Wissotzky Tea

Weak and a little lemony, but not very flavorful.

It’s okay. I was expecting something better for some reason. Basic earl grey. Slightly bitter. Nothing special.

Fruity and fragrant, but not too sour and hibiscus-y.

I bought this tea about a month and a half ago to help with my headaches caused by sinus problems. Despite there being stevia in this blend, the tea isn’t overpoweringly sweet. It’s a perfect balance of sweetness and lemongrass flavor. I wish this tea was more citrusy and minty. It’s a very mellow blend. It’s not my all time favorite, but it helps with my headaches and convenient.

I usually don’t like my teas to taste too much like juice. After all, if I wanted juice I would just drink juice. This blend is rather an exception to that rule. It tastes like mango nectar. Sweet, juicy, and on point. Yet I quite like it. Maybe because it’s an herbal? Then again Butiki’s Mango Lassi was also an herbal that tasted like mango juice and I never entirely got on board with it. I would have to do a side-by-side comparison to figure out why one works for me and the other doesn’t. Maybe it’s just that my tastes and preferences are changing. Alas, I ran out of Mango Lassi months ago and now I’m out of this blend too. Sipdown!

Light and refreshing, flavorful without milk or sugar.

Why does this have such a high rating.

It’s bland, it’s light, there’s almost no tea in the bag! freaking thing tastes like air.

It’s from the holy land, it has to be good, right? Wrong. it’s terrible.

don’t get it. ever.

Oh god, how is this soooo expensive.

The bag is absolutely terrible quality, the first bag I pulled out of the packet ripped on me and tea flew everywhere. All over the counter.

It’s cheap if you can find it in stores, but it’s freaking expensive on eBay. Then again, you’re buying from the Holy Land.

Flavor wise, it’s terrible. I’ve had better earl greys at gas stations that were generic. It’s weak, it’s light, it reminds me of drinking water with some flavour. I feel gross after drinking it.
Bergamot? What bergamot. it’s like they shoved it on the bag and just said “good enough”.

All in all, don’t get this crap.

Well, where do I start. Its earl grey. Barely. Its not a bad tea, but its not good either. Its literally mediocre. Wissotzky really hypes up its tea as being the best thing ever but its far from it- the merchants on eBay from Israel have the gall to sell 3 bags for $10.
I bought a box at the local Wegmans for $3.something. At the price, its not bad. Its better than most any generic Earl Grey. But the flavor of Bergamot is very faint, and the black tea is very weak. Sugar makes you imagine the Bergamot is there more than it actually is.

Overall, I have to say this tea makes me say Oy Vey – its cheap and it shows. Even the packaging/bags was poorly constructed (and was suspiciously similar to a cheap Egyptian black tea I have).

Wah, another tasting note that disappeared. I’m going to start keeping track of my notes in a word processor.

This blend is very creamy even without any additions. I used 1 bag in a 16 oz travel mug with hot water from the office water cooler, steeped for about 12 minutes. The cinnamon is definitely present but not overwhelming. Yum!

I wanted to love this tea – I mean, EGs are my favourite tea ever – but the flavouring was so muted and the black base so blah that it really wasn’t a fun cup at all. I made it through a couple mouthfuls before dumping the whole thing.

So I suppose if you want to drink an EG without actually tasting any bergamot…well, then this is probably the tea for you. If not, then move along – there are far better EGs out there.

I bought it on a whim at a Big Lot’s discount store for $1, so I was a little skeptical to start with. The tea bag wrapper says it is great for iced tea, but I prefer my tea hot. The fresh out of the box tea bag smells minty. The steeping tea smells like a minty armpit. It was a little off putting and made me scared to taste it. As it cooled, the armpit smell dulled a bit and I could smell mint. The tea itself is a pretty honey color, almost orange.

I don’t think I steeped it long enough, because it tasted a bit watery. The taste itself is orangey, citrus mint and I just didn’t like it. The after taste feels like I brushed my teeth, something I don’t usually get when I drink mint tea.

This was my favorite tea before I really got into loose leaf. The spice is gentle. The sage lends depth. My brother drinks it with a ton of honey, but I prefer it straight. It’s a little drying at the end. That’s not usually a problem for me. Right now it’s too darn hot to tolerate dryness though.

I think this is a sipdown. It’s hard to be sure. I had another teabag, but it’s gone missing. I suspect my dad of purloining it.

EDIT: It’s confirmed. My dad drank the other bag. He was amusingly surprised that I even noticed it was gone :-)

This is one of my few kosher-for-Passover flavored teas and one of my favorite bagged teas, period. I enjoy it best with a splash of rice milk and a bit of plain honey or brown sugar (although this past week it’s just been sweetener, no rice milk). The rose scent of the dry tea is so strong that I have to keep it separate from my other teas. I love it though. It’s fresh and floral and gorgeous. The rose comes through in the flavor as a strong, natural taste. The chai-ness mostly seems to be cinnamon. Although the ingredients list claims coconut flavor, I’m not picking up on any of it. The base tea holds its own against the rose and cinnamon but seems to be a fairly unremarkable bagged Assam. Thankfully it doesn’t hurt my stomach so long as I eat first. Yay for cheap grocery store teas that don’t suck!

