Jade Blend is an silky oolong tea with melon, strawberry and cucumber flavors. I received this tea from Physique Tea, an online seller of bagged slimming teas.
This is 1 of 3 teas I got from Physique, Jade Blend I was looking forward to the most as I don’t see many melon cucumber teas out there. I really dig melon teas!
Packaging was very nice ^_^
Hey USPS and UPS – see that, my tea is FRAGILE!
Too many times I’ve had them throw my tea packages around. Literally! I’ve had tea packages tossed over the fence or smashed through my mail slot.
Love the organza bag! I’m reusing that!
DRY LEAF: When I opened the package for Jade Blend and it smelled strongly like those asian melon gummy candies. YUM! The more I smell the tea, however, the more it smells like strawberries. Very nice pieces of strawberries in this tea!
The tea bags are quite interesting – they are flat mesh bags vs the usual pyramid shape bags. I snagged a nearby mesh type tea bag of another company (Harney & Sons) to compare.
The Physique bag is much thicker and durable in texture compared to the typical mesh/silk bag. The holes on the Physique bag look a little bigger too.
STEEPED: I can totally smell melon, berry and fresh scent that I associate with cucumber. Very nice smell!
The tea bag swells to a little pillow!
No bunnies were actually steeped. I’d totally snuggle that.. it it wasn’t soggy.
I steeped this tea with boiling water for 6 minutes, as per instructions. Admittedly, I was kinda terrified how long this steep time was with the boiling temperature. In my experience, I do oolongs at like 180 to 195 F for 4 minutes, for western style steeping.
TASTE: Fresh leafy strawberry taste – like when you accidentally eat that green stemmy base of a fresh strawberry. The oolong is pretty light here, fresh vegetal in flavor and gives off a slight silky texture each sip. There is a sharp herby twang at end of sip which reminds me closely of bay leaf. After that silky sip, there’s a slight tingle in my mouth from that herb switch. I get a slight melon after taste.
As I get to the end of my small pot, I’m noticing this tea is getting grainy or sandy on my tongue. I look at the cup, and there’s quite a bit of debris there.
Here’s a close up of the bottom of my cup.
Debris at the bottom of my cup is fine and I see it in many teas. Tasting it, not so common.
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Physique mentions their teas can steep for 3 to 6 times. Let’s give it a go!
RESTEEP # 1 – Not as strong of a strawberry flavor, but still there. The herby flavor is more mellow and waves in and out, complimenting the strawberry. The tea is still pretty grainy, about 30% less. I taste the cucumber and melon a bit more now. Very good resteep!
RESTEEP #2 – I rinsed out all tea ware involved in making this tea and there is still debris coming out of the bag, but it’s cut down now by 90%. This steeping I’m not getting any strawberry flavor and is down to the herby freshy taste. I almost get an echo of mint in here.
RESTEEP #3 – Very light, slightly savory and just a little herby flavor left. I’m going to stop resteeping here.
ICED: Very delicious! The strawberry, melon and freshy cucumber flavor really pop here! The only thing I miss is the silky texture. However, this tea performs well iced – I like it both hot and iced. I didn’t add sweetener, but I think a little honey would work well here.
EFFECT: Okay, I honestly feel full after drinking the first cup, which I had about 3 hours after eating lunch. After drinking 2 more resteeps, I was very sloshy and done. I left to bake granola bars and had the last resteeping 2 hours later. I had the tea hot and iced the next day before lunch and also felt full after. I have a similar result with drinking guayusa teas, but this tea has a stronger effect.
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COMMENTS: I love the taste of this tea, hot and iced. I felt full after drinking Jade blend! The grainy bits in my first couple steepings was not a favourite.
I did a little experiment, chopping up a bag and steeping Jade Blend in my ingenuiTEA
After 6 minutes of steeping away – brew my tasty melon tea!
The result:
Much less debris and what was there was lighter. I had no grainy texture in my mouth using the ingenuiTEA.
Taste wise, I can’t tell the difference from the Jade Blend in the bag and ingenuiTEA. With that said, taste wise – bag does very well. Performance wise, not so good. I’m hoping Physique would sell this tea loose leaf in the future.
I’m not sure if this grainy result is just with this blend, but stay turned for when I review the other two teas!
Overall, Jade blend is a tasty blend of strawberry, melon and cucumber – very good for someone who wants a cool, juicy fruity tea hot or iced. If you are looking for a slimming tea, this one tastes pretty darn good. The bag performs not so great, so I strongly recommend to steep this tea using other methods.
