Tag: Green Tea

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Tea by C’s Tea Tasting Triad

Tea Tasting Triad by Tea by C
$52.00 USD for 3 Teas (6oz) & Accessories

Tea By C has provided me with the Tea Tasting Triad for the purposes of writing an honest review.

Tea by C’s Tea Tasting Triad is ready for the holidays and I was quite pleased when Claire asked me if I would be interested to take a look at it. This box consists of three teas (more on that soon!), a tea tasting guide and flavour wheel (the rolled up poster at the top), and a tea infuser for any cup of teapot that you might be using. It all fits quite neatly into a sturdy mailing box and makes for a good presentation if you’re going to be having this mailed to someone as a gift – I would be happy to open this up!

Also included with the box are three tasting cards about each tea: Dragonwell Green (green tea), Blue People Oolong (oolong tea), and Rose Buds (herbal tisane). They’re quite nice quality – sturdy cardstock, lots of information about each one, and there’s a bonus card about tea in general – a nice touch for those who are receiving this kit as a gift who are new to tea or don’t know a lot about it yet.

The tins are lovely, and the lids are quite tight on, which is great for maintaining freshness of the tea and preventing the leaves from going stale. I actually had the opportunity to review all three of these teas last year, and wrote full reviews for each Dragonwell Green, Blue People Oolong and Rose Buds. I enjoyed all of them, and I had a nice cup of Blue People Oolong while working on this post.

I used the metal tea strainer that was included in the kit – it’s easy to use and similar to one that I used when I first started exploring tea. The thing about these strainers is to not overfill! Tea leaves need room to expand, so you don’t want to overfill half of the ball because the leaves won’t have room to move and open up their leaves. I would fill the half sphere about half full in order to give it space.

The loveliest part of this kit for a beginner to tea is the Flavour Wheel. A flavour wheel is incredibly useful for those new to trying to decipher how to describe tea. I didn’t want to share the whole wheel, but it’s quite lovely and a full 360° of descriptions for you to consider. For example, for vegetable flavours, it includes things like spinach, bean sprouts, peas, green beans – all with their own distinctive flavours, but also provides you with a reference because if you’re unsure of what your tea tastes like but know it reminds you of something vegetal, the wheel can help you pinpoint a word.

I loved Tea By C’s Tea Tasting Triad. It has a nice combination of teas to start off (green, oolong, tisane), the inclusion of a flavour wheel and an infuser really make this a great starter kit, beginners gift box. The tasting cards are a really nice touch to help someone really learn about each tea thoroughly. I think the flavour wheel and the tasting cards really make this box a wonderful idea, because it helps someone to immerse themselves into the teas, the language, and learn how to think about tea has having the ability to have a myriad of flavours. This would be a wonderful gift for a friend or a gift to yourself if you’re new to tea. All it needs is a cute seasonal or holiday themed mug or cup and saucer set and you’ll be good to go!

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Dessert by Deb’s Pumpkin Pie Tart

Pumpkin Pie Tart by Dessert by Deb
Green Tea / Flavoured
$6.00 for 25g

First Impressions

Pumpkin Pie Tart came to me as part of the September/October subscription box from Dessert by Deb. This seasonal green tea offering comes in a sealed, resealable bronze-copper matte pouch with a familiar colourful label on the front. I quite appreciate the colour pouch that Deb decided to go with because it lends itself quite nicely for an autumn themed tea collection since it’s a very autumnal appropriate colour.

Pumpkin Pie Tart consists of organic: green tea, apple, Canadian maple, cinnamon, coconut, pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, ginger, clove, allspice, mace, nutmeg, and cardamom), cloves, and calendula petals. That spice blend does a great job in coating a lot of the other ingredients, especially the dried apple pieces. It basically smells like I opened up a can of pumpkin pie spice mix, and really reminds me of pumpkin pie because of the blend. Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cardamom are my must-haves when it comes to a pumpkin spice blend.

Preparation

Dessert by Deb recommends steeping Pumpkin Pie Tart in 200°F (93°C) water for 5-6 minutes. I opted to do an initial steep for 5 minutes with the recommended temperature water.

