A new year, a new tea. Hojicha is a roasted Japanese tea that consists predominantly of the stalks of the tea plant. It is, according to Harney , a relatively recent invention, dating back to 1920. The rise of mechanical harvesters had meant that there was an excess of tea stalks after harvesting. Seeing the waste, a Japanese merchant in Uji took the stalks and started roasting them. Hojicha was born.

This is my first experience of hojicha, courtesy of Mighty Leaf Tea, who provided me a small sample for review.

The tea looks like a mixture of stalks and leaves, with a dark bronze appearance. The dry aroma is rich with notes of berries and chocolate. It smells delicious.

I steep the tea for two minutes, which turns out to be just about right. Something tells me that oversteeping it would give it a biting astringency. As it is, the liquor is a greenish yellow and has a savoury, somewhat grassy flavour with berry-flavours still swirling around. It’s hard not to draw comparisons to genmaicha, which has a similar colour and savoury character.

In some ways, I get the feeling that hojicha’s strength is in its aroma, not its flavour. It tastes nice, but not as nice as it smells. It also doesn’t have much of a finish. But then, hojicha seems to more of an every-day kind of tea, and it would make a perfect accompaniment to food.

Organic Hojicha is available from Mighty Leaf Tea.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Organic Hojicha from Mighty Leaf Tea | 2 comments |
Post categories: Green tea, Tea reviews
Post tags: Hojicha, Japanese green tea, Japanese teas, Mighty Leaf Tea

Teavana are offering free shipping on all orders (no coupon codes and no minimum orders required) between now and Wednesday, December 9th.

Bana Tea Company have a special 20% discount for Tea Finely Brewed subscribers. Quote 3838383838 at checkout.

Mighty Leaf Tea also have a 3-day sale running. Any order over $20 made in the next three days gets free shipping. And be sure to check out their collection of tea gifts, which have all had their prices slashed by 20%.

If you run a tea shop and would like to know more about advertising on Tea Finely Brewed, please get in touch.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | Teavana, Mighty Leaf Tea and Bana Tea Company specials | No comment |
Post categories: Specials
Post tags: Bana Tea Company, Mighty Leaf Tea, tea coupons, Teavana

• Mighty Leaf Tea are giving a 25% discount off selected black teas. This offer runs out on September 25, so you have to act quick. If you’re looking for a good place to start, try their Organic Breakfast Tea.
• Numi Organic Tea is offering a 25% discount on their flavoured pu-erh teas. Get 2 boxes of their pu-erh tea for $14.95 when you quote Coupon Code NMP99. This offer runs out after September 30.
• The Tea Spot are donating 10% of all their sales in September to prostate cancer survivors.

© eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | Special Deals for September | No comment |
Post categories: Black tea, Organic tea, Pu-erh tea, Specials
Post tags: breakfast tea, Mighty Leaf Tea, Numi Organic Tea, The Tea Spot

Organic breakfast tea by Mighty Leaf Tea

The nature of a breakfast tea is to be robust. It is there to awaken. And it needs to be able to handle a drop of milk.

As a result, many lower grade breakfast teas tend to be brutish. You feel awake after drinking them, but your lips are puckered, your mouth is dry and you had to choke down those last few sips. Inevitably, the tea used for this is the scraps ? the dust or fanning that remains after factories have pushed out the higher end teas. Because the tea is so small, it infuses quickly; but it also lacks the character you will find in teas made with larger bits of leaf.

This morning I started the day with Mighty Leaf’s Organic Breakfast tea, a blend of teas from Assam, Ceylon and Darjeeling. It’s a fine example of how using better quality tea leaves demonstrably improves a tea’s character.

I don’t tend to drink many blended teas, preferring instead single-estate teas, but I did enjoy trying to pick out the presence of the three teas used. I found the Ceylon first, given away by the smell of berries in the dry leaf aroma. Those berries were a little more subdued in the flavour, where the Assam leaf dominated the mix. I tried but failed to pick out the Darjeeling. Against the rather robust and in-your-face characteristics of Ceylon and Assam teas, the Darjeeling’s subtler notes fade into the background.

I see teas like this as being a great point of introduction for people who are accustomed to lower-grade tea and want to try something with a bit more finesse. It’s instantly familiar, but that elevation of quality translates into a smoother cup of tea with more points of interest. Granted, I found this tea to fall a little flat after the initial release of flavours; but as a breakfast tea, it does the job.

Organic Breakfast is available from Mighty Leaf Tea.

© eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | Organic Breakfast Tea by Mighty Leaf Tea (review) | One comment |
Post categories: Black tea, Organic tea, Tea reviews
Post tags: breakfast tea, English Breakfast, Mighty Leaf Tea

While browsing through Mighty Leaf’s website in preparation for the review I just posted, I noticed that they have a great offer on for people who haven’t tried their tea pouches before: Buy your first tea pouches from Mighty Leaf and get 25% off.

There are actually three separate offers – one for herbal tea, another for black tea and a third for green tea.

As I mentioned in my review of Mighty Leaf’s Organic Darjeeling, the tea pouches are perfect for those of you who want to try some seriously good tea without giving up the convenience of tea bags. Personally, I’d probably opt for the loose leaf tea for myself, but I have a few people I’m planning to buy a pack of tea pouches for.

© eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | 25% off for new Mighty Leaf Tea customers | No comment |
Post categories: Black tea, Green tea, Specials, Tisanes
Post tags: Mighty Leaf Tea, tea pouches

Organic Darjeeling Estate Black Tea from Mighty Leaf Tea

I have just now enjoyed my first taste of 2009′s first flush Darjeelings, courtesy of Mighty Leaf Tea. This year, Mighty Leaf have chosen Mim Estate for their single-estate Darjeeling offering. It’s a great choice: Mim Estate’s first flush serves admirably as a well-rounded black tea and a great example of that quintessential Darjeeling flavour.

Long time readers of Tea Finely Brewed will know I’m a fan of Darjeelings. (If not, you might enjoy digging into my Darjeeling tea archive and reading over the series of reviews of single-estate Darjeelings I wrote earlier this year). This is my first experience with Mim Estate, which is based in the eastern reaches of the Darjeeling region. So far, I’m very pleased.

The tea came bundled in one of Mighty Leaf’s silken tea pouches. This of course simplifies the brewing process, though I must admit I still prefer the classic loose leaf approach. But these tea pouches are a wonderful option for those looking to delve deeper into the world of tea without necessarily wanting to give up the convenience of tea bags.

Anyway, back to the tea. A four minute steep brews the leaf into a dark reddish brown – “a hardy appearance”, I write in my notes. It’s a colour that suggests strength and briskness.

The colour, it turns out, doesn’t lie. This is a tea rich in tannins, with a drying mouth feel and a subdued astringency. The nose had given deep hints of grape and citrus fruits, and these are present in the flavour, though not overwhelmingly so. I am struck by the lack of sweetness in this tea; those fruit flavours lean towards tartiness rather than sweetness, the hind regions of the tongue rather than the front regions.

Organic Darjeeling Estate Black Tea is available from Mighty Leaf Tea. It costs $12.95 for a 3 oz. bag of loose leaf tea, or $9.95 for a pack of 15 pouches.

© eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | Darjeeling First Flush 2009 from Mighty Leaf Tea | One comment |
Post categories: Black tea, Tea reviews
Post tags: Darjeeling, first flush 2009, Mighty Leaf Tea, Mim Estate