Tea Forte

I really need to order a lot more from Tea Forte. I adore everything I have ever tried from them, and this is no different. They have such a way with flavor combinations. This is minty and citrusy at the same time- two tastes that I’d have been a bit wary of pairing, but am loving nonetheless. Both are very well balanced- the mint hitting first, and the citrus hanging on a bit longer. This would be so nice as an iced tea. p.s. thank you to OttawaTea for letting me try this one!

I love this herbal tea, the initial perfume coming out of the holed lid of Solstice teapot by Tea Forté ALWAYS reminds me of Crème brûlée / Crema Catalana so I am already in the right mood before starting sipping it. Then this strong vanilla perfume diminishes and even the taste reveals the other ingredients. I like to have my teas plain as much as possible, but I love to add some milk or a little bit of sugar to this one.
No need to remove the leaves from the pot, the infusion doesn’t get bitter.

I have used the pyramid infuser and only steeped it for a little less than 2 minutes, I think it was enough as the color is not pale and the taste is not weak, but I need to concentrate on my sip completely if I want to find out the ingredients mentioned on the packaging, a part from citrus.

Oof! This is the most intensely ginger-scented tea I’ve ever experienced, that dry leaf is a knockout. Luckily for those of us who aren’t all in it for the big G, this tea tastes much milder than it smells. The dominant taste is still ginger (especially as it cools), but the peach provides a hint of sweetness and the white tea base adds a pleasant taste as well. I’m not sure what prompted me to buy this, but I’m glad I did!

It’s not the most nuanced Darjeeling on the market, nor is it the most sophisticated (I mean, it literally comes in a “tea fort”). But this Darjeeling is probably the strongest on the grapy note I’ve ever come across. It’s also light on the astringency, which gives it even more added points. Some of the floral profile give it a Ceylon feel. I liked it quite a bit.

Full Review: Pending on www.itsallabouttheleaf.com

I had tried this tea a long while ago and wished to refresh my mind because recently, when drinking green teas, I have mostly chosen China Gunpowder. I steeped it (pyramid infuser) for less than 3 minutes as I don’t like over steeped green teas at all, and I guess it is enough as the color is nice, it is very tasty as well. There is a very slight hint of mango (its scent is stronger than its taste), the green tea’s flavor still prevails, which is what I expected otherwise it would have been more of a fruit infusion than a tea. It seems to have different layers of taste because when I sip it it is a little bit bitter, the after taste is not bitter at all and it is at the end that the fruity taste comes out more.

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 packet
Water: 12 ounces hot spigot water
Tool: kati loose tea system
Steep Time: a little over 5 minutes (http://steep.it)
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: alcohol, cherry, hibiscus
Steeped Tea Smell: hibiscus, cherry
Flavor: sweet fruit then tart
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: tart
Liquor: translucent dark purple-pink

It smells alcoholic! I found it a bit tart and would add sugar next time, but it was a fun cup of tea (not often you can drink at work!).

Rating: 2/4 leaves

Pictures: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2011/04/tea-forte-loose-leaf-herbal-tisane.html

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 single steeps packet
Water: 12 ounces hot spigot water
Tool: kati loose tea system
Steep Time: a little over 5 minutes (http://steep.it/)
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: nutty, apricot
Steeped Tea Smell: amaretto, fruity, rooibos
Flavor: rooibos, fruity
Body: full
Aftertaste: sweet
Liquor: translucent orange-brown

I love amaretto, so this tea is right up my alley! A sweet afternoon treat.

Rating: 3/4 leaves

Pictures: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2011/04/tea-forte-loose-leaf-rooibos-tisane.html

I keep being not as vigilant as I should be and ending up with fruity minty teas when I was expecting just a fruity tea. Darn you, peppermint and/or spearmint! Exit my melanges!

