Flower of Hawaii Black from Tea Gschwendner

FlowerofHawaiiTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black

Where to Buy:  Tea Gschwendner

Tea Description:

Mouth-watering pineapple and succulent apricot bloom into a sweet reminder of the Islands. Mahalo.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

So this was a blind tasting; meaning I didn’t look up anything about this tea prior to trying it. However, I definitely had major expectations for pineapple – even though I didn’t see anything but somewhat non-descript candied fruit pieces in the dry leaf whenever you hear “Hawaii” in a teas name pineapple is pretty well always the ‘go to’ assumption, am I right? Also, this was a cold brew because it definitely smelled very fruity and tropical and those are definitely the kind of flavours that lend themselves well to drinking cold.

Pineapple actually is the first flavour I taste; a very tropical, sweet pineapple without a lot of natural tang to it. I’m a pineapple fiend, so of course I’m craving much more pineapple flavor though the level it’s at is pretty good given it’s the more dominant flavor. It’s accompanied by a secondary fruit flavour but I’m struggling to identify it. It’s definitely not as distinct as the pineapple is. Mango maybe? The flavor of the base is about even to the flavour of the fruit. Overall this is a relatively juicy and very summery, but other wise not overly complex or nuanced. I think I’d appreciate a few more ingredients to add some more layers to the flavour. Dare I say it, coconut would probably go well or something floral like rose.

Also, since finishing I’ve looked up the ingredients and the secondary fruit flavor was apricot – looking back in hindsight I really don’t think that it tasted anything like apricot and I’m definitely sticking with my impression that the fruit notes were much more similar to a, perhaps over ripe, mango.

Apart from not being terribly spot on with the apricot flavouring, this is a pretty solid blend!

 

Windy City Blend from TeaGschwendner

WindyCityTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black, Green & Oolong

Where to Buy: TeaGschwendner

Tea Description:

What a gentle treat for the body and soul! A delicious whirlwind of flavor composed of seven sweet teas.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

Thanks to my tea friend Sil for sending some of this my way!

I cold brewed my sample; it’s been absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous here in Saskatchewan lately (Spring has arrived!) so I’m not making hot tea for my commute to work anymore – which means I’ve had to be a little bit creative with what I’m picking out for cold brews. It’s resulted in some surprisingly great brews though! Since this tea is a jumble of different types, part of me was also relieved about not having to figure out what temperature to brew this one at hot.

This was a very weird tea; there’s certainly a lot going on with it. I tried it semi blindly; I hadn’t looked it up before hand to see what the ingredients were but I had seen reviews on it so I knew to somewhat expect strawberry and caramel notes. Otherwise, I had no prior knowledge going in.

My experience was that the oolong stood out the most of all the teas mixed in here; and then the black tea – didn’t really pick up anything particularly like green tea. Perhaps the little bit of nuttyness at the front of the sip? But that note could be attributed to the other base teas as well; it’s all very open ended. In addition to some nuttyness, I noticed a fair bit of toastier notes and mineral notes at the start of the sip; this is partially what made the oolong stick out a little more for me.

This transitioned into the body of the tea, which had a sort of ‘medium’ sweetness and richness to it; definitely the caramel. While this flavour was strongest in the middle of the sip, it was still present all throughout. The finish is where the strawberry kicked in for me; though I found it more of a soft, generic red berry sort of flavour and a lot less distinctly like strawberry.

Now that I’ve looked up the tea I see there are also some floral ingredients. I don’t recall pinpointing anything distinctly floral at all – but it is possible (though perhaps a bit of a stretch) that the presence of these flavours, if there at all, were just kind of smooshed in with the flavour of the oolong for me. With all that was going on with this tea I think it’d be perfectly reasonable for me to have missed them again.

I would totally drink this again; the impression I got is that this is definitely one of those teas that gets better the more you drink it. Depending on the outcome of trying it a few more times and seeing what flavours are more consistent, I think it could be a unique addition to a person’s tea stash!