A while back, I bought a box of teabags from Zealong tea. I’ve been wanting to try this brand for a while because I’ve never tried any tea from New Zealand, but since I only had one teabag for each type of tea, I wasn’t sure how I should review it. Well, in the end, I decided to just do a bunch of quick tea reviews.

The video contains my initial impressions of the tea, while the written reviews in this post contain my overall thoughts (as much as you can gain an overall impression from one to two cups of tea from one teabag). So the two might differ a bit, which I thought would be interesting as a way of showing how hard it is to make snap judgements about tea. Either that or I’m just really bad at reviewing tea if it’s the first thing I do in the day.

Video Review

Written Review

Black Tea: The dry leaves look a bit small. The tea liquor was an amber colour and the long second steep had a slight floral/green vegetal note. There wasn’t any bitterness in this tea, even with a longer steep time, and it was quite smooth. Overall, I really enjoyed it and I think it’s best drunk plain.

Green Tea: I was initially sceptical of the two-minute steep time written on the teabag but I can see why they wrote this. I tried this tea after a short steep and got no floral notes, just toasted and vegetal notes. But when I continued to steep the tea, a floral note developed and the toasted and vegetal notes remained. Even with a long steep, there’s no bitterness or astringency.

Oolong Tea: The dry leaves were rolled into balls, Taiwan oolong style which is promising. The tea had a subtle roasted floral scent and tasted really sweet, with floral and fruity notes. I’m not sure why, but I thought of stone fruits as a category (is it cause I’ve had teas described to have a stone fruit note and this tasted like those?). There’s a slight roasted note that appears later and the longer you steep, the more pronounced the smoky/roasted note is. 

Sweet Amber: Initially, you get the ginger note quite strongly (in a pleasant way). But after a while, it kind of melds into the background and joins the other notes. The tea is quite ‘harmonious’ in that I can’t really pick out a dominant note. The second steep has a much more distinct lemon note (mostly in smell, not so much in taste) so it’s more pleasant but the ginger note went away. I’m not sure why but I don’t quite like this flavour combination.

Ice breaker: I was initially scared of the peppery notes from the kawakawa that the description mentioned, but I didn’t taste that at all. Instead, the tea is very sweet – almost too sweet – and fruity with some refreshing minty notes. The fruity note here reminded me of a muscat for some reason. It’s a new thing for me to have a sweet mint tea since I normally drink pure mint tisanes, but it’s a nice change.

Green heart: This tea smelled sweet right out of the packet. Initially, the only note I got was the jasmine because I’m most familiar with it but as the tea continues to steep, a peppery note starts to appear. I couldn’t identify any lemongrass and tulsi notes, though I can see the lemongrass so I know it’s there. 

And that’s it for today! I’ve got another six teas left in this box. so stay tuned for part 2 of this quick tea review!