Green Tea Tropical is another delightful whole-leaf artisanal offering from Mighty Leaf, a blend of green tea leaves, colorful cornflowers, and tropical fruit.

Pulling the silk tea sachet out of the foil envelope, I was immediately struck by how pretty this tea is. The green of the tea leaves was speckled with flashes of blue and red flower petals. The aroma was the second thing that captured my attention. Straight from the package, the tea gives off a lively fragrance that reminded me of nothing more than fruit punch. Clearly, this is not a fuddy-duddy tea!

I steeped the tea bag for the suggested three minutes in very hot — not boiling — water, then removed and discarded the tea bag.

As with other Mighty Leaf tea blends I’ve sampled, I found that Green Tea Tropical did not require any sweetener to enhance its flavor or mitigate bitterness. In fact, there was no hint of the bitter notes that sometimes characterize green tea. The brew was full-bodied without being cloying, and the flavor was bright, with well-defined notes of pineapple and guava.

Because this tea has such an unusually vibrant quality, I would take care when selecting food to pair it with. Although I didn’t have an opportunity to do so, I would try it iced, and serve it with salads or seafood. Hot, I think it would make an excellent stand-alone dessert tea. If serving with sweets, I would not match it with any kind of elaborate or rich dessert, but would offer only a simple pound cake or sugar cookies, or perhaps grilled summer fruits.

Green Tea Tropical does contain some caffeine, but less than black tea, and provides beneficial antioxidant compounds.

For more information or to order Green Tea Tropical or other Mighty Leaf teas online, check out the Mighty Leaf Web site.

Although it’s not surprising that green-tea liqueurs have apparently been around for a while in Japan (there’s green tea ice cream, why not liqueur?), according to its press packet, ZEN is the first to be formulated especially with the American market in mind. Seems like a good idea to me, as Americans are currently enamored of all things green tea. Riding the wave of that green-tea love, ZEN Green Tea Liqueur is essentially a blend of high-quality green tea leaves, herbs, and other flavors, in a neutral-spirits base with an alcohol content of 20 percent.

(ZEN is produced by the same company, Suntory Ltd., who makes Midori, a light, sweet, emerald-green liqueur that has become extremely popular in the United States. Together with Midori, ZEN is distributed stateside by SKYY Spirits, LLC.)  

Provided along with the bottle of ZEN was a little booklet of recipes. I chose a fairly easy one — the Zen Mojito — to sample first. Opening the bottle, which I’d chilled in the fridge for a few hours, I took a sniff. Raspberry iced tea, was the first thing that came to mind. The fruitiness was unexpected but pleasant, and I thought it was a good sign that the tea aroma was predominant over the alcohol. (For the record, it doesn’t actually taste like raspberries.)

Tasting the ZEN Green Tea Liqueur in the mojito, and then going on to taste it in a few other ways (over the course of a few days–NOT all at once), I developed a preference for those combinations where ZEN was the dominant flavor. The mojito was mmm, mmm mojito, but the rum in it masked the subtler herbal notes of the ZEN. My husband, who, for purposes of scientific objectivity, tested the recipes along with me, came to a similar conclusion, commenting, “I’d like to try the ZEN on its own, to see what it really tastes like.”

ZEN Mojito (recipe courtesy of ZEN)

• 1 ½ parts ZEN Green Tea Liqueur
• 1 ½ parts Matusalem Platino Rum
• ½ part fresh lime juice
• ½ part simple syrup
• Mint leaves
• Club soda

Muddle mint in a cocktail shaker. Add ZEN, rum, lime juice and simple syrup and shake. Serve in a tall glass over ice. Top with club soda.

Because it is tea based, ZEN Green Tea Liqueur seems to marry well with pretty much anything you’d pair logically with a cup of green tea. Good flavor and ingredient matches include ginger, mint, lemon, even cream. Ultimately, our favorite mix consisted of ZEN over crushed ice with a splash of ginger ale and a squeeze of lime. Simple and very “zen.”

Incidentally, chilled and served over ice, ZEN is quite nice on its own. Grass green, the liqueur served without a mixer tastes something like a reduction of honey-sweetened green tea flavored with lemongrass.

ZEN manages to avoid the cough-syrupy consistency that characterizes many liqueurs, having a body that is fairly light and mellow, rounded out with a pleasant herbal finish. Plus, there’s an authentic astringency from the green tea, which I found provides just the right balance to the sweetness. Overall, I really like this liqueur. It’s unique, elegant, and surprisingly versatile. 

I’d say this is the perfect liquor to sip with appetizers on a warm spring or summer evening. I’d like to try it in lemonade, iced black tea, and maybe as a flavoring in white sangria or even granita. 

For recipes and more info, check out the ZEN Green Tea Liqueur Web site.  

ZEN Green Tea Liqueur and ZEN Mojito images courtesy of ZEN Green Tea Liqueur

The day I taste-tasted the Chamomile Citrus blend, I wasn’t feeling good. Nothing specific, just a yucky sort of mid-March malaise characterized by a scratchy throat and iffy stomach. I felt like the soggy and withered lawn outside my window looked. In other words, it was the perfect opportunity to test drive a cup of restorative chamomile tea.

Packaged individually in foil envelopes, Mighty Leaf teabags are not made from paper, but are actually handcrafted silk pouches. As I tugged the bag from the foil wrapper, I took a close look at its contents. The Chamomile Citrus infusion is an artisanal whole-leaf blend. What I saw inside the silk-mesh bag looked exactly like herbs you might grow and dry yourself for tea. Which is to say, they look whole, real, and wonderfully intact. Leaves, blossoms, and spices were well preserved enough to still be colorful.

The smell of the dry tea was, I’ll confess, a little off-putting at first. Perhaps it was my already shaky stomach, but the chamomile smelled uncharacteristically strong, almost weedy. I prepared the water and continued to hope for the best.

After steeping the teabag for the recommended 3 minutes, I removed the bag and took a sip of the tea, unadulterated with sweetener or anything else. In a word, perfect. The reconstituted spices balanced the chamomile, and no one flavor dominated. There was a subtle and delicate sweetness, and the aroma of citrus brightened up the whole mix without overwhelming the chamomile. Really, a masterful blend.

By the end of the cup I was feeling a good deal cheerier if not entirely cured, and what more could you want from a great cup of tea?