The Paisley Hippo

Though I’ve had agarwood scented teas before and some of The Paisley Hippo’s flavoured agarwood leaf blends, this is my first time trying to leaves on their own. I was surprised by just how familiar the smooth and subtly sweet flavour was. Gently earthy and woody with a slight smokiness and notes of sweet grass, petrichor, and grilled nuts. It reminded me a lot of greener yerba mate and coffee leaf, both of which I am also a fan, and also some Chinese/pan fired green teas too. I definitely see where the inspiration of “rainforest” in the tea name comes from!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/DH6zl-0ysuH/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWWoZuLSwmM&ab_channel=essencemartinsVEVO

Holy snow day!! Today was basically endless white in every direction you looked, so it was the perfect time to get cozy and try out this tea – one of the new teas I picked up from Toronto Tea Festival this year, and also a new (to me) tea company as well!! This tea won the black tea category of this year’s blind tasting competition, and it’s not hard to see why. Though I would maybe personally prefer a bit of a richer and more sweet milk chocolate note, the tea is undeniably very, very smooth with a pretty solid balance between the cocoa and creamy flavours with a brisk, malty and more full-bodied black tea base. It’s perfectly comforting on a day spent bundled up indoors. Well, other than the quick jaunt outside to snap some tea photos…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGB4auQS3dK/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iThlpKPtsdo&ab_channel=TeenageDads

Iced!

This was a company that was very interesting to me at the Toronto Tea Festival this year because I’ve had agarwood scented oolongs before, but never the agarwood leaf itself either straight (which is one of the tisanes I bought) or in a blend like this one.

I found it quite interesting sipping on this because it’s obviously quite sweet and tropical tasting from the fruits in the blend. Sort of a bit of a more generic or safe/commercial kind of way with sweet candied mango notes over taking the slight twang of the passionfruit. However, it was also quite herbal and earthy with a bit of a smokiness to it as well. I had to make the comparison because I feel like it will come off negatively, but the taste did remind me a lot of the SMELL of cannabis. Like when you walk past someone on the streets and immediately know they’re high/have been smoking. I kind of liked it though! It was like a little bit of good funk that sort of offset the sweeter and more syrupy notes of the fruit.

Definitely very, very curious to try the straight agarwood leaf now though!