Welcome to the full index of all my tea reviews! Here at Immortal Wordsmith, I review one to two teas per week. Over the years, that’s really built up. From T2 favourites to some fantastic high-quality single origin teas from King Tea Mall and What-Cha. So, I’ve organised my teas with tags. Click the links below to view all teas by type, by their packaging, brand, subscription, and even by ingredient.
Use this page to navigate between my many tea reviews, whether you’re looking for a particular tea range or just hunting for something new. You can also use the search function on our site to quickly find a brew for your tastes.
Tea Reviews by Tea Type
Tea drinkers who want to know more about each tea type – this is the section for you! I’ve split all my teas into their type, whether they’re pu-erh, matcha, or herbal infusions like rooibos that don’t contain any caffeine.
By Packaging/Format
My favourite format is loose leaf tea, but there are many more formats available. I’ve split my reviews between loose leaf (the kind you need a filter for), tea sachet (the pyramid style bags), and tea bags (the square or circle flat paper type).
Many companies offer their customers a variety of options. While loose leaf might seem to have a higher price, you can actually re-infuse the same leaf multiple times, making the cost per cup smaller. It’s also better for the environment and reduces waste!
Classic Tea Blends
We have some customer favourites here. English Breakfast tea, for example, is one of the most popular classic tea blends worldwide. If you’re looking for something a little more delicate, go for a Jasmine green or choose an Afternoon blend. You’ll also find some caffeine-free blends here, like detox teas and sleepy teas.
- Afternoon Tea
- Detox
- Earl Grey
- English Breakfast Tea
- Genmaicha
- Jasmine Green Tea
- Milk Oolong (Jin Xuan)
- Lapsang Souchong
- Masala Chai
- Sencha
- Sleep Aid
Single Origin Tea
Many specialist tea companies, like What-Cha and White2Tea, offer single origin teas. These are teas that come from a specific area. It may be a single region in a country, like Assam in India, or it may be specific tea gardens.
How and where the tea is grown has a huge impact on the flavour. Buying single origin teas allows you to detect those specific flavours easily – and appreciate them.
Tea Reviews by Ingredient or Flavouring
Many of my reviews are for teas that contain additional ingredients. Whittard’s Mango and Bergamot tea, for example, can be found under the Mango tag and the Bergamot tag, as well as loose leaf and green tea.
If you have a craving to taste fruity teas or are looking for a very specific flavour and aroma, this is where you can narrow down your search.
By Tea Company or Brand
These are the brands I currently have reviews for on my website. Some like to send me samples, others I’ve purchased orders from in bulk. If you’re looking for a specific selection or tea varieties from your favourite company, this is where you can find them. I love to order tea from the UK that has Fairtrade and Organic certifications, so many of the companies below are the very best for natural, certified and planet-friendly purchases.
By Tea Subscription
Tasting tea is a lot of work and sometimes it’s really hard to know where to start when the range of tea types extends forever! That’s where tea subscriptions come in. You can discover and share a variety of teas with delivery to your door every month.
So far, I’ve only had the pleasure of rating Teapro’s 12 month subscription, but keep your eye on this section for more subscription articles to come.
How I Review Each Tea Selection
There is a little science here!
First of all, I do a handful of things to ensure that nothing is compromising my tea tasting.
- I don’t eat before I taste my tea, to ensure my palate is clear and uncompromised.
- I use the same water for all my tea brewing.
- I only brew products that are well before the best-before date.
- I ignore all customer feedback and ingredients lists, where possible, to prevent clouding my judgement.
Next, I brew according to instructions from the brand. I taste. I judge. Then I brew again with adjustments to find the best way to get the most out of the tea.
When it comes to rating the tea, I give marks out of 10 for each of these features.
Dry Leaf
I look closely at the dried leaf, judging it’s appearance and quality. Whole leaf gets top marks, CTC tea dust gets the lowest marks.
This does make a difference to the brew that ends up in your mug.
Quality of Ingredients
I love whole, large chunks of ingredients in my tea. So, additives like organic, natural bergamot essential oils will get a much higher score than artificial bergamot flavouring.
Dry Aroma
What does the dry leaf smell like? I believe this is important for the overall rating and review. It adds to the ambience of the tea drinking experience.
Wet Aroma
When you inhale the delicious steam coming from your cup, it needs to smell good. Smell is closely linked to taste, too. If a tea smells unappetising, this will impact the final score.
Flavour
This part of the review process takes time. I like to sip a full cup, rather than just take a mouthful and be done with it. Even if I dislike a tea at first, sometimes it changes between the first sip and the last. Some teas grow on you, others develop in flavour the more you drink them.
Texture and Sensation
The mouthfeel is important to the overall experience. A thick tea clings to your tongue, while a watery one is very refreshing. I judge by how much the texture of the tea matches the flavour and how pleasant it is.
As for sensation, this is about how the tea makes me feel. If it’s supposedly a relaxing tea, then I need to feel relaxed after drinking it for full marks.
Colour
The aesthetics of a tea matter a great deal. That’s why I take picture after picture to ensure you can get a sense of what the tea looks like, for both the leaf and the tea liquid. This also gives you an idea of how difficult it will be to clean out of your tea filter too!
Where to Discover New Teas and Reviews
I share my tea reviews on several platforms.
- Here on the blog, where I share detailed information about the tea, how to brew it, what the company is like, and where to buy it as a customer.
- On Steepster, which is a fantastic tea community where many tea-fanatics log their sips each day. I highly recommend you join this community!
- On Instagram, where you can find updates on my progress, behind-the-scenes shots, and be the first to know when new reviews are live.
You can also sign up to our monthly round-up newsletter email, to receive a monthly list of new tea reviews in your inbox.
How to Make Me Your Tea Customer!
If you own or work for a tea company, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what I should order from you, what you currently have in stock or production, and share it with me. You can contact me using the contact us form, or send me an email to [email protected]
