Sunday, 3 April 2016

Review: Hi-Tea Loose Tea Series

Hi-Tea Loose Tea Series (10 sachets per box)
Today review is on Hi-Tea Loose Tea Series. Thanks to Hi-Tea for sending the teas. 

Hi-Tea has become part of my everyday drink. Each of its loose tea not only provide its own health benefits, it provide excellent taste as well. I can drink it hot, cold, by itself or do some experiment to boil it or mix it with other ingredients to make my own unique tea. Best of all, its caffeine free and 100% natural. Perfectly safe and healthy as a good replacement from soft drinks. :)

Hi-Tea Loose Tea Series Summary
You must have already seen my previous 2 posts on Hi-Tea fruit tea and blend of flowering tea series summary write up. If you have not, fear not. Lets do a recap here, shall we!

Hi-Tea is a Singapore based flower tea company that provides flower tea products with quality and beneficiary to health and beauty.

Their tea uses 100% pure flowers and fresh fruits that is dried and mixed. Also it does not contain caffeine, flavouring, color or additives. Perfectly safe and healthy.

They have 3 selections of tea:
  • Loose Tea (Today's Review)
    • Lemongrass, Stevia, Sweet Osmanthus, Ginseng Flower, Pink Rose, Peppermint, Lavender, Rose Hips, Chrysanthemum buds, Chamomile.
  • Blends of Flowering Tea (Click here to see Flowering Tea Reviews)
    • Slimming Tea, Health Tea, Beauty Tea, Anti-Aging Tea, Relaxation Series
  • Fruit Tea (Click here to see Fruit Tea Reviews)
    • Peach Fruit Tea, Apple Rose Fruit Tea, Blueberry Fruit Tea
For today's review, we will cover 7 of Hi-Tea Loose Tea.

Hi-Tea Loose Tea
Hi-Tea provides premium quality loose tea for those who prefer to enjoy single type of tea. Out of the loose tea they have, their most popular once include Chrysanthemum buds, Chamomile, Pink Rose, Peppermint and Lemongrass. 
7 of Hi-Tea Loose Tea Series
Sweet Osmanthus Tea
Flavour - Slight Sour
Benefits - Good for digestive system and coughing, sooth lungs, promote beautiful skin.

Ginseng Flower Tea
Flavour - Slight Sweet or Slight Bitter depending on individual
Benefits - Reduce blood pressure, lower glucose levels, fat level in blood stream, improve digestion and gastrointestinal function, prevent symptoms of menopause for women, reduce risk of cancer, quench thirst and prevent dehydration.

Lavender Tea
Flavour - Slight Sweet and Strong Fragrant
Benefits - Reduce blood pressure, stabilize digestive system, relief headache, improve sleep quality, minimize chance of getting flu cough or sore throats, relief menstrual pain and relax tension.

Pink Rose Tea
Flavour - Sweet and Fragrant
Benefits - Beautify skin such as reduce dark spots, improve skin textures and etc, relief menstrual pain, aid in breasts lifting and those who can't conceive.

Lemongrass Tea
Flavour - Slight Sour
Benefits - Good for skin, improve blood circulation, improve digestive system, good for lower body slimming and remove excessive water in body.

Stevia Tea
Flavour - Sweet
Benefits - Low in calories, use as replacement for white sugar, lower blood sugar, blood pressure, improve metabolism rate, use as contraception, prevent tooth decay and decrease nerves tiredness.
Suitable for - Heart condition patients, diabetes, high blood pressure, liver problems and obesity patients.
(Should never be use more than 1 pack per day.)

Peppermint Tea
Flavour - Slight Sour
Benefits - Activate brain cells, improve blood circulation, ease sore throat, headache, toothache, good in helping human breathing system, relieve anger for calm and relaxation. 
(Not suitable for pregnant, breastfeeding women, people with cough or weak lungs and not suitable to drink at night)

Go to Hi-Tea Website for more information.

How to drink Hi-Tea Loose Tea Series?
  • Place 1 sachet into 300ml of mug.
  • Pour in some water to wash the tea then add 300ml of hot water. 
  • Steep it for 3- 5 minutes. Increase steeping time for each new brew. 
  • Its then ready to be serve. Add honey or rock sugar for sweet taste. 
    How to drink Hi-Tea.
This tea can be drink warm or cold, depending on own preference.

