Wize Monkey
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Since case packs of twelve are the only option when shopping online, one of the things I wanted to do in BC was taste through Wize’s newest addition to their sparkling coffee leaf line – and I didn’t have to go far to find one! In fact, as I was walking to baggage claim after getting off the plane I saw a whole row of Wize RTDs in one of the airport gift stores.
Honestly, I think this is Wize’s best RTD flavour yet – and that’s saying something because the grapefruit was really good tasting too! It was juicy, fresh and sweet – though not too sweet at all. Definitely a mix of more crisp red apple and the softer and creamier white fleshed apple that I associate more with Asian ‘apple flavoured’ things. Really well balanced, and I loved that as much as the apple note was solid I could still taste that distinct slightly earthy and green coffee leaf taste too.
Noticed the Sipdown prompt today was for strawberry day so I grabbed this tea out. I made it iced because that seemed the appropriate way to have this. I don’t like coffee leaf. I think that’s my issue here. It’s got a nice juicy strawberry top note and then the classic coffee leaf profile underneath and that’s distracting. Nevertheless, thank you Roswell Strange for sharing and the chance to try this! I think I like this best of the ones I tried but I just don’t enjoy coffee leaf.
DIY Advent Calendar – Day 19
I wanted to bake with this but the only recipe I could find that incorporates it is the one on the Wize Monkey website for vegan cookies. That recipe uses a lot of ingredients that are maybe used in vegan baking often but they are not ingredients I had lying around. I then thought maybe I could find a matcha baking recipe and just sub this in but I was being lazy and wasn’t sure I would like this so I didn’t want to go through all the work for something I wasn’t confident I would like.
This was a bit of a mess to make. Mostly my fault. I decided to make it using the DAVIDsTEA matcha latte, right down to using my matcha whisk and bowl. Unlike matcha, however, this didn’t really dissolve. It mostly became a brown sludge. I decided to strain it. So I strained the extra coffee leaf and then topped it with frothed milk. I then thought it would be good with a dusting of cocoa powder…which I managed to get it all over the stove.
I found this alright but mostly because it was just frothed milk. There was a touch of the coffee leaf flavor, which isn’t one for me unfortunately. Thank you for sharing Roswell Strange but I don’t think I am the target audience for this – mostly because I have yet to find a coffee leaf tea I like.
Saved the best for last!
Of the three new iced tea from Wize Monkey, this is the only one that’s not a parallel of a LLT they carry in their line up – at first I was disappointed that there was no Strawberry Hibiscus iced tea, but reflecting on it I think it was smart to do something that was unique to the line up because it meant that (unlike the other two) there wasn’t anything for people to directly compare this to. That gave it the breathing room to just be its own thing!
Grapefruit can be tricky – a lot of the time it’s bitter/pithy and people are typically SUPER averse to that, but when it’s right it is soooo right and this is right! It’s an incredibly fresh and bright feeling pink grapefruit flavour that immediately hooked me in from the first sip. Like the mango version, it does not comprise the bulk of the flavour – that is still the coffee leaf, which is excellent. However, this hits different because the flavour seems weighted towards the top of the sip so you start with this lively and joyful note of sweet and crisp pink grapefruit and this you move into the mellower, grounded coffee leaf that finishes clean and refreshing. I could drink pitcherfuls of this in the summer and still not feel bogged down – I’m sure of it!
And now I also selfishly was a pink grapefruit LLT version, haha!
I think Mango Party is the first coffee leaf tea I ever tried and also probably the one that I’ve drunk the most of – so while it’s not my favourite tea that the Wize Monkey team has put out, it is the one I’m the most familiar with…
Admittedly, when I found out Wize Monkey was going to be releasing an iced tea line up, I definitely was excited by the idea of their Strawberry Hibiscus blend being adapted. Mango Party makes a lot of sense too – especially considering Mango Party has been the tea of choice for things like their Coffee Leaf beer collaborations. Of course, an RTD version of a LLT is never going to taste exactly like the LLT and you can’t expect it to. So I was keeping my expectations very neutral for this flavour. It is my least favourite of the three, but when all three taste amazing that’s not saying much! What I didn’t expect from it was for me to actually PREFER it to the Mango Party LLT…
It’s such a nice balance, where the coffee leaf is still the most dominant flavour but it’s just complimented with this delicate kiss of natural, ripe mango. Not sticky and lingering in the mouth, or cloying – but just a nice flavour accent to an already delicious base flavour. So many RTDs try to hide the base tea with flavour, and I so appreciate Wize Monkey not doing that because the coffee leaf is GOOD and deserves to be celebrated!
