One of the marks of a good tea is having a great aroma...an aroma that invites you to taste it. This week's tea of the week from 52Teas is one of those teas.
I have mentioned before that I often find green teas "grassy" in flavor. This is not one of those teas. The green tea in this blend serves as a background for the beautiful blend of apple, mint and cardamom to come alive. The cardamom is subtle, which is nice, because too much cardamom ends up smelling like a curry house. The predominant flavors are the apple and the mint, and they blend wonderfully. It actually gives me ideas for creating tea blends with some of my peppermint teas.
I've also previously mentioned that I like strongly flavored teas, and this, like most green teas, is pretty subtle in flavor, due to the short steeping time. However, this is a great tea for times when I want a lighter flavor. I'm very impressed with this one.
Rating:
3/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Apple Mint Cardamom
Price: $12.00/2 oz
Here is this week's featured tea from 52Teas. It's a black tea and honeybush blend. I had high hopes for this one, and it fell a little flat. The description of this tea made it sound like it was a smokier evolution from a chai, however, this didn't taste like a chai to me at all. Nor did it taste like tea. It tasted like I steeped my spice cabinet. It tasted heavily of cloves and cumin, and I am taking serious consideration to taking the rest of the sample and using it as a meat rub.
I know a lot of people that like their teas really savory, so if you're one of those people, give this one a try. And if you don't like it, it will probably go great on the barbecue!
Rating:
2/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Smoky Spice
Price: $12.00/2 oz
This is the first of my reviews of 52Teas' teas of the week. This is a great little tea site that has all kinds of interesting tea blends and also features a tea of the week. They offer a subscription plan in which you can get the four teas of the week for the month at the beginning of the month. Since I'm all about trying and rating teas, I subscribed!
This week's tea is a honeybush tea. I don't know a whole lot about honeybush except that it is similar to rooibos and native to South Africa. Like rooibos, it's naturally caffeine free, and has a bit of a sweet flavor to it. Some would say that honeybush is a little sweeter than rooibos.
I was excited to try this tea, because I like pears a lot, but I'm not the biggest fan of maple. I was hoping that the pear flavor would be the predominant flavor. Unfortunately, I was wrong. As I opened the package, I only got a slight sniff of pear, but it was sickly sweet with the maple aroma. As I brewed it, the maple scent only got stronger. When I drank it, it tasted like I had just heated water and stirred maple syrup into it.
If you like maple, you will probably love this. I just didn't like it at all, though.
Rating:
1/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Maple Baked Pears Honeybush
Price: $4.00/.5 oz taster
