Ilse Wouters Send Message

I recently bought some coffee online from an Italian coffee co that only provides arabica coffee, and I saw that they were also selling a small selection of teas. Most of these teas were herbal but I also saw the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew line of 3 different loose teas in nice tins…and of course, I wanted to try out one of those!
Looking around on Ahmad Teas´web page, I read that with every purchase of a product of the line some money goes to the research facilities of Kew Gardens, which is a positive thing. I just love the Kew Gardens, I remember taking my parents there once when they visited me 30 years ago during my years in Yorkshire.
Back to the tea now…“Tea from high elevations give the tea its bright colour and greater flavour whilst the medium grown teas add a citrussy freshness.”, it says on https://www.ahmadtea.com/kew-beyond-the-leaf/
but I´m actually not that impressed : the colour is truly nice but I cannot find the citrussy touch to this OP (I would assume it is), and the loose tea is quite cut up as well. There are no steeping instructions indicated on the tin but the Italian coffee co added a label recommending a steeping time of 5 up to 8 minutes!!! I have limited the steeping time to 4´as this black tea do turns bitter when steeped longer. I guess I´ll take this tea as my breakfast tea for now (as it´s overall quite bold) and reuse the tin for teas which are finer.

Origines Tea advent Calendar – Day 24
To end the Advent Calendar, Origines decided to propose the most (traditionally) Xmassy Xmas tea, and although the spices are very present, this isn´t just “another Xmas tea”. Like the other spicy tea blends of the advent calendar the blend is complex and has a balanced profile that might seem a bit weird but …it works! In this case, the orange water goes wonderfully with the ginger or with the nutmeg, for instance. Definitely a Xmas tea to be enjoyed out of season!

Origines Tea Advent Calendar – Day 23
Origines really impressed me with their mastering of tea blending, and the rooibos blends particularly stand out. Also here they combine red and green rooibos, and further add fruit and fruity flavourings…these latter are natural, but at least in nose they seem quite artificial to me (especially with the dry blend). Fortunately in mouth the fruitiness is well supported by the rooibos backbone, making this another enjoyable cuppa.

Origines Tea Advent Calendar- Day 22
A very aromatical tea this is, almost like a perfume really, with mango and bergamot in harmony. It tastes as a fruity green tea with a long fruity finish. A shame that the citrus (bergamot) doesn´t come through as much as I´ld have liked it. Origines recommends this blend also as iced tea, and I think this can work maybe better.

Origines Tea Advent Calendar – Day 21
This is a black tea based blend, but the added nuts and salted caramel – although together they only make up 1/3 of the blend – manage to imitate a chocolatey drink in nose, and a – rather weak to be honest – nut infusion in mouth. Not at all to my liking (but that needed to happen to at least one of these advent teas ;-) ).

Origines Tea Advent Calendar – Day 20
Another infusion w/o tea, but this blend of dried fruit and lemon verbena is way more complex than I would´ve expected. The dry infusion smells like a fruit compote (over the winter months this is an example of comfort food for me!), the steeped infusion is fruity in a gentle way, both in nose and in mouth…also very comforting imho.

Origines Tea advent Calendar – day 19
This is another original Xmas tea from Origines, this time combining tropical with mint on a green (gunpowder) tea base. It´s really surprising how well these seemingly completely different profiles blend in together, with the mint standing out in nose (very subtly still), but in mouth the tea tastes warm with a refreshing minty long finish.

Origines Tea Advent Calendar – Day 18
This blend is Origines´way to honour its “terroir”, the “vignoble de Bordeaux”, and I think they succeeded in their objective. It contains not only grapes but also vine leaves and a bit of marc (the dry and solid remains after pressing the grapes in the process to make wine), and this surely presents itself in the aroma´s of the dry infusion, where it blends in brilliantly with the raspberry aroma´s. Once steeped, it smells more like an elegant rose (not bad either ;-) ). In mouth the grape and rose fuse together wonderfully, with the hibiscus not overwhelming all the rest in taste. I had it warm, but I can imagine it being as nice as an iced tea, just what Origines also indicates on its web page.

Origines Tea Advent Calendar _ Day 17
Celebration in the stars, so is this green tea blend called…but smelling it, “peperkoek” (for me, in Dutch), or “pain d´épices” (in French) comes to mind. At least for the dry tea leaves, as steeped the ginger (a whopping 19%) takes over. The brew tastes as a no alcohol grogg again, with the typical clove taste very present. A very christmassy tea blend, and a quite different one as well! Nice.

Origines Tea Advent Calendar – Day 16
A decent black tea backbone with added natural citrus aroma´s, where I only can clearly tell the content in bergamot of the dry tea leaves. Once steeped, the bergamot sort of fades away. In taste the Lady Grey blends always are far softer than the Earl Grey blends, and this is no exception. I prefer a more intense Earl Grey for breakfast though.