Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
This tea is available from Amoda Tea.
Tea Description:
“Gunpowder” green is a smooth, full-bodied tea that’s perfect for winter. Blended with a surprising ingredient list, we hope you’re curious to try this out! The vanilla cream is a perfect complement to the smoky gunpowder green & its natural nuttiness is accentuated with hazelnuts. “Peared” up with fruit and cinnamon, this is a really tasty blend.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda Tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Mmm! This Hazelnut Pear Green Tea from Petali Teas is really good. Then again, I have found that I can count on Amoda to choose some pretty tasty teas for me in their monthly subscription box. Occasionally, I might find myself a wee bit disappointed with something, but for the most part, the Amoda boxes are a big WIN for me.
I was very intrigued with this tea right from the start. The idea of pear and hazelnut together sparked my interest. It sounds yummy and very Pacific Northwest-ish. It sounds like a great big cup of yum.
And that’s what it is. The base of this tea is a Gunpowder green tea and it’s a nice choice for this blend. The green tea is earthy, a little nutty and has a hint of smokiness to it. It’s not really a vegetative tasting tea although there’s a certain ‘freshness’ to the flavor that plays well to the flavor of the pear. It has a soft texture and it’s not an overly astringent tea. It’s really quite nice.
And it melds well with every aspect of this tea: the nutty flavors and the hint of smoke enhance the hazelnut flavor. The earthiness melds with the earthy notes of the spices, which are warm but do not overpower this blend. Instead, they add an accent to the main flavors of hazelnut and pear.
I don’t taste a lot of ‘apple’ in this, I suspect the reason for the apple pieces in this blend is to look ‘pear-like’ because dried pear is a bit more difficult to come by than dried apple. I also don’t taste a lot from the orange, but it does add a hint of brightness to the cup. There is no real obvious note of orange, but you can tell that it’s there, perking up the flavors.
A really nice tea. I’ve enjoyed the teas that I’ve tasted from Petali Teas in the various Amoda Boxes that they’ve been featured in – I’m glad that this is a company that Amoda Tea has chosen to feature regularly!
White Pear Tea from Simple Loose Leaf
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Learn more about Simple Loose Leaf here.
Tea Description:
Premium white tea from Fujian region of China infused with the taste of ripe pears. Warm and sugary aroma, like a freshly baked pear, with a pear skin crisp finish. Wonderfully smooth and rounded, perfect hot or iced.
Ingredients: White Tea, Apple Pieces, Natural Pear Flavor
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about Simple Loose Leaf’s Co-Op program here.
Taster’s Review:
Recently, Simple Loose Leaf announced some changes to their program. This month’s teas will be the last of the “Selection Club” teas and next month is their flagship month of their new (and improved!) Co-Op program/membership.
How this plan will work (or at least, how I’ve been made to understand that it will work!) is this:
- Every month, you receive a box of samples of the latest teas that have been added to the Simple Loose Leaf store. Each monthly box will contain somewhere between 4 – 6 teas and these will be sample size (1/4 of an ounce. I like that size!)
- If you like what you taste, you can shop with Simple Loose Leaf to receive a full-sized package of the tea at a 50% discount off of Simple Loose Leaf’s regular retail prices. (That is to say that all your purchases outside of the sampler box each month will be sold to members at a 50% discount! I like that!)
- The membership price is $15/month and you can cancel at any time. There’s no contract or requirement outside of the $15/month. No annual fees. (Hey, that’s better than the deal I’ve got going with my cell phone! And I like tea better than I like my cell phone.)
- You can also buy gift memberships. (Nice gift!)
- To join or learn more, click here.
I’m personally really excited at this new plan because I’m a taster. I like the new sampler size of the teas that will be sent each month as part of the subscription.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I loved their Selection Club, and this month’s Selection Club box was filled with many exciting tea selections. Like this White Pear Tea. It’s awesome!
By the appearance of the dry leaf, I would speculate that the base used for this tea is a Shou Mei base. The leaf looks like other Shou Mei teas that I’ve had and among the tea leaves are chunks of dried apple.
Why dried apple? Well, I don’t know for sure but here’s what I think (and my opinion is based on my experiences that I’ve had as a tea blender): the dried fruit that is added to a tea like this adds relatively little flavor to the brewed tea and basically the purpose of the dried fruit is not to “flavor” the tea but to add some visual appeal to it. And dried apple is much easier to find than dried pear and apple and pear look very much alike. In my experiences with blending teas, dried apple adds very little to the overall flavor of the brewed tea. It might add a delicate sweetness to the cup but not a lot of true apple flavor.
