Category: Review

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DavidsTea’s Organic Anji Green

Organic Anji Green by DavidsTea
Green Tea / Straight
$24.98 for 50g

First Impressions

Organic Anji Green was a purchase I made last year when there was a sale going on (so full disclosure, I got this at 30% off with my online purchase). The tea itself came in a very familiar pouch – albeit a bit larger than the usual one. The bag itself is sealed, and resealable with a bright pistachio green label on the front. Tea that takes up more space (usually traditional teas with unrolled leaves) come in bigger bags than the usual small ones.

The leaves of Organic Anji Green are beautiful – bright green, you can see the leaves and how they’ve curled up on themselves in the drying process. The veins of the leave are visible in some, and the vibrancy in the colour is quite amazing. The aroma is pleasantly sweet, with some fresh grassy notes to it. It’s quite enjoyable to inhale, and hopefully a good indicator of what’s to come. Organic Anji Green consist of organic green tea from the Anji County of Zheijiang Province, China.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Organic Anji Green in 85°C (185°F) water for 2 to 3 minutes. I followed the steeping instructions and did an initial steep of this green tea for 3 minutes.

First Taste

Organic Anji Green steeps to a pale yellow colour after the initial steep of 3 minutes. It has a very subtle aroma that wasn’t really easily noticed until I was holding up the cup of tea to my face. The aroma is primarily grassy, which was pleasant. It smells a bit like spring, which is nice. The flavour of the tea is a well-balanced mix. I found some buttery notes, with a subtle cream flavour, mixed in with grass and flavours that remind me of asparagus – just a crisp freshness to it.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Organic Anji Green a total of eight times (nine steeps total), adding an additional 30 seconds of steeping time to each subsequent steep. The tea deepened in colour and the flavour remained fairly similar to the initial steep. I found that it had strong buttery notes with each steep, which was quite welcome. I would recommend resteeping this tea to get all the flavour (and tea!) that you can.

My Overall Impression

I loved DavidsTea’s Organic Anji Green. I was really quite impressed with how well this tea goes from dry to steeped to being resteeped (so many times!). The flavour stayed delicious and I had a grand ol’ time of steeping this over and over again during one of the recent snow days that I experienced. While I was originally just crossing my fingers that the tea would be worth the price, I think it more than made up for it considering how much use I got out of the tea leaves before I decided to stop resteeping it.

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Book: Modern Tea by Lisa Boalt Richardson

Modern Tea: A Fresh Look at an Ancient Beverage
Author: Lisa Boalt Richardson
Published 2014 by Chronicle Books
Cover Price: $19.95USD/£12.99
164 pages

First Impressions

Modern Tea by Lisa Boalt Richardson is a book that I purchased early on in my tea blogging days (so likely circa 2016 or so). It’s a small, square book – hardcover, with full colour illustrations. The book itself is split into five generalized chapters: What is Tea?, The Art of Tea, Tea Ceremonies and Rituals, Beyond the Cup, and The Buzz About Tea.

In the first chapter, What is Tea?, Richardson touches on the types of tea, tea production and farming, and examples of specific types of tea within each type of tea (white, green, etc.). The photos are lovely, although not as vibrant as I would expect from a colourful illustrated book. The second chapter, The Art of Tea, covers how to prepare tea, equipment and water, and also has a section on how to eyeball water temperature without a variable temperature kettle – although for the sake of simplicity, I still prefer the ease of selecting a button for my preferred water temperature.

Tea Ceremonies and Rituals was the most fascinating to me, because Richardson goes over various cultures and their ceremonies – Chinese, Japanese, Moroccan, to name a few. With photograph examples of most, it’s nice to contrast and compare the teaware between cultures. Beyond the Cup goes over cooking with tea and also food pairings, which is something that I do reference when I’m thinking about my tea recipes. The Buzz About Tea covers caffeine, fair trade, environmentalism, and health benefits – although I think we’ve come a long way in science and understanding about tea since 2014, since matcha has spiked in popularity in the western world and more people in the western world are setting aside coffee for tea.

