Fruity teas
A while ago I got interested in fruit teas again, and bought a few. You might remember I made a post about which ones I had chosen and why. This is what I thought of them.
Strawberry/cream Somewhat disappointing. It tastes very creamy and not very strawberry-ish. I can see that there are chunks of dried strawberry in it, and if that's the only strawberry flavour it has, then I can't really expect something very fruity, can I? I thought it would be a rather sweet tea, but it's mostly just creamy and it reminds me of why it's best to use milk in tea, never cream. I would certainly never add milk to this one, I expect it would turn undrinkable and fat in flavour. I liked it better the second time I tried it. I guess it's because I knew what to expect then.
Chocoloco The chocolate taste is, as the woman in the shop told me, mostly in the after flavour, but not as prominent as I had expected. I should have guessed that since you can see on the little lumps of chocolate in it that it's one of the darker sorts of chocolate. Lots of cocoa in it. As it is, it's a very nice tea, but it's also an inspiring one. I want to try it with milk and see if it turns chocolate milkish, and I want to try it blended with a some of the strawberry/cream tea and I'm even contemplating adding a bit of chili to it I've already tried it with a bit of peppermint and that was just excellent!
Earl Grey w/ cornflowers This is very nice. I've always found Earl Grey to be somewhat dull, mostly because to many people it's the standard tea, and also because I get a low quality Earl Grey at work, where it's just guzzled more than drunk. I'm getting more of this one.
Isabella blend (w/ jasmine, rose petals and notes of vanilla and raspberry) This has those little pink hearts in it that I can't for the life of me figure out what are made of. I'm assuming some sort of sugary aroma-stuff. (Seriously, does anybody know?) I liked this blend a lot. It's sweet and light and definitely one I might buy again.
Quince It has orange peels in it and because of that it's very citrusy in flavour. I wasn't expecting a citrus tea, and I can't taste anything but citrus tea. I'm so disappointed. It's a very good tea, it's not that. It's just not what I thought I was buying. I do like a good quince tea, but I won't be buying this particular one again. I suspect it'll be good iced, though.
Green tea w/ walnut This was actually a sample given to me by my colleague. It's very sweet, and very good. My colleague was a bit disappointed by it though, because a lot of the sweetness comes form almond oil. I would definitely buy a green tea with walnut again, but like with the quince tea, I'll probably look for it from a different vendor first.
The problem with my local teashop is that they're very fond of complicated blends, as is particularly evidenced by the two last once. They never seem to make a simple one with just tea and the primary added flavour. There is always other things added as well, and that ruins it a bit for me. The worst bit is that I knew this when I bought all these, I was just kind of hoping it didn't matter... And I was too cheap to pay for shipping when I didn't have to. I'll hang on to those that I enjoyed, but I'll look elsewhere another time for the others.
But it's always like that, isn't it? Hard to find a brand of anything at all where every product in they've got is your favorite.