Nature's Tea Leaf

Thank you out to NaturesTeaLeaf for a sample of this for review! Very generous amount too, so I made a pot’s worth for this tasting!

Silver Needle white tea, hmmm. I don’t drink too many unflavored white teas, but I have a couple in my tea stash. Ones I do have I find kinda flat with not much flavor. Let’s see how this tea does.

DRY LEAF: Fresh earthy smell. Very light weight tea. The leaves were kinda fuzzy /petpet

STEEPED: Smells slightly sweet and fruity with a hint of earthyness. Nice pale yellow gold tea.

TASTE: Sweet and rich! The sweetness flavoring reminds me of golden raisins almost as it has a warm, fruity, gold sweetness to it. This tea is full of flavor but light. Very refreshing and pure tasting.

COMMENTS: Very good, I enjoyed how much flavor is in this tea – I didn’t know white tea packed this much taste on its own! I should really explore into the unflavored white teas some more.

I’m amazed at how much this SMELLED like actual Cider! It was spot-on! Awesomely juicy, spicy, festive blend of flavors! Once infusion was complete – the aroma died down a bit – but it was still a gentle yet true cider aroma. The color of the tea-liquid was that of a weaker-black but the taste was great!

The apple flavors were PERFECT here! The spices were ‘just right’ and this cup was VERY true to it’s name and quite enjoyable. Very tasty! Satisfying! Natural tasting! I have to say…I really REALLY like this! Nice home-run!

This is certainly a rainbow of a blend! Wow, ten ingredients. I think it matters what ingredients you get in your infuser as to what this tastes like, since there are so many big flowers here. I tried to pack my infuser as much as possible. My steep color is a light green, though apparently it is supposed to be amber? The first taste I get is mint. I think there is a hint of the rosemary and lemon but it’s really a fresh and clean flavor. I’m not getting any of the flavor of any of the flowers or the pu-erh but maybe with so many flavors they are combining into one unique flavor! It seems to me like most teas would be “slimming” since you are drinking tea and not something with calories, but I like that this has a ton of other health benefits too. I’ll be trying this again since it seems every cup of this would be different (three of these flowers, four of these flowers… that sort of thing.) Thanks so much for the samples, Nature’s Tea Leaf!

Naturestealeaf.com sent me a coupon code for anyone to use for 10% off before 10/31: STEEPTY10OFF

Not bad, not bad. I don’t like hibiscus, as I’ve mentioned many times, but, when it’s not brewed too long it doesn’t taste bad at all. And because I only steep green teas about 2 minutes (which is exactly how long I brewed this) the hibiscus didn’t have enough time to get too tart or syrupy. It adds a nice berry-like tartness to the cup which melds nicely with the orange notes.

Overall, it’s pretty good. It’s got a sweet and sour thing going on, with the tart notes most noticeable near the tail end of the sip and in to the after taste, while the sweeter notes are up front.

An interesting cuppa.

This is the first iced tea I’ve made! Basically because Nature’s Tea Leaf was kind enough to send me samples and this one is supposed to be iced. I just brewed it normally and stuck in the fridge for a while. That probably wasn’t the right way to do it! But it seems like I wouldn’t get much flavor if I just steep a tea with cold water. I love the rosemary in this one! It’s very savory and reminded me of Thanksgiving or something! Otherwise, it was very bitter. I’m not sure from what… maybe the lemon? Ginger isn’t really my thing either. I know what the white peony tea should taste like, since I’ve had Teavivre’s, but I couldn’t tell this was a white peony tea upon tasting it.

I decided to also try it as a hot tea with fresh leaves, since I might not be giving it a fair review as an iced tea. I like it better hot! It isn’t bitter at all, like it was when it was cold. The rosemary tasted better (or stronger?) in the iced tea, but while sipping it hot, it was like I was drinking soup! Fun. That’s not something that usually happens when I’m drinking a tea! I’d say the rosemary is the strongest flavor here. This tea is okay, the rosemary definitely helps it, but again, I might not be brewing it right.

Naturestealeaf.com sent me this coupon to share with anyone on Steepster for 10% off an order before 10/31: STEEPTY10OFF

I do love all the natural flavorings in Nature’s Tea Leaf’s teas. Not “natural flavors” but: my cinnamon oolong has big chunks of cinnamon bark in with the oolong tea – and that’s all. Using dried herbs, fruits, and flowers makes the flavors more real, but also often makes them blend better in my experience.

