Tea tasting: Harney & Sons' Royal Wedding Tea (updated)

Harney & Sons was commissioned to create a tea commemorating the wedding of William and Kate in 2011, and this is what they made.  Their website bills it as a "union of Chinese mutan white tea buds, almond, coconut, vanilla, and a floral abundance of pink rosebuds and petals."  (https://www.harney.com/royal-wedding.html).  Almond and vanilla are two of my favorite flavors, so how could I resist?

I'm not sure how they did it, but the flavor notes in the Royal Wedding tea blend extraordinarily well. I cannot pick out the almond or vanilla separately.  There's a little innate sweetness, plus a tiny bit of floral, plus another tiny bit of something that I can't quite identify.  It's a very subtle tea.  Fans of strongly-flavored blends will be disappointed.  I like it quite a lot, but it is definitely tea to be enjoyed for its own sake.  It doesn't pair well with any strongly flavored food because it gets overshadowed easily.  I don't know how well it would ice -- I'd think you'd lose the best flavors.

After a little experimentation, for my usual large-ish cup of tea, I found the optimal preparation seems to be two level teaspoons of tea, water at 180 degrees, brew time four minute.


Updated!  I recently bought some bagged Royal Wedding tea, and I've found it quite fussy to deal with.  In 2 out of 3 brewings, I managed to either let it steep too long or let the water get too hot.  It's unusual for tea in bags to be more of a pain in the butt than loose tea, so this was worth noting.  Maybe I'll just cut open all the bags and dump the contents into a big sealable tin.

Tea tasting: Adagio's Vanilla Oolong

This morning's pot was Adagio's Vanilla Oolong (http://www.adagio.com/oolong/vanilla_oolong.html).  Although the website advertises the tea in terms of sugar cookies, I can't imagine a less sugar-cookie like vanilla tea.  It has a wonderful vanilla aroma, but its taste isn't sweet.  It's got flavor notes akin to the smell of baked sugar.  I liked its complexity and character.   I'm going to make sure I make the next pot on a morning when I have two brain cells to rub together so that I can appreciate it more fully than I did this morning.

I think this tea would be spectacular iced, particularly with a little bit of the sweet vanilla-flavored syrups that are often used for coffee drinks.

I'm going to buy a larger package of it and experiment with it a bit.  I think it could also be excellent with a little bit of cinnamon and sugar for sweetening, or with a vanilla creme honey.

Tea tasting: Adagio's White Teas Revisited

It turns out that one of the other attorneys at my new job is also a tea junkie.  She suggested that I may be "overcooking" my white teas, which is why I am finding them flavorless.

So I went back to the White Peach and White Blueberry from Adagio I had sampled earlier in the month, and made sure to watch the water temperature very carefully.  I realized that since I'd been making single cups of white tea for me, rather than pots of tea, I had let the water fully boil in the pot.  Instead, I now cut off the water temperature at 185 degrees.  It made a substantial difference.

Brewed at the proper temperature, the white tea had flavor and character.  It still wasn't a strong flavor -- it was light and only softly flavored with peach or blueberry.  But it wasn't the weak and feeble brew that I'd gotten by infusing the tea at 212 degrees, as I'd mistakenly been doing.

I'm still more of a fan of full-bodied flavors in tea.  But brewing Adagio's White Teas properly has improved their flavor to the point where I'd buy them again for occasional drinking.

So here's your lesson:  even a true tea geek can mess up a proper cup of tea by not paying attention.  Take your time.  It's worth doing right.

Tea tasting: Harney & Sons' Organic Passion Plum

After two tastings of insipid white teas, I was in the mood for something bold and flavorful, so I went to the sample of Harney & Sons' Organic Passion Plum (https://www.harney.com/organic-passion-plum.html), which promised me "Sweet fruit flavors with a spicy twist from the cinnamon, as well as hibiscus and citrus flavors."  This herbal tisane is made from hibiscus, cinnamon, rose hips, orange peel, ginger and passion fruit.  All else being equal, I figured it was unlikely to be boring.

The aroma is far from boring.  It smells like Christmas plum pudding, a lovely blend of fruit and cinnamon.  And the brew is a gorgeous deep red purple color that makes me think about buying velvet.

The taste, thank God, is not boring.  It is fruity, complex and surprisingly plum-like for having no plum in the tisane.   The cinnamon and the hibiscus come out strongly in the aftertaste.  The hibiscus in particular adds this weird tartness in the finish, but adding honey cures that quite nicely.

My one complaint is that the tea is a little gritty because the cinnamon added to the tisane is finer than the strainer of the T-1000.  If I buy more of this tea, which I might, I will make it with the paper tea pouches to avoid this problem.

Adagio's White Blueberry

I am beginning to notice a trend with Adagio's white teas.  They need far more than the recommended steeping time to have any character or flavor at all.   I wonder if perhaps my definition of a "heaping tablespoon" is different from theirs.

The aroma of Adagio's White Blueberry (http://www.adagio.com/white/white_blueberry.html) was, as with the White Peach, by far the best part of the tea.  It had a rich, fruity scent that did not fulfill its promise when it came to taste.  By steeping it for about twice the recommended 3-5 minutes, I managed to get flavors of both tea and blueberry out of it, but even then it was only the slightest of notes.  Adding sweetener only gave me the flavor of honey; it didn't enhance the tea or the blueberry in any significant way.