Each sachet can be brewed up to 3 times.

My Review
Thanks to Hi-Tea for sending the teas for this review.

Having tried Hi-Tea fruit tea and blend of flowering tea, I am even more excited to try their loose tea as I am those who love to taste individual tea more. 

All right lets get the tea rolling, should we?

Hi-Tea loose tea came in my favorite yellow in color box, each containing 10 sachets of tea bag. Each in individual package for ease of traveling. 
Came in a Yellow box.
There are several ways of storing it.  
  • You can either store it as it is by opening and closing as normal box.
    First way of storing.
  • Or tear off along the dotted line on the box, remove unwanted portion and cover with small opening left at the side of the cover.
    Second way of storing.
  • Or after tearing off and removing the unwanted portion, fold along the cover to make it into a beautiful display box like you see in supermarket shelf.
    Third way of storing.
There are of course no limitation to how you store them. You can even remove all the boxes and pour all into your own storage container or basket. :)

One thing I notice from the loose tea is that there are Chinese wording of the tea name. This benefits elderly in the house who knows how to read Chinese only. 
Individual Sachet.
Sweet Osmanthus Tea
Sweet Osmanthus Tea
As I am doing review, so I tear open to let you see the tea. But my advice is not to tear it open unless you have a tea filter. 
How the tea bag looks like.
Osmanthus flowers do look beautiful to me even when it's dried.
How Osmanthus flowers looks like.
The osmanthus tea is light yellow in color. 
The osmanthus tea is light yellow in color.
There is no much fragrance smell that I observed. But the tea do have a very nice fragrance osmanthus taste that is lightly sweet. 

I really love this tea taste. Not too heavy and leave a nice fragrance taste that linger inside your month even after swallowing.

Ginseng Flower Tea 
Ginseng Flower Tea
Ginseng flowers???......Hmm....this really got me curious. I have seen ginseng but it never really come across my mind how the flower looks like. Well, looks funny to me. :P
How Ginseng Flower looks like.
The ginseng flower tea is yellow in color.
The ginseng flower tea is yellow in color.
The tea itself gave off a light ginseng smell. On the taste, its either you like it or you don't. It taste bitter sweet (苦甘), just like really drinking water boiled from ginseng.

For me, I quite like the taste as I have been used to drinking other bitter sweet Chinese herbal tea. This one taste a lot nicer than other bitter sweet herbal tea. :)

Lavender Tea
Lavender Tea
I love looking at the small small lavender bud. So small and cute that I feel like playing with it. 
How lavender bud looks like.
Lavender tea produces a darker color as compare to the previous two tea above. It is light brown in color. Takes the color of English tea.  
Lavender tea is light brown in color.
Lavender tea I personally feel is nicer to smell than drink. It produces a very nice lavender fragrance smell from opening right up to putting the tea in my mouth. 

However, the tea taste bitter to me. Not what I like. I would prefer chamomile tea instead.

Pink Rose Tea
Pink Rose Tea
I thought the pink rose will be pink in color but it turns all yellow petal as it's dried pink rose.
How pink Rose tea looks like.
Pink rose tea is yellow in color. Well this tea color and the cup I am using does look like I am drinking those fake beer used in filming isn't it...LOL 
Pink rose tea produces yellow color tea.
This pink rose tea just gave me a completely opposite feel as compare to lavender tea. For pink rose tea I love to drink it more than smelling it. It does produce a nice rose fragrance smell but unfortunately, I am not a lover of rose fragrance.

The tea produces a nice sweet rose fragrance taste. But take care not to make it too thick as too thick makes the tea taste a little bitter. It taste just nice when not too hot and not too thick. 

Lemongrass Tea
Lemongrass Tea
Lemongrass doesn't look pretty but it taste pretty and very useful
How lemongrass looks like.
Lemongrass tea has a transparent-like ultra light yellow color. I almost couldn't see any color produced. 
Lemongrass tea has a transparent-like ultra light yellow color.
It gave off a very nice lemongrass fragrance smell. The tea taste fragrance sweet that feels refreshing to me.

I love lemongrass. Not only do I love to smell it, use it, drink it, I love to eat them too. So this tea definitely wins my heart easily.