Earlier this summer I got the chance to try the three new Wize Monkey “iced tea” RTDs that they launched this year – and y’all know that I love Wize Monkey so I was chomping at the bit to see what they would be like!
Spoiler – they’re all good!
This is basically exactly what I wanted from a pure coffee leaf RTD – it’s super refreshing and natural with that really distinct coffee leaf flavour that’s sort of hard to describe; like a mix of the best parts of green tea, slightly roasted yerba mate or guayusa, and a nutty bready kind of note. It’s definitely not a sweet/sugary drink, which leans in hard to that natural feeling and makes it something you can easily drink for enjoyment or hydration on a hot summer day and not feel gross about after you’ve finished the can.
While it’s not my favourite of the three new RTDs they released, it’s an amazing representation of what coffee leaf can be and – having met Max & Arnaud, the two brains behind this awesome company, I’m honestly just so happy for both of them! This was super good!
I had a lot of very rich/heavy tasting teas this morning so this afternoon I switched to something a bit more fruity and light! There’s a buttery aroma coming off the steeped cup, but the taste is very ripe Alphonso mango with distinct coffee leaf notes and I’m enjoying it a lot – especially in relation to everything else I’ve had today.
Strong coffee leaf flavour, as to be expected, but I left the sachet in the mug while I drank it over the course of a couple Modern Family episodes and by the end the intensity of the ripe mango notes were outweighing the taste of the coffee leaf – a first for this tea!
Sipdown (270)
This came from Roswell Strange and I didn’t really have must interest until I smelled the dry leaf. It smelled so mouthwateringly chocolate-y that I was itching to have it. Of course a latte goes well with chocolate teas but after my fancy iced latte yesterday I wanted another. Consequently this whole sample was used for that purpose. It turned out looking awesome: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBCLatKAUzn/?igshid=1q4wjn4xye7ah
Unfortunately, taste wise I am less impressed. It’s my fault since coffee leaf to me is not a favourite. I thought the chocolate would build on the coffee flavor (kind of like when they suggest putting espresso into chocolate cake or frosting to make it richer) but it’s a bit dirty tasting to me. The chocolate syrup and milk and whipped cream help but without those, I don’t think I’d have gotten through this. Even with them, I can tell what I do like is the chocolate syrup and what I don’t like is coming from the tea.
Honestly though, it smelled so good that I probably would have bought a crapton of this on that alone. I’m grateful Roswell Strange gave me the chance to try before I buy so thank you for the share!
Cold Brew!
Of Wize’s fruitier flavours of coffee leaf, this is probably one of my lesser favourites because the blueberry flavouring used has such a floral undertone to it but this cold brew actually REALLY hit the spot, and I thought it was a lot more jammy blueberry than I had remembered it being – but also not sweet/sugary at all either. You could taste a lot of the natural earthy grassy flavour of the coffee leaf still, too. Even the floral element I don’t about this tea was on its best behavior.
An evening cuppa from a few nights back. Kind of like a blueberry candy flavour, though actually not all too sweet, but with a very floral undertone to it. I feel like I have to be in more of a particular mood for this type of blueberry flavouring than others in my assortment, but when I am in that mood it’s so perfect.
Somehting about this mug was just a bit thin texturally, but the taste itself was kind of good? It made me think of the slightly artificial tasting blueberry flavored jellybeans you might get in those very aggressively coloured packs of pink/yellow/bright blue coloured jellybeans and other candies that come out around Easter. Is that a good thing? I dunno. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. But not a thing I wanted on this particular day, at the very least.