I will finish my sample package, but I won't be buying this again.

Adagio's White Peach

White tea can often been flavorless if not brewed correctly.  For white tea with flavors, I often steep it longer than recommended.  I steeped this one for 7 minutes rather than the recommended 5.

Adagio's White Peach (http://www.adagio.com/white/white_peach.html) starts off with an amazing aroma when brewing.  It's like summer in a cup of hot water.  The flavor unfortunately does not follow through on the splendid aroma.   It's only very lightly peach-flavored and even more lightly tea-flavored.  I want more from a tea -- I want real flavors in my mouth.  White Peach is good enough, but only just.

Guest review: Bad tea chronicles

From the noble and redoubtable +Jody Livingston

"I have a Tassimo coffee maker, courtesy of my lovely friend Lorree, who's move out of the country necessitated divesting herself of her appliances. Since I like both coffee and tea, I ordered an assortment of both from Amazon. I got the Twinnings Tea Sampler. I won't get it again. Tea should not be made with a Tassimo. It's just not properly brewed. However, the Chai was the worst, and not because of the machine. The machine would not have made it the sickly sweet, chemical tasting mess that I drank. Even trying to doctor it with cream failed to save it. I finally just threw it down the sink and made myself a cup of Kona to appease my taste buds.

By the way, if you ever want to hack your Tassimo so you can brew your own coffee, rather than constantly paying through the nose for their non-reusable pods, give me a shout. All it takes is a pen, a Dremel tool and stopper."

Tea tasting: Adagio's Earl Grey Moonlight

I had written previously about variants on the traditional Earl Grey tea.  Adagio's Earl Grey Moonlight (http://www.adagio.com/black/earl_grey_moonlight.html) calls itself a "cream" blend.  Perusing their website, I think this means that they added some sort of non-dairy cream flavoring to the tea blend.  They have also added vanilla.

The aroma is quite charming.  It has the citrus-y notes of traditional Earl Grey, muted by just the slightest hint of vanilla.  The taste is not significantly different from classic Earl Grey.  The vanilla and cream notes are noticeable only in the finish, providing a mellowing after the initial sharp floral tang of the Bergamot.  I think this tea would appeal to fans of Twinings Lady Grey and other lighter Earl Grey blends.  Personally, I would have liked a stronger vanilla and/or cream element.

A Visit to the Tropics

We've got a foot of snow and freezing rain now coming down on top of it here at Mt. Mackyntoich, so it seems the ideal day to talk about some tropical teas.

For my morning dosage of caffeine I started out with Republic of Tea's Passion Fruit Papaya Black (http://www.republicoftea.com/passionfruit-papaya-black/p/V00589/).  As with most of the Republic of Tea blacks, the flavoring is light and subtle.  While the papaya in particular is noticeable in the aroma and taste, this is not a sweet tea.  It retains the clean tones of black tea while keeping the sweet notes of the fruits in the background.

Celestial Seasonings (http://www.celestialseasonings.com/products) tends to be the entry level brand for herbal tisanes, inexpensive and found in most supermarkets. Nevertheless, it's got quite a few very nice blends with interesting flavors.  Today I'm drinking their Tropic of Strawberry. Unfortunately, it's been discontinued (http://www.celestialseasonings.com/products/discontinued), but I have to praise its virtues even so.  It's got the bright flavor of strawberry with an unexpected aftertaste and aroma of coconut.  Every time I drink it I think of Hawaii.  It lacks the complexity and intensity of up-market brand strawberry tisanes, but if you manage to find yourself an unopened box somewhere, I recommend picking it up.

The other tropic-inspired herbal tea for the day is Republic of Tea's Key Lime Hibiscus (http://www.republicoftea.com/key-lime-hibiscus-tea/p/V00687/).  I have a very uneasy relationship with hibiscus-based tisanes.  Hibiscus teas are made from the sepals of the Hibiscus sabdariffa plant (also sometimes called a roselle).  Used with too heavy a hand, I find that hibiscus makes tisanes too sickly sweet.  In the case of the Key Lime Hibiscus blend, the tart, sharp taste of the lime cuts particularly well through the hibiscus, keeping the flavor from trending into the ranges I dislike.  It's another bright, sharp, sunny tea, excellent hot and superb iced.   A tiny bit of sweetener deepens the flavor.  I experimented by adding True Lime powder (http://www.truelemon.com/true-lime) when brewing the base for the iced tea, and it was wonderful for a lime-lover like me.

Tea tasting: Harney & Sons' Paris black tea

Harney & Sons' Paris black tea blend (https://www.harney.com/paris-tea.html) will appeal to anyone who likes Earl Grey.  It's quite aromatic, with a touch of oil of Bergamot in its blend.  But on top of the Bergamot are notes of vanilla and caramel, along with a sort of malty-fruity quality to the tea.  It is inherently sweet, but not overly so.

I happen to have received this tea in sachet form, instead of loose.  Fair warning that opening the sachet yields a very sugary, somewhat overdone aroma.  That quality is not reflected in the aroma or flavor of the tea.

This tea would be excellent for afternoons, and would go extremely well with baked goods.  In short, it's made for tea parties.