To brew this tea, I grabbed my Kati brewing system and scooped out a heaping bamboo scoop into the basket of the Kati and then I added just a wee bit more tea leaf. Not quite a half a scoop … not even quite a fourth of a scoop. Just a wee bit. Then I heated the water to a low temperature (170°F) and poured the water into the tumbler and let the tea steep for 4 minutes.
The brewed liquid has a really delightful aroma. It smells like warm pear with delicate notes of white tea. It’s a sweet, fruity and really quite delicious fragrance!
The flavor tastes as good as the aroma! The white tea is a delicate flavor: sweet and hay-like. It’s smooth, not bitter and if there’s any astringency to this, I’m having a hard time finding it! Maybe a twinge or two of pucker in my cheeks at the very end of the sip. It’s a very flavorful white tea.
The pear is also quite flavorful and I’m happy to say that it has an authentic pear-like flavor. It reminds me of the flavor of a baked or poached pear (not the spice part but the sweet, soft part of the fruit).
Having tried quite a few pear teas in the past and occasionally being disappointed by the pear flavoring, I am happy to say that this has a really amazing pear flavor. If you’re looking for a really good pear tea – this is it!
Cinnamon Pear Flavored Black Tea from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Sweet, juicy pear paired (pun totally intended) with some warm cinnamon and premium black teas. This is a delicious tea–hot or iced. With premium black teas, freeze-dried pear pieces, cinnamon chips and organic pear and cinnamon flavors.
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
Of the teas that I received in my last shipment from 52Teas, this was the one I looked forward to most. I absolutely love pear but pear flavored teas are not as easy to find as other fruit flavors and I suspect that this is because pear flavor is difficult to nail when it comes to flavoring teas. I know this from first hand experience. One of the teas that I offered as a tea blender/artist is a green pear tea and it was awesome but it took me about six months to get the flavors just right and to liking.
So when I encounter a new pear blend, I ‘m always interested in trying it to see how it turns out. I’ve tried several different pear blends and some have been more successful than others and in my experience as a tea blogger, I have found that the key is to find the right complement to the pear to accentuate the flavor of the fruit. Because if you think about it, the pear is a rather delicate tasting fruit. When 52Teas announced this tea for the week of August 25th, I wondered if cinnamon would be the right complement for my beloved pear.
I brewed this in my Kati tea tumber. Whenever I’m steeping a tea with some spice, I like to use either a small teapot or my tea tumbler because I find that the spices seem to embed themselves into my Breville tea maker when I steep a spiced tea in it and the only thing that can get those spices out of the tea maker is to run a brew cycle with just water and baking soda. This works, but I’d rather not have to do this every time I brew a tea with spices in it. It’s just easier to grab this tumbler or a small teapot to do the job.
I used one bamboo scoop of tea in the tumbler’s basket and poured water heated to 205°F into the cup until full (about 12 ounces, I think). Then I steeped the tea for 3 minutes.
Hmm … well, I can taste the pear, but it isn’t as pear-like as I would like it to be. While the tea is still fresh from the teapot hot, the pear notes are nearly indistinguishable. After allowing the tea cool to a drinkable temperature (about 4 minutes or so), I find that the pear flavor emerges a little bit. The more it cools, the more the pear emerges, but even as I near the end of the cup, I think that this tea is more cinnamon and black tea than it is pear anything. The pear is quite delicate. Even when slurped to aerate the liquid on the palate, the pear is not quite as pear-y as I want from a pear tea, and what pear I do taste is a little on the artificial side.
The black tea is a pleasant enough black tea base. It has a brisk taste and it’s an invigorating tea. It’s a bit on the astringent side and if you oversteep this, I suspect it can become bitter (so don’t do that!) The cinnamon is warm and flavorful, not a candied cinnamon red-hot type flavor, but a warm cinnamon-y note like something I’d sprinkle on my toast in the morning. Flavorful and once the tea has cooled to the point where it’s more like iced tea than hot tea, I find that the cinnamon is an enjoyable accompaniment to the pear notes.
And this does taste better iced than it does hot. When it’s hot … what can I say? Not my favorite pear tea. It’s alright but not something that I’m cheering about or gushing with praise for. But then, I did preface this review by saying that pear flavoring is difficult to nail when it comes to pear flavored teas. The way the tea melds with the tea base and other components really becomes paramount because the tea base and/or components can alter the flavor of the pear and make it taste less like pear.
But, it does taste better as it cools, so I think I’ll be using the rest of my pouch for iced tea. (It’s actually quite tasty iced and that fake-y taste is not there when this is chilled.)
