Tea Forte

i’m not a big fan of red rooibos teas generally, but I’ve found that it usually goes very nicely with apple flavours. There’s plenty of that in this tea along with some sweet, cinnamony notes. It’s very warm, and comforting tea that’s reminiscent of stewed apples or maybe apple pie filling.

I picked up a discounted sampler box of winter-themed Tea Forte teas at work yesterday.

A lot of people have been hating on this tea and when I saw the hibiscus in the ingredients I wasn’t expecting much. But honestly? It’s not too bad. The sour, tangy hibiscus is kept to a manageable levels and there are some actual plum-likes flavours in there along with the warm notes of ginger. Not something I’d go out and buy on its own but it’s not horrible.

Found a couple pyramids of tea from Tea Forte while I was packing to move. Decided to have this one tonight. A very dark color in the cup, a rather pretty shade of purple while it’s brewing. I am actually glad I can’t really taste this one. It sounds marvelous, but the flavor is odd. Like it’s trying to be sweet, but instead it’s tart. The sour coats my tongue and throat and lingers even after I dumped the cup.

(55 = probably good but not to my taste. Should be renamed “Jamaica Yams.”)

Disclaimer, I’ve never actually tasted rhubarb; to me, the tea smells like peaches and something vaguely like a yam or sweet potato. Sadly it does not taste of peaches at all - TeaForte, if you just named your teas properly you’d get much better ratings!

I didn’t notice the hibiscus initially but after a few sips it became pretty obvious. Objectively this is not a bad tea: hibiscus/rhubarb lovers would probably enjoy it, but the hibiscus flavor plus the lack of peach means I won’t be buying it again.

Brewed from a “single-steeps” loose tea packet. This one had nice large pieces and no dust.

GCTTB3

I pulled this one out of the box for one very specific reason. A few years ago, in a sample pack of Tea Forte, I had tried Moroccan Orange Blossom tea. I absolutely loved it. Even if I am the only one on the internet to give it a good review, I still maintain it was delicious. I have not been able to find a suitable alternative with any other tea companies.

I pulled this one out of the box because it was Tea Forte and had orange in the name. But I failed to look at the description. It describes orange with cinnamon. I just don’t see how orange would ever go with cinnamon. Maybe orange peel, but not orange.

The tea bag, once unwrapped, smelled strongly of sweet cinnamon. The brewed tea smells like cinnamon hot lips.

The tea tastes like a very strong, somewhat bitter black tea. The cinnamon is very flat, not much bite to it. I am not picking up too much citrus but there is a sweetness to the tea which could be reminiscent of citrus.

I have never really thought much of Tea Forte, except for the moroccan orange blossom of course. This tea falls into the not think too much of it category.

The brewed tea smells like tasty dried apples but tastes mainly like ginger. The dried tea also had another savory herb smell I couldn’t recognize (maybe the blackberry leaves?)
Took about 15 minutes of steeping to actually get an apple flavor. So you have two alternatives for this tea: a short brewing gives you a mild ginger with apple scent, a long brewing gives you an apple tea with a strong ginger “bite” at the end. Both are tasty but I prefer the latter.

As a side note, this was a “single steeps” loose-leaf packet, but the dried mix was in very small pieces and there was a lot of “dust” that escaped the tea ball and floated to the top of the water. This might be a packaging issue. If I see it on sale I may be tempted to buy a proper tin of it, maybe.

COMMUTER NOTES: Because it took so long for the apple taste to show up, this might work in a commuter brewing thermos.

I’m meh on this tea. It is definitely hazelnut, and a bit chocolatey, but I think I like my chocolate hazelnut in actual solid chocolate form and not tea.

I got a sachet of this as part of a sampler for my birthday. I’ll finish off the other sachet but won’t be buying this myself. It was interesting but not really my thing.

Tea this evening….welp color me disappointed in this one. Once again I loved the smell of the vanilla and pear when I opened the package. But the steeped leaves smelled of some weird pear smell and the taste was also some almost cardboard fake pear taste. Sad to say but I’m dumping this down the drain….

This isn’t bad- I skipped it hot and made it iced and it works pretty well. I taste artificial honey, but it isn’t overpowering or overly gross, and there is a thick earthy fruity taste that I assume is supposed to be the fig. It’s weird but it has all those figgy elements without actually tasting like fig. That said, I punched it up with a tablespoon of agave in the pitcher and it served me well on my first day substitute teaching!

