Monday, November 24, 2008

The Simple Leaf’s Chloe Review

Type: Green
Origin: Pussimbing Estate in Darjeeling, India
Price: $4.95 for 1oz; Sale price of $11.95 for 4oz. (regular price $13.95)
Vendor: The Simple Leaf
Brewing Method: 1 teaspoon of leaves (2.5-3.0 grams), 1 cup of filtered water, heated to 170°F-180°F, steeped for 2-3 minutes.
Overall Score: 2.8 out of 5

Chloe is carefully grown green tea from Darjeeling, India. The typical green tea aroma – very vegetal and grassy - hits me when I open the package. There are nice, big, whole leaves in this particular package. The different shades of green make the leaves very pretty to look at.

The aroma of the tea is very light and vegetal. It has a hint of nuttiness in the background. The liquor is a pretty yellow color.

The aroma was great, but the taste was not. The first sip was bitter. After that I managed to taste the grassy flavor of the green tea. Once I got over the bitterness, the flavor that I got from the tea really wasn’t that pleasing. The taste was very sharp and coarse and from the aroma I was almost expecting a light, slightly nutty flavor. The astringency was minimal, however.

I brewed this for a little over 2 minutes with 170°F water, which is what the instructions recommended. Brewing it for 30 seconds to 1 minute at 160-165°F might take away the bitterness, but even then I still think it will have that same coarse flavor.

Maybe I just had a bad cup. I will try brewing this again at different parameters and see what happens. If my opinion changes, I will let you know.

*** UPDATE ***

I tried this tea again but with the brewing parameters of 165-170°F water and steeped for 1 min.

The bitterness was reduced drastically. I could finally taste the tea on the first sip without having the look for it through the bitter screen. However, the taste was still distinctly coarse and almost metallic. In other words, the lack of bitterness this time was a huge plus, but this tea is no where near my number one.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I've had a couple cups of Chloe - I can't seem to brew it correctly. I've heard good things about it but I'm not tasting the hype. :(

Brittiny said...

Thanks for the comment, Mandybee!

Hmm... I'll see what I can do.

I've had teas that smelled bad but tasted ok... but this is the first time I've had a tea that smelled great but tasted bad.

Anonymous said...

I think I'm going crazy! I've had several cups of Chloe, thought I reviewed and posted. Just did a quick check on my blog, guess what? No review of Chloe. How did that happen. Must post a review ASAP. The bad part... I can't remember how it tasted. Bizarre! :-)

Brittiny said...

Oh noes, teaescapade!

For some reason, when I started this blog, I did not trust blogger's database to keep my information. So, whenever I do a review, I write it in MS Word first, save it, then copy and paste to post. This way, I always have a saved version - especially if I decide to take down the blog I will still have my reviews.

I am curious to know what you thought of Chloe. (Haha, that kind of sounds like gossip)

Jason Walker said...

Not to be too harsh on Chloe, but the taste and liquid color resemble tea that has been re-steeped for the 4th-5th time. makes me wonder if something could be improved in the fixing or firing process to retain more flavor.