Tea Forte

Since I’ve never had either hazelnut or chocolate in my tea before, I can’t be sure what exactly is making me dislike this tea. It’s not terrible – and actually woke me up quite well – but I’m not sure I’ll rebuy again for myself after my infusers are gone.

Ginger and lemongrass. A winning combo in my book, but not with this particular blend. I agree with AmazonV, it needs lemon cookies or something to accompany it. Overall, not bad, but just not that good either.

Not much chai here, mostly a woody rooibos flavor which overwhelms most of the spices. Kind of disappointing.

Got this one as a Christmas present! I think pear and ginger go together really well anyway, so I’m already favorably disposed towards this tea right out of the gate. The smell of the dry leaf is heavy on the ginger, with some fruity sweetness from the pear in the background. I was surprised at how small the leaf particiles were; lots of very small, almost dusty particles, and not many pieces bigger than about 1/4 inch square. The ginger bits are also easy to see, and there are a lot of them.

Smells great, and steeps up to a medium golden brown clear liquor. As far as the tasting, the pear and ginger flavors are superbly balanced. The pear lends its floral sweetness and the ginger its heat and tingle. The tea base is very light, as I’ve come to expect from white teas, but that’s okay. I’m liking how the main players come to the fore.

I am having the last pyramid that I have in my stash… This time around, I can taste more of the cinnamon, which I really like! This really isn’t terrible at all.

Why do I find that I enjoy something as I am sipping on the very last of it? It is still not something I am CRAZY about or anything, but, today’s cuppa is quite nice actually.

I have to agree with most of the other tasting notes about this tea – it has too much hibiscus.

However, if you let it cool (or have it iced) the hibiscus is not as troublesome.

This is one though that requires a healthy dose of honey to curb some of that tart hibiscus taste. I will say though that the honey brings out the apple and citrus notes a bit.

This was another one sent to me by Jaime! Thanks so much!!!

Let me start off by saying that I don’t really like pear-flavored things. Why? I have no idea. I guess that it’s not really the most rational thing, but I just “think” that I don’t like pear things. However, I am adventurous enough to try pretty much any tea at least once and I do like ginger, so I thought that I would give this one a try.

I totally have to agree with TeaEqualsBliss on this one. Her review for this tea sums up my initial thoughts perfectly when she talks about how the ginger pear ratios change before and after this tea steeps. This is another tea that definitely smells different before and after you steep it. Before I smelled more ginger than pear and after it was all about the pear with some ginger. At first I was like… Uh oh. Pear. But it actually smelled pretty good! The flavors blend together really well in this tea and there is just the slight bite of ginger that makes it interesting. Something pear that I actually like!

As this one cools, I notice the flavors come out more as well. In fact, I tried this as a small glass of iced tea the other day and it was very refreshing! In fact… I was at the AJ’s in town yesterday and saw that they had a few Tea Forte boxes and this was one of them, so I bought a box!

Thanks again Jaime for the sample! This is one that I probably wouldn’t have tried on my own, but I really like it!

I only had a one-shot of this – alas – so I could only try it as a tea, which is too bad because this just screams, “Latte me NOW!” Oh well, c’est la vie. As a tea, I still think it holds up where it should. It’s a guilty pleasure without the guilt part. Subtleties escape me in describing the flavor because there really aren’t that many. It’s all chocolate and hazelnut like its moniker declares.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/01/07/review-tea-forte-hazelnut-truffle-2/

If I only had one nitpick it would be that the black tea base doesn’t appear to be of high quality. As with a lot of dessert teas, I found it quite bitter on the forefront. That said, it does what it sets out to do.

A mild Sencha – very springy – very pretty

I like this ok… I brew it for only 5 minutes and I find that this is just right for me, it doesn’t give the hibiscus enough time to get overly tart and thick.

A very nice pomegranate flavor in this one. Not bad, but not my favorite tisane either.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me a pyramid of this tea to try!

This is an excellent Oolong, but I can’t help but think it would be even better if it were not in the pyramid. The leaves just don’t have much room to expand in there!

It has a very pleasant, buttery/creamy taste to it. Smooth. Yummy!

Tasty vanilla rooibos with a hint of berry. It reminds me of the berry flavored Creamsavers hard candy. It’s very nicely done, well flavored. A nice, soothing cup to sip whilst listening to the operations folk plot Monday (apparently, we’re supposed to be getting a nice, good-size snow Sunday/Monday).

ETA: Thanks, LiberTEAS, for sending me this one to try out! I don’t love it nearly as much as I love the Flora, but it’s still delish!

LiberTEAS has done it again! She sent me a tea that I wanted to try before I even read a tasting note on it. She’s that good!

