Teadrops' Rose Earl Grey

A wonderful friend[1] send me some packages from teadrops.com   The site describes its product thusly:

Tea Drops are organic, pressed teas that dissolve in hot water. Think a bath bomb, but it's tea and 20% less waste than a tea bag. Tea Drops are made with actual tea leaves, spices, and lightly sweetened with organic cane sugar.

I am . . . dubious about the concept.  I am concerned that I'm looking at slightly dressed up powdered iced tea mix circa 1977.  But hey, it could work.

Today, I tried the Rose Earl Grey and, unfortunately, I must report total and utter tea fail.  It can best be described as drinking hot potpourri, or what I imagine it would feel like if an entire aisle of Bath & Body Works invaded my mouth.  The bergamot is too far heavy, the rose is too chemically, and the sweetening is overpowering.   "Lightly sweetened" my ass.   Plus, this tea brew is grainy.  I've consumed a fair number of tea leaves in my tea-drinking life, but grainy tea?  It's not supposed to be grainy.

I now have half a cup of this dreck on my desk and I'm wondering what to do with it.

Hmmm. I wonder how it would taste if I cut this hot mess 50/50 with unsweetened strong back tea.

A few minutes later:  mixing the teadrop brew 50/50 with very strong black tea (Twinings Darjeeling) makes the whole thing drinkable.  It dials down both the sweetness and the overwhelming bergamot.  The rose tones are still too artificial for me.  However, it's drinkable enough that if there are any more these drops in the box, I know how to make them acceptable caffeine delivery devices.

If you like sweet tea, this "teadrop" is going to work so much better for you than it did for me.  Fundamentally, I want my tea to taste primarily like tea.  This didn't.

June 1, 2020:  A mix of the teadrop plus 2 plain black tea bags plus 1300 ml of water makes a very acceptable iced tea blend.



[1]  The awfulness of this tea is in no way a reflection on the wonderfulness of the person who sent it to me.  She's great.

Harney & Sons' Boston blend

The Boston blend is one of Harney & Sons' newer teas.  I'm pleased to report that it's excellent.

This is a caffeinated black tea with flavors of cranberry, almond and vanilla.  When brewed, the aroma is vanilla and almond and tea.  But the flavor puts all of these individual elements together into a very interesting, tasteful whole.  It's got a bare hint of smokiness and a taste that somehow manages to read in my mouth as "wood-paneled library with antique leather couches."  If Harvard or Trinity Church had a taste, it would be this.[1]

OK, so what does this really mean?  It means that, if I swish the tea around my mouth a bit, I can find the distinct notes of cranberry and vanilla.  The almond is in there somewhere but it seems to be bolstering up the other flavors rather than raising its own flag.  It's definitely not a sweet or fruity tea.

I really like it quite a lot and I'll be buying more when my sample runs out.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go listen to The Cars[2] for a while.




[1] As a Harvard Law grad, I highly recommend *against* licking anything at Harvard to see how it tastes.  Up to and including professors.  I was only in Trinity Church twice during all my time in Boston -- I can't say if they're more open to being licked.

[2]  Yes, they're from Boston. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cars)  And I like them way more than Aerosmith.

Tea Forte treats its customers right

As my readers know, I was none too fond of Tea Forte's Black Cherry tea and I posted my negative review to their website.

Yesterday I was e-mailed by Hizkia Larranaga, a "Customer Experience" person at Tea Forte, with the following message:

We are so sorry to hear you did not enjoy our Black Cherry blend. We will be more than happy to send you a Loose Tea Canister of a different blend that you would like to try, or if you prefer we can refund the amount for the item.

I wrote back saying that a refund or replacement was not necessary because I'd only gotten 3 single serving pouches of the Black Cherry in a sampler pack through Amazon.  I assured them that every other tea I've gotten through Tea Forte (including everything else in that sampler pack) has been excellent, so I am not about to stop buying their product.  (Plus, I drink weird teas that I don't necessarily like all the time because of this blog.)

Today, Tea Forte gave me a $10 credit on my account anyway.

So, to Tea Forte and Hizkia Larranaga I say a heartfelt "thank you."  Your customer service has always been great to me and this exchange reinforces my positive impression.

Tea Forte's Mountain Oolong

Tea Forte's Mountain Oolong tea is a nice, light and fruity oolong, very fitting for spring.  The aroma of the leaves before brewing is quite pleasant - a little orange, a little peach, a little tea -- and makes for a nice surprise out of the tin/bag.  The tea also does not disappoint.  It's bright and just a little fruity, without losing the underlying taste of tea.  The peach and orange elements play together well.   It reminds me a little of the "Lady Grey" type teas, where they dial back the bergamot from the standard Earl Grey blends, but the fruit elements aren't as strong as even that.  I wouldn't want to add anything to this.  It's balanced just right and sweetening it would kill it.

If you like Adagio's Peach Ooolong, you'll probably like this, although it's not as strongly peach as the Adagio one.