Love Life Tea

I brought this treat in my Timolino today and it’s quite enjoyable as I sit here reading up on every possible thing you could ever want to know about epithelium. H&S greens continually amaze me. This tea is so light with the perfect flavours of strawberry and coconut.

I’ve been waiting patiently for the SoHo store to get this in loose, and it’s finally here! I picked up two ounces just to test it out—I tend to buy most of my bulk iced teas from H&S, since 6 ounces are all of $8. This seemed like a possible for the iced tea rotation—genmaicha is what we usually make, the bf loves strawberry, I love coconut. What could go wrong?

Well, honestly, the genmaicha part! There were no popped rice kernels in my bag, and while there’s a slightly toasty flavor it’s not as strong as I would like.

Thankfully, the strawberry/coconut combo is very nice. The coconut is light and sweet, and the green base seems particularly airy to me, bordering on a white. In fact, it reminds me of Coconut Creme a bit! The strawberry is a nice fruity pop, not too strong or artificial. And the vanilla makes it wonderfully creamy.

I think mixed 60/40 with our regular genmaicha, this will be a total winner. As it is right now it’s a nice fruity blend, but nothing special—I think with a nutty hit it will really shine.

I received a couple bags of this tea from Rachel Sincere, ty!
I need to do a Harney & Sons order sometime!

STEEPED: Fruity, roasty and creamy sweet smells over light gold tea.

TASTE: Lightly strawberry flavored first, then a blend of vanilla and coconut flavors wave in, over a gentle base of ricey puff green tea. Get a bit of a roasty aftertaste sometimes, other times a naturally sweet strawberry vanilla aftertaste. Overall a light tea.

Second steeping, the strawberry flavor is gone, but the coconut and roasted green is still present and quite tasty.

COMMENTS: Pretty nice tea – great flavor mix and delicious! However, this tea is pretty light. I’d be all over this tea all the time if it was stronger in flavor, but if I’m in the mood for a great light tea, this is good!

I enjoy a good flavored green tea now and again and I’m noticing that I like the ones with coconut in them. When I went to order some tea for my mom for mothers day I saw this and knew I had to get this for myself…and am I glad I did. I enjoy Harney’s Bangkok green tea but this one is a bit different, in a good way.

The tea is in sachets and I can see that there are nice, mostly unbroken leaves with an occasional stem. There are also some tiny pink flowers and petals that I cannot identify and a few coconut pieces. Dry this tea smells predominantly of coconut and sweet from strawberry and some vegetal notes from the green tea base.

My initial reaction to tasting this was coconut. What I would guess is fresh coconut, at any rate it is not roasted coconut. After getting over the initial reaction I could taste the green tea. I’ve never had Bancha by itself before so I cannot compare this or say that it’s definitely what I taste in there. But I’m getting a nice grassy note with an almost woodsy note. At the tail end I get the sweetness from the strawberry.

The strawberry and vanilla show up more in the second and third steepings. I don’t really get any of the popped rice, unless that’s the woodsy note instead, but I didn’t taste anything that jumped up and said “Hey I’m popped rice, nice to meet you!” At any rate I still find this a delicious blend from Harney and Sons and I like that half the sales go to a good cause.

This is another mild, coconutty green from Harney & Sons, although it does have its own personality. The main flavor I get here, as you can guess, is coconut, along with a fresh, light, green tea. There is a slight smooth strawberry hitchhiking along with the coconut, but it’s not in the forefront by any means. I do not taste the popped rice. Very pleasant. I’ve had it with sweetener and without. I think it needs sweetener to bring out the flavors, but take that with a grain of “sugar” knowing that I have a major sweet tooth! :-)

OH! And I’m glad I bought it, because they donate half of every sale to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis fight against AIDS. Love Life!

Thanks Courtney for the sample! (Down to 116!)

I’m not sure if I made it wrong, or what but I’m not really getting any coconut or strawberry from this. It just tastes grassy. Almost like a grassy oolong? It has a slight strawberry smell though so I know I have the wrong tea. I’ll just have to try it again in the future!

after a pleasant Soho Blend experience, i was so eager to try Love Life that i forgot that it had a green tea base! good thing i dont usually steep my teas too long ^^’

still, it did not taste bitter as greens are bound to with such carelessness.

You have to really enjoy subtle to enjoy this tea. I tried to hot and iced. I used 2 of the sachets at 175 F for 3 minutes. Very nice light coconut fragrance. No bitterness to taste. I think the rice adds to the smoothness but the main flavor I tasted with the coconut.

When I iced it, it seemed like there was a hint of the vanilla but even with a touch of Splenda (added after I tried it without) the minor left in the dust (at least for me).

Not a bad green tea . Maybe I just got used to the more intense flavors of the herbal and black blends but this one seems just a little too mild for me.

Sipdown (169/175)!

From my swap with Courtney which feels like it happened ages ago. I requested this one specifically but setting it up to cold brew I couldn’t at all remember why. It’s a green blend and I’d (at this point) totally forgotten what ingredients were in it and couldn’t smell anything on the leaf. I was kinda crossing my fingers whatever it was would work well cold brewed.

And my instincts were on the money; it does! It’s super creamy coconut and vanilla which I could tell instantly tasting it in the cold brew. The green base is also very well masked, so A+ for that! What I didn’t realize until looking it up just now, however, was that there’s apparently strawberry in this? Doesn’t really come across in the taste.

Anyway, in the moment I think that this was good and I liked having it throughout the day to sip on because our store was super hot today (for whatever reason) but overall I think this is going to end up being an easily forgettable blend which is maybe a shame.

Thank you Courtney for the sample! Sorry that I waited so long to try it.

Totally just updated my Steepster profile so yay for that! I feel like I’ve semi accomplished things…