slightly bitter tea base. This is not an every day tea – in the last month I’ve had it on about a four or five occasions – and I can’t imagine it would be a special occasion tea as the tea base is slightly bitter and the flavouring is not exactly “refined” but it’s a nice addition to a well stocked tea cabinet when you want something a little different especially if you have a somewhat jaded palate. I wouldn’t serve it with food as again the flavouring is too strong, except for maybe junk food, etc.

So, that’s my first review. How did I do? ;)