Harney & Sons Royal Palace Tea

Having finished off some boxes/tins of existing tea, I was able to crack open my tin of Harney & Sons' Royal Palace Tea today.  It's a solidly good, but not amazing, blend of black tea with lemon and grapefruit notes.  (No bergamot, which is good because I'm still recovering from my last unfortunate run-in with bergamot earlier this week.)

The lemon flavor isn't too heavy and the grapefruit tone makes a nice change from the usual citrus teas.  Even when I accidentally over-steeped (15 minutes!)  a cup, the tea didn't become bitter and the citrus flavors didn't become overly sweet or cloying.  That's a sign of good quality blending.  This tea will appeal to people who like the "Lady Grey" blends.  It doesn't blow my doors off, but it's a fine quality tea worth drinking.

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.

Guest Review: Republic of Tea Downton Abbey Estate blend

A guest review from Erika M.!  Many thanks to her for this!

With the release of the movie in 2019 came a new round of Downton Abbey teas from Republic of Tea, now famous among Downton fans for their character based blends.  (Note from Alys -  I love their English Rose blend and reviewed it here: https://alysteaparty.blogspot.com/2014/03/tea-tasting-republic-of-teas-downton.html)

Downtown Abbey Estate Blend features the Dowager Countess taking tea on the lawn on the label and names itself for the great estate itself. 

My usual method for drinking Earl Grey is with a little sugar and milk. This holds up beautifully to that treatment. The tea brews nicely from its signature round stringless teabag. It is light for an Earl Grey, and lighter on the bergamot than some in favor of a strong warm vanilla, but the bergamot is there, don’t worry. 

My first exposure to Earl Grey (that I liked) was in Ireland- drinking a cuppa very quickly as we got ready to leave each day on an outing. It was wonderful, and this tea brought me directly back across the pond. 

I would absolutely recommend this blend to all lovers of Earl Grey! I was afraid it was only available during the days of the traveling exhibit, but I am thrilled to find it is available on their website. 

For Alys's opinion of the same tea (albeit from 2016) see https://alysteaparty.blogspot.com/2016/03/tea-tasting-republic-of-teas-downton.html

Harney & Sons' Bangkok Tea

Harney & Sons' Bangkok tea was previously sold under the name "Green Tea with Coconut, Ginger & Vanilla."  I'm not sure why they went with the less descriptive name except to save ink.  As it used to say on the tin, it's green tea with flavors of coconut, ginger and vanilla.  Coconut is the most prominent flavor and aroma, so if you are anti-coconut, this tea is not for you.

I happen to be pro-coconut, so this tea works for me on multiple levels.  The vanilla and the coconut work nicely together, without taking on an artificial "creamy" mouth feel (I'm looking at you, David's Teas).  The ginger is very much in the background.   Apparently there's lemongrass in here somewhere, but I didn't taste it.

I like this tea a great deal.  It's tasty and warm and pairs great with Chinese or Thai food (no surprise, since that's the cuisine that inspired the tea).