This is a green oolong, which I generally find buttery and floral, but a pretty light one. There’s a lot of cinnamon in the aroma, but the taste is well-balanced and, yes, buttery. therefore it reminds me of cinnamon rolls :D It’s not like eating a cinnamon roll – not sweet enough, also liquid – but it’s intensely reminiscent of one.

there’s a little bit of astringency or dryness when drinking – not enough to be unpleasant, rather it gives the tea some heft and character. There’s a lovely lingering aftertaste that has some of those floral notes I was expecting, and that were subdued in the scent and drinking taste.

ETA: On a second steep the cinnamon is less pronounced, but still present and adding a pleasant sweet/spicy richness to the oolong.

Very enjoyable! Unique and highly recommended

2tsp leaf to 8oz water, as recommended

I cold-brewed this, probably for ~8-10 hours, instead of steeping hot and pouring over ice as it says on the pouch. Sadly I don’t have the capability to create ice!
Thanks to Nature’s Tea Leaf for the sample of this!

It’s okay. I’m not a big ginger person, so that’s a bit of a negative for me. I get some of the orange more in the orange rind flavor than anything. There’s a little bit of sweet fuzziness from the bai mudan.

It’s not really my thing, but it’s okay.

Sweet and sour is right! I was expecting this to be very tart – I drank straight hibiscus tea for quite awhile until I burned out on it, so recognized the smell right away. The color is quite pink for green tea, but also a bit orangey – I’d say a rich salmon hue overall :)

Upon sipping, at first the flavor is just like the smell: sour and fruit. But then I got a lot of sencha on the middle- and after-taste, which surprised me (pleasantly!) The sencha gives a really solid base to the tea, adding some savoriness to balance the sour. I often add honey to fruit teas, but something about the sencha flavor made me want to drink this straight – it just blended so interestingly with the fruit, I didn’t want to overwhelm that with sweetness and lose the complexity.

There is still a lot of hibiscus and rosehip flavor overall (the orange is less prominent to me), but this is a pretty good blend considering the tendency of hibiscus to dominate anything it touches.

I expect this will last more than one steep, and I’m curious how the balance will shift. It would probably also be very good cold!

thanks again Naturestealeaf.com for providing samples for me to try! I was a bit worried about this one — rosehips, hibiscus, and orange peel? Hmm.. but I haven’t had much sencha, even though I love it (usually the sencha I have is in Genmaicha.) This blend looks like a good mix of sencha and fruit. I’m not sure if I waited too long to steep after it cooled, since the steep color was a light pink, so I steeped for five minutes rather than the recommended one minute. As I predicted, the sencha disappeared behind the usually stronger other flavors of orange and hibiscus. But it IS interesting that the sencha had a flavor that I had assumed was only from the popcorn and rice in genmaicha! I don’t love this tea, but it isn’t terrible. (I really don’t like orange, rosehips or hibiscus in ANY tea, so it isn’t Nature’s Tea Leaf’s fault.) This MUST be the worst offering from Nature’s Tea Leaf, because all of their other teas look delicious!

I hot-brewed this and let it cool instead of cold-brewing it. I’m still not particularly keen on cold-brewing loose leaf because of the messiness factor. One of these days I’ll get over that. But for now, I’ll enjoy this hot-brewed!

And it is quite nice. I took a few sips of it while it was still hot, just to see what it was like, and I enjoyed it hot too, but, I do think this tea really excels as an iced tea. Hot, it tastes a bit like something you’d want to drink if you’re feeling under the weather … the spices are warming and soothing, and the citrus brightens the cup.

But as an iced tea … the flavors just come together in a totally different way. The spices taste … savory! This is not at all what I expected from this tea … when I read “spice tea” I think CHAI. But this is not a chai! The spices come together in a deliciously savory way which is so refreshing and unique for the palate that expects a sweet-spicy-hot flavor from a spiced tea.

I think I’m going to try this in my Steep & Go and see how it fairs… I’m really liking this!