Current cuppa – I wanted to work on tasting notes tonight but I keep getting distracted.
The dry leaf of this smells different than I remember; almost soapy? It doesn’t taste soapy at all, but maybe a little bit perfumey? The blueberry flavouring is very strong and that results in a sweet and coating candy blueberry flavour but it’s just undercut by a floral note that builds in intensity over sipping, and because of the seemingly heavy handedness of the flavour is sort of keeping coating the palate leading to that intense perfumed note.
It’s not bad but I feel like I should have been lighter with my steeping and that would have been more inline with past experiences I’ve had with this tea.
Cold Brew!
Loved this one as a cold brew – I could have probably chugged a whole pitcher of it without blinking. Tasted nutty/herbal from the coffee leaf (so hard to describe; it’s such a distinct but unique flavour) but also a little floral, and a little bit like the strawberry “purse candies” that Grandma’s seem to always have – except a blueberry version of those candies…
Mmm!
Really, really excited to see a blueberry blend introduced into the Wize Monkey line up! I wanted to order it w/ the initial release but it sold out so quickly that I didn’t have a chance! My manager scored a tin of it though and was kind enough to share some with me so that I could still experience it! I do wish there was some actual blueberry in the blend and that it wasn’t just blueberry flavouring – if only for an improved visual. I know that it ultimately doesn’t matter; a small percentage of blueberries in the dry leaf wouldn’t actually impact the taste at all – but my monkey brain still feels like it would do something even if logic dictates otherwise…
To start – this taste delicious! However, it is a little bit strange in its deliciousness!?
You know those strawberry candied in the foil wrapper that actually looks like a strawberry? The ones that everyone’s grandmother used to have a seemingly endless stock of? It tastes almost exactly what I’d imagine a blueberry version of those candies would be like – sweet, sticky/syrupy blueberry candy! The flip, though, is that it’s also floral!? It’s sort of strange having a mug of something that tastes both like candies and like freshly picked flowers – but I did like the mix.
Looking forward to more experimenting with this tisane, and hopefully acquiring a full tin at some point!
Made myself a chawan of this on Monday morning for “Matcha Monday” – which is sort of cheating, but also kind of not?? Anyway, it’s what I wanted to drink…
This isn’t super finely ground, so there was a lot of thick sediment to either drink through or wait to settle and drink around. However, the flavour is quite delicious – nutty, sweet and a little bit honeyed with something in the background that reminds me a little bit of both graham crackers and also lightly roasted yerba mate. Coffee leaf is so unique, and I love the taste so much. I hope that Wize Monkey continues to refine the processing of this, because if they can get the mouthfeel a little smoother then I think they have a product that will really be a force to be reckoned with.
Still playing around with the coffee leaf powder that I very generously received from Wize Monkey – most recently as an addition to pancakes!! Banana pancakes, specifically. I won’t list my whole pancake recipe because it’s pretty basic – only things I did differently were using coconut milk as my milk, adding a mashed banana, and a perfect spoon (the DT one) of coffee leaf powder – and then, when the pancakes were made, I tossed on chopped bananas and a dark maple syrup.
To be completely honest, you don’t really taste the coffee leaf as an addition too much. Maybe it adds a slight nuttiness to the pancakes, but that’s a generous claim. However, you can definitely visually see a change in the pancakes; they’re a lot more brown outside of the normal golden brown at the edges, and have a slight speckly appearance.
They were REALLY damn good, though.
(Next up – probably a coffee leaf powder latte!?)
I’ve been doing some experimentation with this coffee leaf powder since first receiving it, and my favourite way I’ve tried it so far was mixed into a cream cheese sort of spread! Simple recipe; took a 1/2 cup of plain cream cheese and mixed that was two tablespoons of shredded smoked gouda, and a handful of very finely chopped up banana pepper (the kind that’s not pickled) and jalapenos. Finally, I mixed in a tsp of coffee leaf powder, and a pinch of black pepper!