TeaEqualsBliss logged this a few days ago, and the combination of cinnamon and hibiscus sounded so wrong it could be right. And, for me, this is full of win. It’s like a hibiscus cider in both smell and taste. Yes, the hibiscus is strong here (I steeped for 8 rather than my usual 10), but the cinnamon and licorice kind of calm the tart down. Reminds me somewhat of wassail (or, rather, the wassail they served at my college’s Madrigal dinner).

Again, for me, this is full of win. LiberTEAS, thank you so, so much!!!

I’m sipping on this tonight. Tasty! Here is my full-length review of this tea: http://sororiteasisters.com/2010/12/12/hazelnut-truffle-from-tea-forte/

Mmm… chocolate and hazelnut. Coconut too. Yum! Definitely one of Tea Forte’s best. Here is my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2010/12/12/hazelnut-truffle-from-tea-forte/

I quickly polished off that Coconut Chai, and now I am going to enjoy a cup of Hazelnut Truffle (my last pyramid of this! Bummer… it will be missed!) and watch a little bit of television while the kids are busy doing other things…

You can read my full-length review of this tea here:
http://sororiteasisters.com/2010/12/12/hazelnut-truffle-from-tea-forte/

This is Yum! I wish that the chocolate was stronger (of course), but I like the balance of flavors. Pleasant!

The black tea is fairly mellow but tasty. The hazelnut is the strongest component and it tastes nutty and yummy. I don’t get a lot from the coconut except that I do get a creaminess from it, and then a coconut note in the tail of the sip. The rose flavor is very faint.

Delicious.

Yeah, so this truly is very Assamallamadingdong-ish. I was really enjoying it at first, but then it seemed to become too aggressive for me. A line was crossed and I kinda felt “blerg” about it. Also remember: I pretty much drink my tea straight up, so perhaps additives would help this a great deal.

I do have several more single servings of this, so I may try to tweak it a bit steeping-wise. And I do plan on finishing the single servings, but I think that it’ll take me awhile. M

LiberTEAS sent me this to try…I think because I love hibiscus, and that’s the first ingredient. I’m beginning to think that a love of hibiscus is unusual around here…especially when brewed at 10 minutes!

I don’t really taste the hibiscus here at all. It’s a true, honest-to-goodness raspberry taste that I get. Like I just took a whole handful of ripe red raspberries (with about 4 not-so-ripe tart ones) and shoved them in my mouth and their juice exploded. They definitely got the flavor right with this one.

LiberTEAS, you have definitely figured out my tea tastes. Thank you so much!!

My cup is empty. :-(

The smell of the dry tea bag is ginger-y but sort of a candied ginger rather than straight-up, freshly-chopped gingerroot. Adding water brought out a delicious pear fragrance that reminded me of pear-flavoured hard candies with a hint of warm, spicy ginger.

Tea Fort’s teas have (in my personal opinion) a reputation for looking and sounding fancy but not really having much actual flavour or substance to them. But this tea proved me wrong. It tastes exactly like what it says it will – pear and ginger. The fruity pear dominates with the ginger complimenting it subtly rather than trying to compete with it for my taste buds’ attention. The whole thing is surprisingly sweet, almost like I’d added some sugar or agave nectar to it, and has a faint herbal-floral aftertaste.

I have to say that I REALLY enjoyed this tea and I think it would be a good one to convert someone who’s used to drinking Celestial Seasonings or Lipton to finer teas.

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 infuser
Water: 50ml Goldschläger
Steep Time: a little over 5 minutes
Served: Cold

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: spicy, peppery
Steeped Tea Smell: cinnamon
Flavor: cinnamon
Body: Full
Aftertaste: peppery
Liquor: translucent orange-red

O.M.G. the cinnamon burns

Post-Steep Additives: ice, seltzer

Mellower on the burning, it has potential, perhaps in a cream liquor?

http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/12/tea-forte-teabag-black-tea-silkroad.html

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 infuser
Water: 2 oz Bacardi Select, 4oz seltzer
Steep Time: a little over 3 minutes
Served: Cold

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: lemongrass, mint
Steeped Tea Smell: RUM
Flavor: Rum
Body: none
Aftertaste: rum
Liquor: translucent orange-brown

15+ more minutes, and then left the infuser in.

Steeped Tea Smell: lemongrass and mint
Flavor: rum
Aftertaste: lemongrass and mint

This is from the Tea Forte cocktails collection.

Meh, more interesting than straight rum. I’m not much of a drinker so take my review with a grain of salt.

http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/12/tea-forte-teabag-herbal-tisane.html

TOO much Hibiscus – way too much for my liking…and a little cinnamon…these two ingredients are really contradicting each other…eeeek