Noooo! I seem to be all out of this! I could have sworn I had a few bags left but now they are nowhere to be found. I suspect my dad of swiping them – he really likes this tea.

So this is a backlog, in that I’m writing from old memory and haven’t had a cup of this in at least two weeks. But I do have a pretty distinct memory of it because I quite enjoyed it. The rose smell of the dry bag is permeating. It’s a very natural scent that’s strong but not overpowering, if that makes sense. Brewed, the flavor is a lovely balance of rose and chai spiciness. My dad and brother both like it with honey. I prefer it plain or with a splash of rice milk. Probably a restock next time I see it in the store.

I received a sample of this from KiwiDelight. Thank you!

The reviews of this tea were not that great, and I have to be honest I also wasn’t a huge fan. The base was very light and did not support the off tasting bergamot. I am grateful for the chance to try another EG, bu this one wasn’t my favorite.

My mother loves buying bagged chai. Regular or decaf, standard or with unusual add-ins like tulsi or rose—they all seem to make their way into our kitchen. Some are surprisingly good, like Wissotzky’s Rose Chai. I tried that blend before the Masala Chai, and it gave me high hopes for this version. But as it turns out, this tea is only passable. The spices aren’t very strong or distinctive, and the base is… unsubtle. It’s not incredibly flavorful, but it does make its presence known and it’s good that weird grassy note that Indian black teas occasionally have. Much improved by the addition of soy milk, as most chais are, but I’ll be sticking with the rose chai in the future as far as Wissotzky goes. Totally irrelevant to more or less everything and certainly not a reason to buy, but I do like the packaging.

This was one of the relatively few teas I could drink during Passover. Alas, it contributed to my chometz-deprived crankiness.

The dry leaf has a very chemical strawberry smell. The brew smells the same, perhaps slightly less chemical-ish. It is, unsurprisingly, red. That’s because this tea would be more aptly called “Creamy Hibiscus”. I don’t automatically hate hibiscus, but I don’t like how hibiscus often overwhelms any other flavors in the blend. Thankfully, this can be made more palatable by brewing it along with a bag of Wissotzky Cinnamon Magic. The cinnamon in that tea can actually stand up to the hibiscus in this one and add a little complexity to the cup.

I had to look up what Panna Cotta is. Apparently it is a gelatinous dessert. As a vegetarian, I have never and am unlikely to ever taste it. So I can’t speak to the presence/quality of the panna cotta taste. All I can tell you is that there’s some creamy aspect in here that I imagine is supposed to be the panna cotta.

Another tea bag sip down though I have many more to do, I intended to sample them all day but I have an urge to break out my cat kyusu and have some Sencha. For now at least I can have green tea, little compromise.

The tea soup is dark red brown in colour with a sweet fruit scent, berry like but not specific. It is sweet and rather artificial but not too bad.

Flavour is mild yet sweet with a rich berry zing. A little sour but the sweetness counteracts that for the most part and though I can’t taste passionfruit per say it’s at least generically fruity non the less. I can’t taste any green tea at all yet I like that this contains some. It sort of tastes like warm summer berry cordial but not quite as sweet.

It’s an alright tea for a pre bag, I would have it again but wouldn’t buy it in.

Sipdown! This tea really helped me get through Passover without turning into a total cranky-pants. The trick to it is to double up on the teabags. The result is cinnamony, tart, and slightly juicy. I will probably pick it up again next year.

Of course it took me until the last two bags to figure out how to make this taste like more than just cinnamon water. The trick is to use 2 teabags/8 oz and steep it for at least 10 minutes. Suddenly the cinnamon kick is backed by a lovely juiciness. Hibiscus, apple, and a hint of tanginess. The cinnamon is still strong and it definitely lingers sharply. I really wish I had figured out sooner how to brew this properly. Oh well. sipdown

So once again I find the Wissotzky Signature Collection Imperial Earl Grey to be better than the competition. In today’s steep-off that was Mighty Leaf Organic Earl Grey.

The Wissotzky is much smoother, can be imbibed without cream (though I doused it anyway, to drink alongside the MIghty Leaf), and overall I was reaching for this glass and emptied it long before the Mighty Leaf. What further proof need there be?

A factor which some would find irrelevant, but which has aesthetic significance for me is that the Mighty Leaf sachets, which are simple rectangular sacks, look droopy and depressed, while the Wissotzky tetrahedrons (often referred to as “pyramids”, but they are really tetrahedrons, it seems to me…) are much more attractive and convey a polished image. Does the shape of the sachet affect the final brew? It might, I suppose, if the surface area of a tetrahedron offers better infusion of the tea. Not sure whether that is true, but I do very much prefer the appearance of the tetrahedrons!