It was honestly so good; creamy and thick with a mild heat and smokey quality. Very, very rich overall and actually impressively well balanced. It’s hard to explain how the coffee leaf came through, but trust that it did – I was getting that little bit of greener sweetness and honey-nut quality I often get from the coffee leaf, and it complimented the sweeter gouda. I would totally make this spread again!
Big thanks to the Wize Monkey team for sending me a VERY generous sample of this to experiment with!! I look forward to trying several different things out – I already have a bunch of ideas bouncing around in my head.
To start, though, I wanted to just whisk this up in hot water and see what I was working with. Now, I know this powder doesn’t seem to be in any way advertised for drinking in this method – in fact Wize Monkey’s recommendation was to use it for culinary purposes such as baking. So I’m not at all expecting a really fine grind/texture and I don’t want to be critical of that – this is more an exploration of the flavour; how strong is it!? Do I need a lot of powder for an intense taste!? That kind of that…
So I’m treating this more like I would a straight matcha in terms of ratio – 1/2 tsp for my mug of tea, whisked up with a matcha whisk. The one I use for non-matcha powders, so like the turmeric powders or black tea matchas I have. It doesn’t really froth up too me, and it settles quite quickly because of the larger grind – but again, that was expected since that’s not what the powder is advertised for. In terms of taste? It’s really good. I might have nailed a ratio I’m happy with right off the bat; it basically tastes exactly like making a cup of straight coffee leaf, but maybe a little heavier on the roast/nuttier notes? There’s a pleasant sweetness, a slight grassiness – it’s good. I’ll probably try this same test with a slightly lower and a slightly higher ratio just to see how that changes things, but this was a very nice starting out point!
And actually – if we are going to talk about the texture, obviously you can feel the coffee leaf when you drink it, it’s not perfectly smooth like matcha. However, it’s not gritty or overly rough either; I’ve actually had low, low grade matcha that was shittier in terms of texture!! What it reminds me of the most is the Kale Matcha put out by DT which also had that slightly off texture or the Mermaid Matcha from Bird and Blend with the ground up Butterfly Pea Flower – all of which had the same issues with settling/separation. I actually think you could make this in latte form though and the thickness of the milk combined with the foam/froth of a latte would hide most of the strangeness of the texture.
So, I’m adding lattes to my list of stuff to experiment with. Also on the list is some type of cream cheese (because yum!), and since Wize Monkey recommends this specifically with cookies I want to do a type of cookie recipe as well.
I’m psyched! This is going to be all kinds of fun to experiment with!
Cold Brew!
I wanted something very sharp and bright on the afternoon that I steeped this tea up and boy does it deliver on that front! The coffee leaf is sort of this grounding and ‘lower note’ type of nutty grassy taste that offsets the otherwise very crisply sharp and acidic notes of hibiscus and that almost sort of green/faintly under ripe strawberry taste. This is not the syrupy, sweet juicy taste of an over ripe strawberry but more the kind that, though delicious, has a bit of snap to it when you bite and just loosely makes your face pucker up. It’s good! Lively. Very lively.
Cold Brew!
Just finishing this brew now; I somehow managed to stretch it throughout the entire afternoon. It wasn’t a high tea consumption day for me – I felt off all morning/afternoon and just didn’t get to brewing anything until late in the day.
This isn’t satisfying tonight, and I’m not sure if that’s the tea or my general moon for the day. It’s too much hibiscus, without enough strawberry or juiciness. The coffee leaf note is also strong though, and that’s probably the best part. I should have tried adding some agave, earlier this afternoon, to perk the flavours up a bit but that didn’t even cross my mind until literally right now and at this point there’s not enough of the brew left for that to make sense.
Oh well.
Cold Brew!
I believe this was a little under leafed, because it had the sharpness in the initial top notes of hibiscus but the flavour was weak and watery overall even with 12+ hours of brew time. I got some more roasted/nuttier and distinct coffee leaf notes but not strawberry. Just lacked some overall density/concentration of what was present.
That comes down to the amount of leaf I chose to brew with, but it’s good to make note of for the future/next time.