My laptop died a few days ago (though I think the data is all going to be recoverable, I just need to reformat my HD due to a lovely corrupted OS), so I am SO behind on my tasting notes! I actually have a desktop for emergencies, but I was so sad about my poor little laptop that I didn’t have the heart to write about tea. It’s been with me for almost 6 years, the disk drive hasn’t worked for 3, it’s old and beaten up but I’ve grown very attached to it. So I actually had this tea 3 days ago (!) and never logged it. Oops! I have a lot of catching up to do, but I thought I’d start with my last sample from Nature’s Leaf Tea.

I cold brewed this overnight—sure, it’s cool outside, but I drink iced tea all year round! The color of this was almost hot pink when it was done, very pretty! Though usually that kind of coloration comes from hibiscus, here it’s the rosehips. And it’s tart because of them—quite tart! Not hibiscus icky tart, it’s nice and refreshing, though it’s hard to drink a lot at once due to the kind of sour aspects. They’re balanced by the orange quite well, and there really is a lot of orange flavor! I feel like the sencha is kind of lost though, since rosehip and orange are such strong flavors. It took a bit of getting used to, but it’s an interesting flavor combo! A bit sour/tart for my palette, but good nonetheless.

Drinking this again today, probably my favorite of the 5 Nature’s Tea Leaf teas I got to try. Something about the interaction of the pu’erh and flowers just keeps tasting spicy to me! I’ve resteeped this a couple of times today; it’s a great choice for a rough day as it’s very forgiving of different steep times and temps, re-steeps several times, and the pu’erh gives me a good non-jittery energy kick.

But drinking this reminds me – as a thank you for reviewing, Nature’s Tea Leaf gave me a shareable coupon for 10% off! Feel free to use STEEPTY10OFF if you’re thinking of buying something! It expires at the end of October.

Oh this is neat: a floral and approachable pu’erh blend. The lavender is distinctive (prominent and unusual) and blends with the pu’erh in very interesting ways – reminds me of cinnamon, somehow, with the combination of earthiness and menthol. The flavors meld quite well overall, which I didn’t expect from rose, jasmine, lavender and pu’erh. The jasmine is probably the hardest for me to pick out. I was dubious about the steeping instructions too, but it came out just right. I’m quite curious to see if this will resteep well, as that’s one of the things I like about pu-erh

A second steep (higher temp, longer time since I forgot about it..) is mostly pu’erh, with only a hint of flowers to soften it. Still quite tasty! but the first steep is the one I’d hand to someone dubious about pu’erh :)

This is the second of my free samples from Nature’s Tea Leaf, and my favorite so far! I also really like the steeping instructions on their packaging, customized for each tea and right on the front label.

2 generous tsp leaf to 8oz water

A full review will be on http://sororiteasisters.com/ on the 20th
This is what I am calling the ninja tea as its buttery creamy goodness sneaks up on you in the aftertaste and lingers around as it wishes!
The cinnamon is well balanced and does not overpower.
I did not think I was going to like this initially but have been proven wrong!
What an unusual and wonderful blend!
Thank you Nature’s Tea Leaf for allowing me to try this!
Please see the full review on the 20th at 6pm est here http://sororiteasisters.com/

Thanks to Nature’s Tea Leaf for this sample!

Upon opening the box and delightfully sorting through the contents, this was the first one I grabbed. After the utter decadence of David’s Creme Brulee, I wanted something a little bit more natural.

The dry leaf is all oolong and cinnamon stick pieces. Cool. It smells very much like cinnamon. I can’t smell the oolong too strongly, but that’s okay.

In steeping, it’s actually the opposite for me. I get a bit of woodsy oolong flavor with a hint of cinnamon, especially in the smell. I like it. The cinnamon doesn’t overcome the tea, but rather blends with it harmoniously.

Thanks again to Nature’s Tea Leaf for choosing me to sample their teas! Very excited to try this one! It sounded so unique! It’s like a holy trinity of delicious flowers: lavender, jasmine, and tiny rosebuds.. just gorgeous. All on the base of a pu-erh. It’s kind of like beauty and the beast, since pu-erh is the tea that seems most unfitting with flowers! This is actually the second pu-erh I’ve tried… the first one was a couple days ago. I find that they don’t have too much flavor… a typical black tea has way more flavor. But this is perfect here, as I would much rather be able to appreciate the flowers instead of them being drowned in a black tea. My infuser was FULL of flowers, even though I tried to get as much pu-erh in there as possible. The steep color is a medium brown. The first sip, I get a ton of lavender flavor, which is interesting because I didn’t notice too much lavender in the infuser, but the lavender is delicious. I don’t taste a ton of jasmine and rose, and the second infusion doesn’t have much of them either.. maybe it’s just my palate! Looking at the infused tea, the roses have lost most of their pink color! I’m very happy that hibiscus wasn’t included in this one — it would have ruined it. Another great tea! Naturestealeaf.com