As you can tell this is the latest case of that happening. I think this must be where my fellow reviewers have been getting the menthol-y medicinal taste from, it’s that random addition of peppermint getting all up in the tropical fruit’s business. It’s unfortunate, because the tea smells really good when you’re bringing it up for the sip, but the mint just sits on top of all the other flavors and makes for a weird experience when you’re expecting to taste mango…or peach…or green tea, you know, any of those seemingly random words that ended up in the title.

That said, I don’t hate this! It’s a plenty refreshing cup and enjoyable on its own merits. But I certainly can’t say it does what it says on the tin.

More sage, less hibiscus, and this would be a far better tisane. It smells lovely, but is a little too astringent. I love blueberries, so I was hoping for more. le sigh

Of all the single steeps I got with my Kati cup, I like this one best. That may not be saying much considering what I think of the other blends, but I do like this one. It smells more lemony than it tastes, but I like the hint of sweetness to the blend. The taste as it cools becomes more gingery and peppery, with an underlying grassiness. Overall I wish this one was a bit more lemony, and if anything it’s made this combo something I might look for now that I’m out of ginger tea.

Great tea !! Perfect flavor and aroma !! Love it !!

Steep Information:
Amount: Single Steeps packet
Water: 12oz hot spigot water
Tool: kati loose tea system (my Review here.)
Steep Time: a little over 5 minutes (http://steep.it/5%20minutes)
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: cherry, berry, hibiscus?
Steeped Tea Smell: berry, tart, floral
Flavor: hibiscus
Body: Full
Aftertaste: tart
Liquor: barely translucent dark purple-red

Too much hibiscus, and I like hibiscus.

Pictures: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2011/03/tea-forte-loose-leaf-single-steeps.html

Drank this again late last night. It hit the spot with both sweet and minty. Still not GREAt but drinkable.

I really wanted to love. I love mint, chocolate, and herbal tea. However, this just tasted off to me. I’m not sure if it was the steep time, sugar content, or what. I was gifted a whole tube of loose leaf tea, and I will probably keep trying to modify preparation because it is a great idea in theory to tame late night chocolate cravings.

I love this tea.

This is a great herbal hot or iced.

I received a single steep loose leaf package of this tea with my Kati cup (which very quickly become my favorite tea cup… I use it all the time).

This has a very “menthol” kind of aroma and taste to it, although I don’t think I am finding it as off-putting as some of the others who have rated this tea. It’s a little different and a little medicinal, but, I don’t dislike it.

The ginger is soft but adds a nice dimension. The peach and mango flavors are strong, with a prominent herbal-y flavor. The nutty flavor of the honeybush is not very distinguishable but I do taste the sweetness from it.

It’s not necessarily my favorite tea from Tea Forte, but I didn’t hate this either… it was decent.

Mmmm.
I always love Vanilla Tea.
I must say, when it comes to teas, teaforte has been my first love.

The cute little packaging had me at “hello”. The array of flavors also captured my tiny little heart.

When I saw that they had a Vanilla tea, how could I not try it?
It’s lovely! I can’t say it’s my absolute favourite vanilla tea ever, but it has a strong vanilla smell and taste, and a prominent black tea flavor to back it up.

Like usual, I prefer these types of flavoured teas with a bit of milk and sugar, but the vanilla hit is strong enough that you can have it on its own, really.

I really enjoy this, but since it’s fairly pricey for a teabag type tea, I do have many other vanilla teas I prefer over it.

First of all, thank you to Dinosara for giving me this tea and others to sample.

The tea came in little ‘single-serving’pouches which I found to my annoyance aren’t really ‘single’ servings at all – there’e easily enough for two cups of tea in each little pouch and using the whole thing would have made the tea far too strong. It’s certainly not a whole leaf tea – most of it is in the form of ‘tea dust’ the type you’d find in a regular teabag. So far I’m not too impressed.

Taste-wise it’s a pretty generic English breakfast-type tea. It’s too bitter and astringent to take without milk, but with milk it’s decent enough. It’s nothing special to be honest, and there’s not really anything that would make me choose this tea over something cheaper like Red Rose.

