#Tea review series: Traditional teas from @roleaftea

And I'm back with my final instalment of the tea review!

The first one I started with was Rooibos the Robust, which hails from South Africa. 

Anna's review: I've had Rooibos before and find that there are varying strengths to this. I once had a whole pack of rather light sachets that I finished off quickly in college, and I've also had some really thick rooibos from when a friend visited South Africa, so I was thinking "Robust" must be really thick. Surprisingly not.

As the product description says: "Strength: Light." Not sure why it's called Robust then. 

How I would describe it to my mum: Hey, it says it's caffeine-free so you can drink it any time. Though I think you probably won't want to try because it still has a very 'tea' taste. 

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The next on the list is a rather common tea: Jasmine. The name on the pack they sent me says "Just Jasmine", but I can't find that specific name on the website. they've probably rebranded to either Dragon Pearl Jasmine or maybe Jasmine Luxury. Which ever it is, it's a very nice Jasmine tea. 

Anna's review: Very often you don't get Jasmine tea any more. You get Jasmine green tea which is very much green tea and not enough Jasmine. This... is very flowery Jasmine. Be careful of over-steeping though.

How I would describe it to my mum: Uh, it's Jasmine. Like what you get in pots in restaurants.

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The last tea is Imperial Long Jing. I was trying to figure out what tea this was from the name because neither my mum nor I had ever heard of it before. The production description, "variety of pan-roasted green tea from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China," didn't help very much, so I just drank it.

Anna's review & how I would describe it to my mum: We drank this together because we couldn't figure out what tea it was. Our conclusion was that this tasted like fancy Chinese tea from fancy expensive Chinese restaurants. It's pretty light, with a bit of a dry after taste and we still don't know what we would call it here.

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Again, super-duper thanks and much love to RoLeaf for these tea samples! Check them out at their website, facebook, twitter and instagram.

#Tea review series: Two peach teas from @roleaftea

I was pretty excited that I received the Pretty Peach White Tea because I love peach tea and had wanted to try it for a while now. There was this really lovely aroma that I just had to sit and bask in for a while when I opened the bag.

Anna's review: Okay, I'm probably biased already because it's peach tea, which is one of my all-time favourites. It's sweet enough to drink without sugar, though I personally feel that a teaspoon of sugar does help enhance the taste. However, because it's a white tea, it feels lighter in comparison to most other peach teas I have tried which use black tea.

How I would describe it to my mum: Uh, it's a fruit tea. No, it's NOT like iced peach tea that's made from the sachets and has too much sugar.

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My stash of teas for review also included Peach Green Sencha, which I have tried before. I remembered not really liking it because the green tea was often slightly bitter and too overpowering, but I decided to try it again anyway. Being smarter this time, I googled up the product page to check on brewing suggestions. Take note that the suggested brewing temperature for this is only 80° C. This is actually the same as for the other peach tea above, but the big difference is this: GREEN TEA TASTES TERRIBLE WHEN IT'S OVERCOOKED. Well, at least, to me.

Anna's review: Now that I allowed the water to cool a little before steeping the tea, the peach and the green tea taste seemed to balance out. The green tea was not too overpowering, allowing the sweetness of the peach to come as a nice after taste. I'll probably not be too crazy about it because green teas have never been a personal favourite, but it's not bad after all.

How I would describe it to my mum: A light green tea mixed with peach tea (again, not the super sweet iced one). I'm not very good at this, am I?

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Again, super-duper thanks and much love to RoLeaf for these tea samples! Check them out at their website, facebook, twitter and instagram.

Another 3 to go!

#Tea review series: 3 samples from @roleaftea

A couple of weeks ago, I received a batch teas for review from the RoLeaf.

Now that's kind of a lot to review at one go!

I'm an avid tea drinker but this is the first time I'm actually going to write reviews (What do I say? How do I describe them?) so I'm just going to put down my thoughts about the tea.
I'm also adding a section called "How I would describe this to my mum" where I compare the tea to more common teas (because she always asks "what does it taste like?")

Here's my review of the first 3 teas that I sampled at random:

I started off with the Osmanthus Fragrans, mainly because it smelled really nice. And because I was feeling fancy that night, I decided to make it in a fancy cup and take a photo. (I normally just use ginormous mugs, but figured that this one needed some special treatment.)

Anna's review: This is a very beautiful, light, flowery tea, naturally sweet to the taste. And yes, I drank it at night. It's an herbal tea so it probably doesn't have any caffeine, I think, not that it would personally affect me. I'm not a big herbal person, but I kinda liked it.

How I would describe it to my mum: Something like chamomile but sweet. Maybe something like chamomile and chrysanthemum together.

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The next tea I chose was Choju Hojicha, mainly because I wanted something light and this one didn't have a very strong smell.

Anna's review: It put me in mind of roasted rice/nuts and I thought it might have been a Korean tea, but when I looked it up, it's actually a Japanese roasted green tea. (I apparently can't tell from the name. Haha!) I would definitely buy this if I were looking for something in the Oriental/Chinese-type tea range.

How I would describe it to my mum: Like the watery free flow tea they served in that Korean shop in Prima Tanjung (that's now closed down), only thicker and "roasty-er" tasting.

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The last one I picked for this review was Chava Chai. I'm normally wary of chai, because it uses a lot of spices that I hate so I really wasn't sure if I wanted to drink this. Then again, it smelled okay (as you can tell, I go by smell a lot when it comes to tea).

Anna's review: I found it to be a thick and rich black tea, but surprisingly neutral (i.e. no overwhelming spice taste). I initially thought I might have over-brewed it because it was thick and bitter-ish, but I checked the brewing time and temperature of 4-5 mins and 100° C, which was kind of the range I made it at, so I suppose that's how it's supposed to taste. Tried it a second time, just in case. This time it wasn't as thick (made sure to take the tea bag out after 5 mins), but there was still a bitterish, strangish after taste that I didn't quite like. I guess this wasn't really my cup of tea.

How I would describe it to my mum: Normal black tea with a bitter taste at the end probably from the weird cinnamon, cardamom, ginger things. You might like it if you like those kind of stuff.

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A huge thanks to RoLeaf for the wonderful tea samples! Check them out at their website, facebook, twitter and instagram.

Check back next week for more tea reviews!