Please Explain: Tea

This past Friday's Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC featured a section about tea (part of their Please Explain series).

Listen to it here.

Review: Archer Farms Dragon Well Green

15 tea bags (Target, sale price $2.98)

As I've said before in this blog, my experience with most Archer Farms products have been good ones. Another case in point is their Dragon Well Green Tea. Much like a mediocre first date, it neither impresses nor disappointments allowing for an acceptable, civilized time that may or may not be related to friends.

Sold in state-of-the-art, pyramid style tea bags both the smell and flavor of this tea tends towards the light side. Going down smooth and without much bitterness, the tea is mellow and slightly smokey. Not as full bodied or deep as a higher quality Dragon Well, the experience is good but not great. While it is certainly more complex than the average generic bagged green tea, it fails to really enforce some of the claims found on the packaging. As far as being "delicately tinged with sweetness" as the box suggests, I could distinguish no such subtlety. This tea is fairly straightforward from start to finish, tending to lack in any delicate tinges advertised or otherwise.

For convenience and price the Archer Farms Dragon Well tea is not a bad deal. It may not suit a true connoisseur but for those looking to go beyond generic bagged green tea it makes an excellent first choice.

Whittard of Chelsea Holiday Sale

I've been getting all kinds of wild deals on tea via e-mail. Check out this one from Whittard of Chelsea. They have a different sale every day of December.

Review: Ricola Natural Herb Blend

200g instant (Lehmans.com, $7.95)

From the makers of the Swiss cough drops comes an instant dissolve herbal tea of sorts. Boasting a combination of a dozen some odd herbs (each handsomely illustrated on the package), preparation is as simple as combining the crystallized pellets and hot water. The end result is a drink akin to, for lack of any better comparison, a liquid candy cane.

Both smelling and tasting strongly of peppermint, none of the other herbs involved can really be distinguished. While I trust that Ricola has not forgotten to say, add the hysop or thyme, if your intentions were tasting them you should take your business elsewhere. For all intents and purposes, this is a peppermint flavored drink.

Along with this simplicity is a fair amount of sugar. With a content of 9.6 grams per serving of the stuff, this drink is very, very sweet. Though the instant dissolve formula is convenient, it prevents the removal of any of those grams, confining your options to either take the sugar or leave the drink entirely. That being said, if you don't mind sugar and peppermint, the taste is not all that bad.

I will admit that while going through a mild cold recently I found myself drinking this stuff on a regular basis. It does not contain the kind of potent strength to dissuade a truly treacherous sickness but the candy-like feel is soothing, particularly on a cold day. Depending on how sugar and peppermint factor into your personal belief system, Ricola Natural Herb Blend can either be a handy cold season friend or a menacing toothache disguised as an instant dissolve formula.

Russian Tea HOWTO

Zima is upon us. Consult this Russian Tea HOWTO for appropriate instructions.

Afterward check out this Russian rap song which appears to be about winter, or is the blond girl the one who is truly cold?

A Japanese Tea Commercial

We don't often think about what happens in the field.

Review: Archer Farms Organic Blueberry White

39g loose (Target, $6.99)

Through Archer Farms (a Target exclusive food brand) Target now carries a small selection of loose leaf teas. Regardless of the Starbucks-ification / White Noise-ification of America that Target encourages, for the most part Archer Farms products tend to be pretty good (and many are organic if that's what gets your goat). Coinciding with this trend, their Blueberry White tea is just that: pretty good.

Billed by the people at Archer Farms as “a refreshing combination of sweet, juicy blueberries and wholesome white tea” the initial of the tin lives up to the description. Any fan of blueberries could happily burn a few minutes just smelling this stuff.

The purplish liquor that follows keeps much of the enticement. Unfortunately when it comes down to the flavor this excitement is somewhat diminished. Extremely light, with a slight trace of hibiscus, the flavor is pleasant though it lacks much force or complexity. Granted white tea is supposed to be delicate but this tea lacks a certain fullness you would expect after such a seductive introduction. What happened to that cascade of juicy blueberries? Were they deemed too much for the masses?