This features a mild black tea with a nice chocolaty flavor and a nutty backdrop. The nutty does standout overtly as hazelnut in my opinion and I am a bit of hazelnut addict. There is also a fair amount of rose in this and it is really the third primary flavor in the blend—-and one I could have lived without. It is still tasty though. It appears you cannot buy this one in loose form though.

What is it about some flavored green teas that just get this medicinal taste to them? I certainly have some flavored greens that I love, but they definitely seem tricky to get right.

I got four single steep packets of this tea with my Kati cup. I haven’t brewed it up in a while, but I don’t remember it tasting quite as strange before. Even just opening the packet I was hit by a strong aroma that didn’t really appeal to me, and the taste seems to match it pretty well. I don’t really get mango at all, but I think I’m getting peach; I don’t really taste much of the green tea. Over every thing is a slightly medicinal flavor, like its mentholated. I feel like this one would be good if I was sick! I think the medicinal flavor might actually be part of the peach. Overall it’s not too bad, but it’s not something I’ll be craving.

I can’t drink much breakfast tea because its high level of caffeine often gives me headaches. So I am glad to have found this decaf version! It tastes rather different from the breakfast teas I’ve tried before – it seems to have a nutty flavour! Quite puzzling to me as there’s no nuts in the ingredients… anyway, it’s not a bad choice if you want a night time black tea.

Once again utilising my Tea Forte Cafe Cup, Tea Forte Tea Tray, and Tea Forte Tea Timer iPhone application, I start out steeping this tea for a recommended average of 3 minutes. The leaves inside the pyramid infuser look very broken up. This worries me a bit, but not being one to judge a tea from its appearance (at least not completely), I wait patiently for the steeping to finish.

The liquor has steeped to a milk-chocolate brown. Nutty smells waft up from the cup. This tea smells quite nutty. In the aroma, there even appears to be some subdued cocoa notes. Taking my first sip, it appears that three minutes was long enough to steep this tea. Perhaps even a bit too long.

The taste is much smoother than the smell would lead one to believe. Unlike many Formosa oolongs I have tried, this one slips nicely over the tongue, ending in an expressive aftertaste. Robust is a good descriptor for this tea. Oolongs are known to be warming to the body, and this one seems to be the epitome of that factoid.

My tea time was enjoyable, thanks to this tea. It was a good representation of a decent Formosa oolong. On my personal enjoyment scale, I rate it an 80/100.

This being the first Tea Forte tea that I have tried in quite some time, I decided to go all out. I am using my Tea Forte Cafe Cup, Tea Forte Tea Tray, and the Tea Forte Tea Timer app for iPhone. The instructions, acquired from the application itself, recommend 2-4 minutes of steep time. For a happy medium, I choose three, using just-under-boil filtered water.

I have a decent amount of experience with oolong teas. As this tea is steeping, I cannot help but wonder if the tea is being restricted from expansion by the pyramid in which it rests, as most oolongs like this one do a decent amount of unfurling while steeping.

The colour of the tea is a brownish yellow; the smells wafting from the cup are smooth, mellow, with perhaps a faint hint of spice. After a couple of small sips, I determine to put the pyramid back into the cup for another minute. The strength is okay but not quite as strong as I like. (If you like your oolongs light and mellow, three minutes will probably suffice.) Another minute, and it is back to tasting. Pleasantly, I can still taste the buttery aftertaste of those couple sips, with hints of vegetal flavour. The taste of this tea reminds me a lot of a Ti Kwan Yin.

In my opinion, four minutes was a prime amount of time for this tea. The flavours are much more full-bodied and literally burst in the mouth. There is a bit of vegetal bite on the sides of the tongue, as with a slightly-oversteeped green tea (like a gunpowder), but this is hardly noticeable, and probably due to my long steep time.

Overall I really enjoyed this tea. It was a very pleasant cuppa, and I do not think I have any complaints with it, other than a bit of lacking in the flavour department. I would perhaps be interested to know if this was due to the pyramid or the tea itself. 85/100 is what I would rate this tea on my personal enjoyment scale.