Simply radiant: the Tea Forté’s work of art, that also makes a great cup of tea or unusual gift.

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October 2005

Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Beverages

Tea Forté

The World’s Most Beautiful Tea Infusers

A month ago we brewed our first cups of Tea Forté.  When we removed the silky mesh infuser bags, we put them on a small hors d’oeuvres plate—our “tea bag holder.” They looked so pretty there: three elegant silky pyramids filled with pretty leaves, looking like a mixed-media fabric sculpture—which is what visitors think they are.  Not three used tea bags, but a work of art.

We’re not being facetious when we say that tea-drinkers who are also artistic may find an after-market use for Tea Forté’s mesh tea infusers, creating lovely works from these most elegant of tea bags (which in fact have won industry design awards). But let us focus on the primary use of Tea Forte infuser tea bags: creating an exquisite presentation and a lovely cup of tea.

Tea Forté fills beautiful silk pyramids with whole leaf teas that look beautiful in the cup and beautiful out of the cup, bringing a new dimension of artistic enjoyment to a cup of tea. There’s no need to deal with strainers, metal infusion balls or spoons, or less-than-beautiful tea bags. These silk pyramids, topped by an artistic tea leaf (it’s made of heavy coated paper that withstands boiling water and remains perky weeks later), can’t help but elicit oohs and aahs—even from people who’ve seen them dozens of times.

It’s no surprise that Tea Forté is very popular at showers, weddings, and other elegant events. Each infuser is enclosed in its own decorative, pyramid-shaped mini-carton. The green tea leaf and the rest of the “string” of the infuser bag undulate through the top of the carton beguilingly. The company offers square “tea trays” that are tea bag holders with square recesses that perfectly hold the square base of the infuser bag. Both the bag and the bag in its carton rest perfectly in the tea tray, so that the individual box and tray can be used as a party favor, with or without a place card, at any number of events. It is all so perfect that you would not be surprised to hear that Buckingham Palace is surreptitiously alternating the traditional but old-hat British Fortnum & Mason brew with modern glamour from Concord, Massachusetts-based Tea Forte (too bad this is just an amusing conjecture on our part, as Concord is just steps away from Boston Harbor...and we all know what happened there in 1773). The company’s tag line, “The Art of Tea,” carries through to the sleek printed gift tins, which can be re-used to safeguard anything from cookies to your collection of greeting cards. The selection of teas includes:

Rising like a regal silk sculpture from the tea cup, Tea Forte is one tea bag that can grace the most formal dining table.

• Black teas: English Breakfast (all Assam), Forte (Ceylon sprinkled with white jasmine flowers), and Decaf Breakfast (decaffeinated Ceylon)
• Flavored black teas: Bombay Chai, Earl Grey
• Green tea: Oasis, a blend of Chinese green teas, spring flowers and citrus infusions
• Herbal teas: Chamomile, Citrus Mint, Flora (hibiscus and cinnamon sticks), and Ginger (a lemon-ginger blend).

If you want to impress your host or hostess, bring a box of these to dinner (bring the large box for a weekend stay).  The small box makes a nice stocking stuffer or mini-thank-you; and for someone in bed with a cold or worse, there couldn’t be a more charming pick-me-up.