A huge thank you to Nature’s Tea Leaf for sending me some VERY generous samples! I’m honored you chose me! naturestealeaf.com

I was a bit curious how a cinnamon oolong would taste! I LOVE a good oolong. Opening the bag, there are some huge pieces of cinnamon bark in the bag… so big that I had to snap them in half to fit in my infuser! The oolong itself is gorgeous bright green leafy bundles.

First steep: 3 1/2 minutes
This definitely smells like cinnamon! It almost smells more like cinnamon than it tastes, but as it cools it tastes more like cinnamon too. The oolong for the first cup is delicious and DOES pair well with the cinnamon. It is one of my favorite oolong flavors: light, smooth and floral. The flavor is slightly vegetal yet very sweet AND there is even a slight hint of a fruit flavor, maybe peach? I haven’t tasted peach in an oolong before.

Second steep: 5 minutes
Still a lovely cinnamony scent and taste. The steep color is yellow. Now the oolong is a bit more peachy! Still not floral, but peachy! Yum! A flavor that really lingers! Cinnamon & peaches… seems like it should be a dessert of some kind!

Third steep: 7 1/2 minutes
I’ve found with flavored oolongs, the first steep has the most flavor that isn’t from the oolong itself, but with subsequent steeps, the oolong flavor itself keeps getting better. This had more cinnamon since I steeped it at a higher temp. The oolong is a bit buttery this time, less peachy! On my oolong flavor strength rating scale, in which one is light and floral and five is the strongest, I’d give this one a three. I really could keep re-steeping these leaves, but since I always steep a full mug, I can only drink so much tea! I think I need to get in the habit of steeping tiny cups so I can try a bunch more steeps. Nature’s Leaf sent me a huge sample, so maybe one day! This is very impressive!

When I opened my box of samples from Nature’s Tea, I wasn’t really sure when I was going to drink this one. It smells a lot like Rishi’s Pu-erh Ginger, which I associate with cooler weather and sore throats. It’s been warm out, and I wasn’t sick, so it just didn’t seem like something I would be in the mood for. And I hate drinking tea I don’t feel like drinking: it really ruins the experience for me and I wanted to give this sample my full attention!

Well, as (un)luck would have it, there’s some kind of bug going around and the bf and I are both getting sore throats. Hooray… not. Well, I guess it’s the perfect opportunity to try this out! In the bag the smell is all ginger, but brewed you can pick out the rosemary and lemon a bit more. I added honey to both of ours, since it’s good for your throat and it seems to go really well with lemon & ginger flavor profiles.

This tea packs a punch! The ginger adds some serious spice, though it doesn’t overwhelm the cup. The rosemary is really strong as well, bringing to mind another Rishi tea—Bergamont Sage! It adds an interesting savory quality, which I always enjoy. The lemon is also there, though it takes a backseat to the rosemary/ginger combo. Of course you can taste the white tea too, not too much but enough to keep this from tasting like a straight-up tisane and more like actual tea.

It’s an interesting flavor profile—perhaps not one I’d reach for every day, but great for sore throats, lazy days and cold weather! The little sheet I got from them mentions that this is actually meant to be tried iced, so I am interested to see how that works as well. I’m guessing the lemon would be a lot stronger that way, so I plan on doing a cold brew soon to see what other flavors I can bring out of this blend.

About a week or so ago I was browsing through teas and this one caught my eye. Looking back, I can’t really remember how I found it: maybe in the Steepster database? Or I was linked to Nature’s Tea’s main website? In any case, I love floral teas so I really wanted to order it but I am broke so I held off on it. Miraculously, a few days after lusting after this tea, NTL announced that they were looking for people to do reviews—and this tea was included in the ones they’d be sending! I crossed my fingers and applied, and lo and behold I was chosen and got my teas 2 days later! Of course this is the one I wanted to try the most, but I really wanted to cold brew it so I ended up trying two of their teas hot while this one was in the fridge.