Li Shan Black Tea from Green Terrace Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Green Terrace Teas
Tea Description:
Our founder’s favorite tea – this is a rare and unique cultivar available only in Taiwan. Grown at elevations of over 2,000 meters, our spring harvest is both exquisite and complex in character. Non-astringent and mildly sweet, this black tea has floral and fruity undertones with notes of plum and honey. Its aroma of sweet, ripe fruit is strong and noticeable instantly after the leaves come in contact with hot water. If you’ve never had a quality black tea before, this variety is a must try. Best brewed with multiple, short infusions.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh my goodness, this is so amazingly good.
Once upon a time, I was introduced to one of the most amazing black teas I had ever tasted. It was called Dawn by Simple Leaf. Since that time, Simple Leaf has closed. Sadness! But since that time, I have found a few teas that stack up to that amazing black tea. This is one such tea. This tea … is just as good – if not better, than I remember Dawn tasting!
It’s SWEET, rich and chocolate-y. Background notes of sweet stone fruit. A honey-caramel sweetness to this as well as the sweet fruit and flower notes that fill out the background. As I continue to sip, I notice more of the fruit and floral notes emerging, and the chocolate-y notes seem to back off just a bit to allow the other flavors to be discovered. I notice some of the “berry-esque” notes that I would taste if I were eating a high quality dark chocolate.
This is well-rounded and even though it coats the palate with delicious flavors, it isn’t a heavy tea. My palate doesn’t feel overwhelmed after I’ve had a sip. The aftertaste is lightly sweet.
I used boiling water to infuse this tea, using about 1 1/2 teaspoons of leaf for 12 ounces of water, and steeped the tea for 3 minutes. This produced a remarkably satisfying cup. Smooth, rich, and invigorating.
A truly wonderful tea! I’ve enjoyed all the teas that I’ve tried from Green Terrace Teas thus far – but this … this is my favorite. This is one that everyone should try, especially if you find yourself missing Dawn or if you never had the opportunity to try Dawn! Put this on your shopping list right now!
On The First Day of Christmas, Della Terra Teas Sent To Me …
Wow! Can you believe that it’s already December 14th, people? Well, every year, I do a 12 days of Christmas Teas countdown, and this year, I’m not just doing one countdown … but two! However, my second countdown will start a little late because … I haven’t yet received that package! Hopefully it will arrive sometime today so that I will only be behind by one day. Who knows, maybe I’ll do the second 12 Days of Christmas batch starting on Christmas Day … and continue through the 11 days that follow.
Isn’t it cute!
In the meantime, it’s time to get my Della Terra Teas 12 Days of Christmas Tea countdown started! The box arrived wrapped in brown paper, and when I tore away the paper, I saw the beautiful box! I love the packaging that Della Terra Teas uses for their countdown – it’s a gift in itself.
Inside the box is an array of twelve festive “goody” bags tied off with tags to indicate which day the bag is for, and inside each bag is the secret tea of the day. Today’s tea is:
Spiced Pear
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Della Terra Teas
Tea Description:
On the first day of Christmas something delicious was given to me, and that was a Spiced Pear tea!
On this first day of your 12 Days of Christmas, please sit back and enjoy a cup of this delightful, spiced pear tea that is exclusive to the sets of twelve! What a way to start!
Taster’s Review:
Last Year’s “first day of Christmas Tea” was also a pear tea, but, I was certainly not disappointed to find another pear tea as this year’s first tea. I love pear teas! And I was especially happy to see that this is one of the exclusive to the holiday countdown box teas – I LOVE that Della Terra Teas does this! It might not seem like a big deal but it makes the whole countdown box seem that much more special when there’s exclusive teas in it, you know?
Ahhh … this Spiced Pear Tea from Della Terra Teas is nice! When the tea first finished brewing, it looked a little “light” in color in my glass teapot. I was worried that it wasn’t going to be flavorful enough. But it’s just right. I can taste the sweet pear notes, the spice tones and the black tea in the background. It’s a nicely rounded tea.
The pear flavor is strong here and as has often been my complaint when it comes to pear teas, there is often just not enough pear flavor to satisfy me! I love pears, but because it is kind of a delicate tasting fruit it is sometimes difficult for the right flavor to be captured in a tea, especially one with a black tea base like this.
So, now that I think about it, perhaps it was a good thing that the tea looked a bit light in color, a stronger, more robustly flavored tea would have overpowered the softer pear tones. As it is, there is a nice balance between black tea and pear.
And then there is the spice. It’s a gently spiced tea, just enough to add some warmth to the cup without dominating the taste buds with a powerful spice flavor.
This is a very soothing tea to sip … it’s very nice on these cold winter days, and a really delightful tea to start off the 12 Days of Christmas! YUM!