The mister and I were lured out to a local wine bar for drinks and tapas with friends. So I’m drinking this one as my pre-bedtime tea. Smells a bit like Pine-Sol when I opened the packaging. Which means I had little hope of finding this one tasty. But I’ve been wrong before. Steeped tea smells more like chamomile and lavender…things are looking up! The taste is an interesting combination of chamomile, lavender, and lemon. It isn’t bad…which is good. But it isn’t really anything to write home about…which isn’t good, if you follow me. Long story short, I think I would drink this one again.

Tea of the evening. I again had high hopes for this one…the dry leaf smelled full of peach goodness. I love peaches. Even as it steeped all I could smell was peaches. However, after drinking it the only peach flavor I got was in a weird aftertaste. Sigh…maybe a little longer on the steep next time?

First cup of the day/morning. I got excited with this one when I opened the package as it smelled like this lovely mix of oranges and jasmine green tea. Naturally I expected to get a nice mix of the two flavors when my cup was ready. Instead I get minor whiff of orange and a whole lot of jasmine. Good news I like jasmine green teas. Bad news, don’t name a tea Orange Jasmine if there’s not much orange… I only steeped it for two minutes…maybe if I give it a little more time that might help? Though I do get a weird orange aftertaste…so I guess that’s something.

This tea was part of the “Lotus, a curated collection of relaxing teas for mind, body & spirit” from Tea Forte. I wanted to try one of the higher caffeine teas as I’d been napping all day (thanks to the hubs melting tupperware in the bread machine – the smell caused a migraine….long story). Anyway I’m not worried about not sleeping at my regular bed time tonight. The dry leaf smells like this darjeeling should turn out like an earl grey. The citrus notes are really pronounced.

Steeped the orange and grapefruit flavors are muted a little. But still present throughout the sipping. Really nice here is I don’t get the usual bitterness that usually comes with darjeeling teas. I really liked this one quite a bit. I didn’t bother with the suggested addition of milk this time around. Maybe when I try the second sachet.

I’m happy to find something in my Tea Forte sampler pack that is actually tasty. This is probably the best of the bunch.

The peach tastes fresh, delicious and not at all artificial. As others have noted there is also a bit of mango and coconut flavor in the tea. I drank mine with soymilk and that gave it a creamy element that boosted the dessert type flavor this one has. If you’re into fruit flavored teas, I would certainly consider giving this blend a whirl. I bet this would be really good as an iced tea also.

The kiwi lime mix was refreshing, but this tea was nothing special taste wise, though the ginger helped soothe my stomach ache.

This tea was quite honestly, a gosh darn disappointment. I love mint but this tea did not taste pleasing at all. I will never give this tea another chance. Never.

Part of a recent tea flavored black tea sampler that I got from Tea Forte, which has gotten me to pretty much give up on Tea Forte as a company…

Anyway this is one of the better flavors in the bunch. It is very citrusy, with lots of tart orange, grapefruit and lemon myrtle flavor. It even stands up to soymilk okay (I was wondering if it would curdle). It has a slightly musty smell, in my opinion and also a slight bitterness. It does have oil of bergamot, which tends to not be my favorite flavor unfortunately. If you would like a really citrusy earl grey, check this one out. I’ll certainly finish the cup and the other samples, but I don’t think I will need to buy it anytime soon. I would have liked it better without the bergamot, I think.

This is far too sweet for my taste. The fruit flavor is very artificial.

Out of my 25-flavor Tea Forte tasting chest, this one was my favorite. It’s a mounds bar in a cup. The coconut tastes real, the chocolate is rich without the watery flavor of other chocolate teas… just excellence all around.

Dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.

This tea had everything wrong. The colada flavor was horribly artificial and metallic, the coconut was perfumy, and a weird tang permeated the entire flavor. Never again.

Out of my entire 24-flavor Tea Forte sample chest, only three flavors really stood out. White Cinnamon Sage was one of them, Chocolate Coconut Truffle was another. Apricot Amaretto was the last.

I adore the combo of apricot and almond anyway, so this seemed like a no-brainer for me. The apricot is juicy without being overly sweet, the floral almond flavor compliments the apricot taste so well. I might have to commit to a full tin of this one.

Drank this on the weekend.. This tea was very strong and kind of sucked… didn’t really finish it but it was drinkable… I would not try again.