Like the Slimming Tea, it’s a really pretty blend, lots of whole rosebuds and jasmine flowers studded with lavender blossoms. Of course there’s pu-erh too, more in this blend considerably than in the Slimming Tea. I gave it a 12-hour steep, and it brewed up to a lovely golden color. Lighter than usual for a pu-erh, but I chalk that up to all the pretty flowers!

This is a VERY floral tea. Of course I love floral blends so I really enjoyed it: the rose and lavender are definitely the most prominent, with little wisps of jasmine coming in at the end of the sip. Rose and lavender can be really overpowering, but I don’t think either one outshines the other. They do seem to be significantly stronger than the jasmine, but not in an entirely negative way. I feel like I can taste other flavors “through” rose and lavender, but jasmine usually seems kind of overpowering so I’m glad it isn’t heavy-handed in this tea.

Finally there’s, of course, the pu-erh! I wouldn’t say this is a very strongly pu-erh blend, it’s more used as a base for the other flavors. It does add a distinctly earthy tone, and really grounds the floral taste. There’s a little bit of hay and a nutty background, which I’d attribute to the base tea. I do think it was a better choice than a straight black, since really we’ve all had floral blacks a million times. But the combo of floral tastes as well as the pu-erh really make this a pretty unique floral blend!

Another sample thanks to Nature’s Tea Leaf! I was really intrigued by this one: cinnamon and oolong aren’t a combination I think of as going together, especially not with the light oolong chosen for this blend. But it smells incredibly delicious, so so cinammon-y, and there’s also huge chunks of cinnamon bark in there! The bf looooves cinnamon, so I made him up a cup of this. Of course I sneaked a sip first though—and I’m going to be making myself a cup REALLY soon because this is so tasty.

The aroma of this once brewed is really POW in your face, powerful cinnamon. But like cinnamon sticks/bark, not dry cinnamon. It’s a small distinction, but since I bake a lot it matters to me. Dry cinnamon is more holiday bake-y whereas bark is more for everyday use—in fact, my favorite place to use it is in chili! Trust me, it’s delicious. With cocoa powder and coffee and chilies… mmmm. Anyway, back on topic. This tea also brewed up super pale, as I’d expect a light oolong to, so it was off to a good start.

Holy COW this is good! It’s got all the markers of a very nice light oolong: floral, a bit creamy, with natural sweetness and very nice vegetal notes. There’s a lovely cinnamon taste, obviously very natural tasting since it comes from bark and not just flavoring. Not, you know, that flavoring always tastes fake but I find with spices I like the real deal! And, amazingly, the oolong and cinnamon are a perfect pair. Spicy, sweet, sooo good. I could drink this all day long, what a winner! I really want to try it cold too, I bet this would be fantastic hot and iced.

EDIT: I forgot to update this yesterday, but I got 3 hot brews AND a cold brew out of the leaves! It is sooo good iced, I think the oolong is more prominent though the cinnamon is definitely still present. Upping the rating a bit since this is equally good hot and cold, plus you can get a ton of brews out of it which is always nice.

I was lucky enough to get some review samples from Nature’s Tea Leaf and they came in TWO DAYS! Talk about fast shipping! Not only that, but they’re all one ounce which is pretty awesome. I wanted to dive in right away, and this one called to me just because it’s so darn pretty. Tons of whole, intact flowers and leaves, it’s really gorgeous. And it smells good, too!

I wasn’t exactly sure how to steep this: it’s a pu-erh blend but there are more herbal elements, so I did boiling water for 6 minutes. Thankfully that seemed like the right choice, since no one flavor is too overpowering or under-represented. There’s a lot going on here: I don’t think you could pick out any one flavor and say “it’s dominantly x!” There’s chrysanthemum, which I find to be kind of like a tastier version of chamomile. Then there’s mint, but it’s not so pervasive that it reads as a mint blend. There’s a hint of earthiness running through the cup, from the pu-erh and I suppose the lotus as well? Floral elements peek in from the rose, and there’s a bit of tartness (though not overpoweringly so) from the hibiscus. Oh, and a bit of citrus too from the lemon!

There is a LOT going on, but it all balances out into a very tasty blend. It’s a good “I don’t know what mood I am in” tea since it’s got a bit of everything: floral, earthy, tart, mint, citrus-y. It also seems like it’d be a good, calming night time tea. I think I’m going to be running through my ounce of this pretty quickly!