Time for our monthly installment of Tea of the Month clubs – first up Simple Loose Leaf. I’ve realized that I’ve been reviewing Tea of the Month clubs for awhile that I should start adding the year in there, haha!
The Simple Loose Leaf info spiel – Simple Loose Leaf is a monthly Co-op tea box that sends 4 to 6 loose leaf tea samples (1/4oz size) – you get a wide assortment of different teas such as straight teas, blends and herbals. With being in the Tea Co-op, you get a membership ID. If you enjoy and want more tea that you’ve sampled, you can purchase it from the Simple Loose Leaf Tea Shop for 50% off.
For your first box, you can enter OolongOwl for a 50% off your first Simple Loose Leaf’s Tea co-op box!
The teas this month for Simple Loose Leaf – Taimu Mountain Green, Nutty Mocha Mate, Fujian Fine Black, Jasmine Rooibos and Tropical Green Rooibos. I’ll be reviewing four of the teas this month.
This month Simple Loose Leaf changed their box design – pretty spiffy!
Tasting of April 2015 Simple Loose Leaf Teas
Taimu Mountain Green
This is a Fujian, China green tea. The dry leaf is an interesting long twisty appearance with silver accents. I steeped this one gaiwan style with 175f water.
The flavor in Taimu Mountain green is very vegetal – first infusion I thought celery and floral, but as the flavor got more intense in the 2nd and 3rd infusion, I found the vegetal was more artichoke like. There is a light dry finish as well.
Nutty Mocha Mate
This one smells like coffee, sporting a dusty dry leaf and little chunks of coffee beans. The steeping instructions stated 150f for 3 to 5 minutes, but I went with 160f since that is as low as my kettle would go and I wasn’t going to boot up my sous vide machine.
Nutty Mocha Mate brews up a dark brown black that’s almost a color match on my hair, with a bit of debris on the bottom (not like my hair :P). The flavor is lots of roast, with rich hazelnuts and coffee/chicory finish. The aftertaste is more coffee chicory. The mate base is a bit watery, so it has a weak coffee kind of effect, but a eye opening amount of caffeine feel. Nutty Mocha Mate would be a great tea for coffee drinkers weaning off to tea!
Fujian Fine Black
Another Fujian tea! I steeped this one up western style with boiling water for 3.5 minutes. I’ve been running off 5 hours of sleep the last few days, so I used my big tentacle cup for a massive cup of tea!
Steeps up a really rich, dark chocolate scent.
The taste is quite nice with a megawatt rich, dark, high percentage cacoa note with a bit of sweetness. This black has a really nice level of sweetness to it and a silky texture. There is a sweet fruity note on some sips that reminds me of dark plums. As the tea cools and the more sips I take, a light dryness starts, a 2/10 Astringency. Overall, this black is easy to drink and makes for a luxury feeling morning tea. This tea was my favorite out of all the teas in this month’s box!
Tropical Rooibos
The dry leaf smells like pear to me, which made me double check the package – it’s supposed to be passionfruit, mango apricot.
I steeped the entire package and poured it over ice and agave syrup.
Tropical Rooibos iced tastes pretty good. It’s mostly mango in flavor with a bit of mystery tropical notes. The passionfruit is pretty light, mixed in the mystery tropical notes. Sometimes passionfruit tastes like soap to me, but this tea doesn’t. I can taste the green rooibos at the end of the sip, which is a grassy fresh taste. Overall really good and a nice iced tea.
Also included in the box – more reusable cloth tea bags. Which Tea Owl do you think is the fastest tea sack racer?
(tea provided for review)
