Sweet Violet Tea from M&K’s Tea Company

Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Flower

Where to Buy:  M&K’s Tea Company on Etsy

Tea Description:

Sweet Chinese violets, creamy and sweet with just a hint of floral flavor! If you enjoy the lighter side of life (chamomile, rose buds, green tea) you will love this tea. Just throw a couple of flowers in some boiling water, and–viola! You have some sweet violet tea. Although this isn’t a rare flower, it is a difficult tea to locate, which makes us extra happy to offer it to our customers.

Learn more about this tisane here.

Taster’s Review:

Every once in a while, I’ll shop around on Etsy.  As an artist myself, I like supporting other artists.  And also, every once in a while, I’ll come across a new-to-me tea company whose offerings are too enticing to pass up.  Such is the case last week when I was looking around on Etsy and I found M&K’s Tea Company.

I was thrilled with the prices of their samplers.  The one I ultimately decided upon was just $4.99 for a custom five tea sampler, but there are several other samplers to choose from as well.   The order turnaround time is speedy:  I placed the order and the next business day, my order was already in transit!

I really like the packaging of the samples from M&K’s Tea Company.  The outer “sleeve” is a small Kraft envelope that is about the size of a coin envelope.  it has a “window” cut out of it to offer a visual of the tea which has been sealed in a small zipper pouch that’s been sealed inside the Kraft envelope.  The front outer label has the M&K’s logo and the name of the tea.  The back outer label offers brewing parameters, ingredients and harvest information.

Under the sealed flap of the Kraft envelope is “Your Lucky Tea Symbol.”  For this particular tea, my symbol is The Fox.  I’m not sure exactly what that means.  But it adds a little whimsy to the whole thing.

A lot of thought has gone into packaging and I like that.  I like that it has a certain “small company” type feel to it but some time and effort was invested in it to give it a quality appearance while also providing the customer with the information needed to properly brew a cup of tea!

So, this Sweet Violet Tea is the first of the teas that I’ll be trying from this new to me company!  Not actually a “tea” because it contains no camellia sinensis, this flower tisane is crafted from Sweet Violets.  The flowers are gorgeous, colorful, whole and beautifully fragrant.

To brew this, I emptied the sample into the basket of my Kati Tumbler.  The other samples from M&K’s hold enough for 500ml in my Breville One-Touch, but because these flowers are so large and bulky, the sample envelope looks like it’s just the right size for my tumbler.  There are four whole flowers in the sample package, which seems about right for the size of the tumbler.  Maybe one flower too many, but I’d rather go a little more on the leaf than a little less.

I filled the tumbler with water heated to 195°F and steeped the flowers for 8 minutes.  (Incidentally, I didn’t follow the parameters as suggested on the packet, which called for 2 whole flowers per cup of boiling water, steeped for 2 – 5 minutes.)

Wow!  I like this!  I can’t think of another time that I’ve consumed a “pure Sweet Violet” tea/tisane such as this.  I’ve had other flower teas, of course, but no Sweet Violets.  I like this a lot.

The above description compares it to “the lighter side”  and uses Chamomile, Rose Buds and Green Tea as examples.  I think I like this better than chamomile.  I like green tea better, but I think this would make a really good blend with green tea, I think.  Perhaps a Dragon Well.  As for rosebuds, this reminds me a bit of a rosebud tisane.  The floral notes of a rosebud tea are maybe a little sharper – here, they’re soft and … well, the word I want to use is “fluffy.”  There is a creaminess to this that I don’t experience with a rosebud tisane and that’s what’s giving it the fluffy taste.

So, I think I might actually like this better than a rosebud tisane.  Or at least just as much.

The flowery notes are not sharp, they’re soft and sweet.  And like the description above suggests, the floral notes are delicate.  They don’t taste perfume-y or soapy at all.  And the cup has a barely there floral aroma which kind of surprised me (I did, after all, steep flowers!)  There really isn’t much aroma to the liquid at all.  But the flavor is really enjoyable.  I don’t generally get all excited over tisanes – I prefer my camellia sinensis – but this is actually one that I could see myself wanting to keep in my pantry.  It’s really quite lovely!

And as it represent my first tea experience with M&K’s Tea Company, I’d say that we’re off to a really good start!