Things That Stood Out

I loved that Richardson included information about the difference between high tea and afternoon tea – a distinction that a lot of people don’t understand. If the tea that you’re thinking of includes dainty finger sandwiches, a tiered cake stand, and fine china – you’re thinking of afternoon tea. Richardson also goes over the origins of tea and cha – because of the different dialects of the Chinese language and how the language evolved and changed as it travelled (for example, in India, tea is chai and the Mandarin pronunciation for tea is cha).

Favourite Section(s)

I really liked the section in Modern Tea about how to incorporate tea into food and how to create food pairings. I think it’s a great reference for beginners wanting to add tea to their cooking or baking, because it gives some great examples (but the part that I didn’t appreciate was the lack of actual recipes for testing out the methodology).

My Overall Impression

I liked Lisa Boalt Richardson’s Modern Tea. I think it’s a fantastic book for those who are interested in tea, or a beginner tea fan. Richardson covers the basics of tea fairly well and in a language that isn’t too complex. I do think that if you’re more into the tea scene, you might find it not as informative because you might already know a lot of the information – but it doesn’t mean it might not be a great addition to your tea shelf. Richardson lays out the information in a great format that is easy to digest with some pretty photography. At the cover price, it’s not unaffordable and might even be available via your local library (which I always encourage trying first in case you can’t find a copy of it, since it was published in 2014).

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Adagio Teas’s Mango

Mango by Adagio Teas
Black Tea / Flavoured
$7.00USD for 6 quart-sized pouches

Adagio Teas has provided me with Mango as a sample with the Tea Advent Calendar (you can still find highlights from me opening all 24 days on my Instagram, @onemoresteep), a review of this tea was not requested.

First Impressions

Mango is a curious black tea blend from Adagio Teas. I received it as a sample when Adagio Teas sent me their 2019 Tea Advent Calendar, and I decided why not try and review it! It came as a pitcher-ready tea bag, so it’s fairly big. I did open up the pitcher tea bag to get a better look at the tea blend inside. The material feels a bit silky, I’m not sure what it’s made of.

Mango smells just like the mango fruit – I can’t make out the black tea base, but I’m not upset about it because it smells just like the fruit and I’m excited for it. Mango consists of: black tea, mango pieces, natural mango flavour and marigold petals.

Preparation

Adagio Teas recommends steeping Mango overnight in 4 cups of water (1 quart) with the cold brew/cold steep method.

If you want to try Mango as a hot tea, Adagio Teas recommends steeping in 212°F (100°C) water for 3 minutes.

Despite it being a winter wonderland outside the day that I decided to do this, I opted to cold steep Mango directly in my pitcher (this one!) with 1 quart of water (fun fact, 1 US quart is equal to 946mL). I used room temperature water that was previously boiled, and then popped the pitcher into the fridge for approximately 6hrs.

First Taste

Mango steeps to a lovely golden orange colour. It’s a very clear colour, and smells amazing. The aroma is primarily that of the mango fruit and it smells sweet. Surprisingly, the tea itself isn’t as sweet as I was expecting it – but there is no added sugar in the ingredients so perhaps I should have thought of that. The flavour is sweet and fruity, with a nice crispness to it. The black tea base is quite present in the steeped tea – I found it to have a bit of a nutty flavour to it which balances well against the more sweet, mango flavours.

I don’t really think it requires a lot of sweetener – but if you decide to add something to it, I would recommend something that easily dissolves in cold water (like agave syrup).

A Second Cup?

Due to the nature of the preparation of Mango, I did not opt to resteep the leaves.

My Overall Impression

I loved Adagio Teas’s Mango. I thought this black tea blend smelled and tasted like what I expected from a tea that calls itself Mango. I enjoyed the fact that it had multiple methods of steeping instructions – and I went for the one suggested on the packaging. It has a pleasant freshness to it that can only be captured in a cup of iced tea, and I think it’d be great in the summer time (perhaps with a wedge of lemon on the side?). Do take care when adding sweetener though, as the mango fruit itself does add some sweetness and you wouldn’t want to overwhelm it..

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