— EusTea —

Travel Journal (1872 Clipper Tea)

January 23, 2018
1872 Clipper Tea Travel Journal Review

I don’t know much about 1872 Clipper Tea (which I mistook for the British Clipper Tea at first), so thank you, kind soul, who gave me this! I’m sorry that I’m so horrendously bad at keeping track of gifts.

This Travel Journal is a collection of teas from 1872 Clipper Tea. According to the description on the website

This gift set of assorted tea bags celebrates Singapore’s rich and unique blend of cultures and races. Packed to resemble one’s travel journal, this gift is a fitting memento for visitors seeking to capture the flavourful medley of experiences in urban Singapore.

I’m in Singapore right now, so I just used it as an introduction to their teas.

The packaging for this is lovely. It really does look like a journal and the elastic strap was handing for keeping the lid shut.

Inside, there are two packets of eight flavours, making it a total of sixteen packets. There’s a clear plastic cover over the teas, which helped to keep everything tidy. The eight flavours are:

  1. English Breakfast
  2. Earl Grey
  3. Green Tea
  4. Garden Tea
  5. Passion Fruit
  6. Mango
  7. Lemon
  8. Lychee

I drank these teas over a week, tasting about one packet a day. I normally had them with lunch or dinner, and I don’t know if that affects the taste but I figured I’d just tell you so you have as much info as possible. Hopefully, I’m not giving out too much useless noise. These are my impressions of the teas:

English Breakfast: Decent (why do I keep calling English Breakfast teas this?) if unremarkable tea.

Earl Grey: I really liked this and would have a hard time choosing between this and the Alice Grey Tea. The bergamot oil wasn’t too strong and it blended well with the tea, making it a pleasant drink.
Green Tea: This was terrible and the worst tea of the eight. I’m sorry if I sound very harsh, but there was no fragrance and barely any taste to this. Even Lupicia’s green tea is better and Lupicia isn’t really known for its green tea. That said, if you want to drink green tea, I’d recommend teas from places like お茶の山口園 (ocha no yamaguchien) and 福寿園 (fukujuen) [1].
Garden Tea: I loved this! I had previously gotten a few satchets of this and while rose tea is normally not my thing, I found it to be really good. The roses are fragrant but not overpowering. The only thing is that rose tea can be a laxative so this is not a tea I’ll be drinking if there isn’t a toilet nearby [2].
Passion Fruit: I drank this and realised that I have completely forgotten the taste of passionfruit. At any rate, this tea had one of the the strongest fragrance and tastes of all the fruit teas in this set.
Mango: This was the first tea I drank in the collection and I basically did a double take because it didn’t taste like mango. I actually worried if I forgot the taste of mango (like I did with passionfruit) so I drank the second packet while eating some fresh mangoes. Plus I had other people try the tea too. Turns out I was right. This tea has a fruity smell and flavour but it doesn’t taste like mangoes at all. I’m guessing that it’s because mangoes are a mild-tasting fruit which might not translate well into a tea.
Lemon: My favourite of the fruit teas, this tea smelt and tasted like lemon in tea. I find that Singapore teas are a lot sweeter than Japan’s, so I’ve been avoiding the canned and bottled stuff. This tea is probably what I’ll want when I want a lemon tea but don’t want it to be too sweet.
Lychee: Like the mango, this was vaguely fruity but didn’t really smell or taste like lychee. In fact, I thought it resembled the mango tea a lot.

Overall
This is a nice introduction to 1872 Clipper Tea. Apart from the green tea, the teas in this collection tasted good and went well with food. I’m not sure how representative of Singapore this is, given that I also have tea that is inspired by kaya toast [3], but if you don’t know what teas to get, this is a good choice. Get this, try the teas out, and then decide what you want to buy.

About the Tea
Webpage (Webpage says “currently unavailable” but I remember seeing it at the Ion store in December 2017)
Price: SGD $21

Notes
[1] Google says that 福寿園 has a stall in Takashimaya, Ngee Ann City. I haven’t bought from there so I can’t really say how the prices are compared to Japan, but if you’re looking for green tea, this might be a good start.

[2] When I googled, I found a lot of web posts saying that rose tea is a laxative, but I have not been able to find any explaining why. It seems to be a traditional side effect and that the rose teas from Thailand are particularly effective. At the severe risk of TMI, I can say that the laxative side effect holds true for me.

[3] And another by Nasi Lemak and one more by Ice Kacang, but that is belabouring the point.

What do you think?