Tea tasting: Teavana's Blackberry Mojito Green

+Murray Blehart  and +Christine Dalessio  gave me a lovely Christmas present: a bag of Teavana's Blackberry Mojito Green tea (http://www.teavana.com/the-teas/green-teas/p/blackberry-mojito-green-tea).

The tea in the bag has a very odd smell. It's sort of like dried fruit compote with something unidentifiable underneath.   Once brewed, the tea itself takes on the fruit compote aroma, without that weird undertone.

The initial taste is fruity as well -- clearly blackberry, with a hint of strawberry.  But then there's this sort of fizzy minty bite at the end.  It's not unpleasant, just decidedly odd.   With a name like Blackberry Mojito, I was expecting a minty tea with a hint of fruit, not a fruit tea with a hint of mint.

Adding honey kills off all but the faintest aftertaste of mint, by the way.

After a little bit of experimentation, I have found THE perfect use for this tea: it is made to be iced.  The addition of a little bit of lime brings out the mint somewhat more, and hey presto, it now actually does remind me of a mojito.

Tea tasting: Adagio's Assam Harmony

Assam tea is so named because it is grown and harvested in and around Assam, India.

I love a good Assam.  It's pure, unadulterated tea.  It's stronger and deeper than the usual run of the mill black tea, sometimes with malty tones and sometimes not.   When I think of "tea," this is the taste I imagine.

Adagio's Assam Harmony (https://www.adagio.com/black/assam_harmony.html) is a good Assam.  It's smooth and full-bodied with the nice palate-clearing bite of black tea.  Some of the reviews on Adagio's website identify undertones of raisin or caramel or malt, but I don't taste any of those.  I just taste pure strong black tea.   There's no bitterness, as you get with cheap blacks.  I love the taste of this tea as tea, but it's got enough depth to stand up to the common practice of adding milk and sugar without losing character.

Taken iced, it's a bracing, refreshing drink.  Again, I like the taste of the tea in itself, so I don't sweeten it at all.  Assam iced tea is excellent with a twist of lime and crushed mint, though.

Tea tasting: David's Teas' Mother's Little Helper

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas, joyful Yule, happy Solstice, pleasant Kwanzaa, auspicious Saturnalia, etc.

As an antidote to holiday frenzy, the choice for today's tea is one intended for relaxation:  David's Teas' Mother's Little Helper (http://www.davidstea.com/organic-mother-s-little-helper?&TF=7DC6367FC0E7&DEID=), a tisane of peppermint, lemongrass, rosehips, hibiscus, chamomile flowers, valerian root, and cornflowers.   It has a fresh, grassy smell with the peppermint and chamomile notes being most notable in the aroma.  Peppermint dominates the initial taste of the tea, before shifting to a crisp, clean, grassy finish.  It says refreshing to me, but not relaxing.  There's only a hint of sweetness, arriving at the end of the flavor.  Someone who likes tea sweet would have to add sweetener.

Ultimately, the tea is soothing and refreshing, but not particularly relaxing to me.  Although if the valerian kicks in soon, that opinion may change.

Tea tasting: Adagio Christmas Tea

For the past several days, I have been savoring Adagio's Christmas tea (https://www.adagio.com/flavors/christmas.html).  Like most blends labeled "Christmas teas," this is a blend of black tea, orange, cinnamon and cloves, sometimes with other things sometimes not.  

Adagio's Christmas tea strikes a balance among the flavors that I particularly like.  The clove is the most noticeable; it's a spicy, zingy note.  The orange and cinnamon are background tastes that follow up on the clove, with the cinnamon hitting more strongly than the orange.  Adding honey brings the orange to the fore somewhat more.

For the record, this tea also works very nicely as a hot drink with a shot of spiced rum.  I've also blended it with hot spiced cider to good effect.
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Bad tea

Last night I had the great misfortune of drinking bad tea.   It billed itself as a "passion fruit" herbal tea from a brand I had never heard of, and hope never to encounter again.  It was cloying, overly tart and smelled like an explosion in a cheap potpourri factory.   It probably could have been salvaged by diluting it with juice or fruited water and icing it, but it's hard to experiment when you're in a restaurant.

This unfortunate taste experience got me thinking: What's the worst tea you've ever had?

For me, hands down it is the over-steeped Lipton knock-off brand served in diners along the Garden State Parkway.  It manages to be bitter, acidic and unpleasant in so many different ways.

Tea tasting: Tea Forté White Ginger Pear

The White Ginger Pear from Tea Forté (http://www.teaforte.com/store/gourmet-tea/white-tea/white-ginger-pear/) is one of my favorite evening teas.  It's very hard to describe the flavor of this tea.  That's not a criticism because the flavor is really quite good.

The first word that comes to mind when I drink this tea is golden.  It tastes golden.  It starts off a little grassy and then follows up with a delightful sweetness.  It's got the feeling of pear without tasting precisely like a pear.  It's a rich, warm, soothing dessert tea.  I wouldn't want to add anything to its natural sweetness.

Tea Forté advertises this tea as suitable for making iced tea.  (http://www.teaforte.com/store/gourmet-tea/white-tea/iced-white-ginger-pear/).  I don't agree.  The flavors are too delicate and require warmth to find their fullest expression.  They advise a 5-minute steeping time for iced tea, as opposed to the 2-4 minutes for hot tea; maybe that makes all the difference.

The White Ginger Pear goes really well with both yesterday's gingerbread recipe and the Russian Tea Cake cookies I posted a while ago.

Tea treats: Gingerbread

My house currently smells of gingerbread, which is the best thing about this time of year.  This recipe is for a dense cake-like gingerbread, not for thin cookies (although I have one for that too).  It is another entry from my mother's Big Green Book of recipes whose origins are lost to time.

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup molasses
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Grease one 9-inch square cake pan, then sprinkle the pan with flour.

In a large bowl, with mixer at low speed, combine well all of the ingredients.  Once combined, beat at medium speed for 3 minutes.

Pour gingerbread batter into greased and floured cake pan.

Bake 55 to 60 minutes until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.