First Taste

Pumpkin Pie Tart steeps to a really pretty golden yellow-orange colour. There is some dusty bits that escaped through the stainless steel infuser, but I don’t think it’s the actual tea leaves themselves and it’s the spices since they’re so fine. The aroma is pumpkin pie spice, definitely. The flavour of the green tea blend is interesting – I get a lot of the spice blend, and then there’s a nice level of sweetness that I think comes from the Canadian maple and possibly the apple. There’s a fruity background that isn’t as strong as the pumpkin spice blend, and slight sourness that I think comes from the apple as well. I don’t really taste the green tea base, but that’s because the spice blend is just that much more overwhelming in flavour. The sweetness from the maple definitely make it tastes more like a dessert, and it has a nice thicken mouthfeel to it as well.

A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Pumpkin Pie Tart once, but found that the spice level just wasn’t as present as I would have liked, especially when compared to the initial steep. I would suggest steeping Pumpkin Pie Tart just the one time.

My Overall Impression

I liked Dessert by Deb’s Pumpkin Pie Tart. The spice blend is well balanced with the apple and Canadian maple – it helps create some interest in the flavour profile. While the green tea base wasn’t very flavour forward, although who can blame it when its competing against ginger and cinnamon? I think it’s quite a creative way to blend pumpkin spice with a green tea base, I usually see the pumpkin spice blends with black tea or rooibos. It is definitely a nice blend for the fall, the spices have a pleasant warming quality. I’d love to see this one turned into a tea latte with some vanilla extract for extra coziness.

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Teakan’s Long Jing

Long Jing (Dragon Well) by Teakan
Green Tea / Straight
70g for $30.00

Long Jing (Dragon Well) is one of five teas from Teakan’s Tea Exploration Kit (Volume 2) and makes up 15g of the 70g of looseleaf tea in this curated collection.

First Impressions

I’ve just been really excited about the Tea Exploration Kit from Teakan’s second curated collection, so let’s just dive right in! This is the second tea that I’ve decided to try from the kit and it’s Long Jing (Dragon Well). This is a traditional Chinese green tea and I’ve reviewed multiple dragon wells before in the past and it’s definitely a favourite in my household (…. by me). This particular Long Jing comes from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China and was harvested in spring 2020 – so just a couple seasons ago!

The leaves of this tea are long, flat, and a lovely bright shade of green. The dry leaf has a sweet, grassy aroma to it, and it’s honestly just really pretty to look at. You can definitely tell that it’s been pressed during the manufacturing process with how flatten the leaves are, but it’s nice to see such intact leaves as well! It’s quite pretty.

Preparation

Teakan recommends steeping Long Jing in 80°C (176°F) water for 2 minutes (for western style steeping) or 30 seconds (for gongfu style steeping). I opted to do an initial steep for 2 minutes with 79°C (175°F) water.

First Taste

Long Jing steeps to a fairly pale yellow on the initial steep. The aroma is a light grassy, vegetal aroma. The flavour has a hint of sweetness but lots of vegetal notes and a light background of grassy flavours. I would liken it to the flavour of bok choy, almost, with that heartier flavour of gai lan (Chinese broccoli). It has a nice sweetness that lingers though, so it kind of just ties it all together into a pleasant cup of tea. The texture makes for a slightly thickened mouthfeel, which is enjoyable as well.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Long Jing three times, adding an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. I found that the flavour was enjoyable. The colour definitely deepened and became more of a golden yellow colour, with stronger vegetal notes over the initial grassy flavours.

 

My Overall Impression

I loved Teakan’s Long Jing (Dragon Well). I found it to be quite pleasant, and just steeped quite nicely – as well as resteeping. The flavour profile is nicely balanced between the vegetal and grassy flavours, and all ties in together well with the sweet notes. It’s definitely a nice sweetness to it that just really makes for a nice cup of tea, and I think this is the type of green tea that would be a great introduction to someone who’s not familiar with green teas – it has a nice crispness to it, and doesn’t have any extra flavourings or scents to it. Simply a pure green tea – just don’t slack on resteeping it.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.