Well, I have tried tea blended by Hi-Tea. So I decided to blend my own tea here. I mix Lemongrass tea with Pink Rose tea. (ratio is 2:1.5)
My own blend of lemongrass with pink rose tea.
Results, a very nice tea with lemongrass taste at the beginning but a little sweet rose taste towards the end before swallowing it.
Own blend lemongrass pink rose tea.
Stevia Tea
Stevia Tea
Ok I admit that this is the first time I heard of this tea. The stevia leaves just reminds me of drinking other Chinese tea.
How stevia tea looks like.
It is translated from Chinese, that this is sweet chrysanthemum leave (甜菊叶). So naturally the tea produces chrysanthemum type of yellow color. Turns a little golden yellow under the lights to me. 
Stevia tea produces chrysanthemum type of yellow color.
Not only does the tea taste very sweet, it smells sweet too. I am 100% sure that you do not need to add any honey or sugar to this tea. It is sweet enough. 

It turns out that I like this tea a lot as it does not taste like I am drinking tea at all. Pretty surprise to me. And I am sure those with sweet tooth will like this.

Peppermint Tea
Peppermint Tea
Peppermint tea leave looks like any leaves dried. Looks nothing very special to me. 
How peppermint tea leaves looks like.
The tea is light brown in color. Looks just like English tea to me. 
The tea is light brown in color.
Just by smelling it already makes me feel refreshing. The tea produces a light peppermint fragrance. Same type of smell from mint essential oil too. 

This peppermint tea really gave me a wow effect after drinking it. It taste very wakening. It has a light peppermint icy cool taste. This taste goes all the way from my throat, to nose and right up to my brain

And then imagine icy smoke coming out from your head...LOL...just kidding. It taste not very icy cool but just good enough with a bit of sweet taste. I personally feel that it taste nicer when cold. 

If you have followed The Swanple Facebook post or Instagram post, you would probably seen how my mum use Hi-Tea apple rose fruit tea to boil with lemongrass and green apple to make it into a unique herbal tea. 
Previous experiment of Hi-Tea apple rose fruit tea + lemongrass + green apple.
So today I am going try my own tea too. Well, I am not as good as my mum. So I won't do any boiling. Let's do it the modern lazy way. LOL

What happen if you do not like peppermint taste but still wants to drink it for the benefits? So I am going to try putting in other drinks to this peppermint tea such as Ribena for today's experiment. 
Today experiment of Hi-Tea peppermint tea + Ribena
It turns out very well done. I taste an icy cool Ribena drink without tasting the peppermint at all. You can try yours too. 
Own made Peppermint Ribena tea
And what happened to all those tea leafs after drinking? Well I turn it into fertilizers for my house plants. :)
After used tea leafs or flowers. Can you guess which belongs to which tea?
Just for fun before I end the post, from the above after used tea picture, are you able to tell which leafs or flowers belong to which tea? Erm no prizes for getting all right. Just for fun only. :P
Enjoying drinking Hi-Tea. Thanks for reading.
Overall, Hi-Tea has become part of my everyday drink. Each of its loose tea not only provide its own health benefits, it provide excellent taste as well. I can drink it hot, cold, by itself or do some experiment to boil it or mix it with other ingredients to make my own unique tea. Best of all, its caffeine free and 100% natural. Perfectly safe and healthy as a good replacement from soft drinks.

Where to buy it?
Hi-Tea various type of Tea can be bought from Hi-Tea Website at a retail price of S$22.90 per box for loose tea, S$24.90 per box for fruit tea and S$26.90 per box for special blend tea.

Currently, they are still having a promotion of 2 boxes for S$18 while stock last. That's a good buy. :)

Secretly tell you, they will be having new packaging to their tea pack soon. So keep a look out then.  
Hi-Tea special blend tea, fruit tea and loose tea.
Where to get sample?
No sample redemption for this product. :( However you may like Hi-Tea Facebook Page for future promotion.

(Answer to the fun quiz above from left to right starting top row: ginseng flower tea, lavender tea, lemongrass tea, peppermint tea, pink rose tea, stevia tea, sweet osmanthus tea.)

Disclaimer: Products were provided for personal review purposes only. All reviews are 100% honest and based on my personal experience. No monetary compensation of any kind was given or received for this review. 

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