Focus from BlendBee

Blendbee has some of the most amazing smelling teas! Focus from BlendBee is one of those teas! Upon opening the package I could smell lemon-orange-chocolate! The second sniff is when I noticed the gently roasted, savory, and floral notes. Usually I would think all of these conflicting aromas would be weird together but they seemed to fit here. I could get over the amazing aroma!

The original reason I reached for this tea today was because I was having a hard time focusing. I’m not going to make any claims or anything here BUT once I smelled this tea I know I couldn’t FOCUS on anything other that how awesome it smelled! I knew I had to take the next step, tho! I added the water and waited 3 or 4 minutes before sipping. Once the tea was infused it was harder to identify each of those ingredients with a single sniff but it still smelled YUMMY.

Focus from BlendBee ‘brewed’ dark brown and I could taste a combo of Yerba Mate, Black Tea, Lemon, and Orange, mostly. In follow up sips I could taste the chicory and it was done perfectly! It was hanging out in the background and wasn’t over powering! The rose and chocolaty notes were more on the end sip and aftertaste and were lovely, too! This is a Yerba Mate/Black Tea blend I could see myself drinking often! YUM!


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Black/Yerba Mate
Where to Buy: BlendBee
BlendBee-Logo-and-Tagline-2Description
Sharpen your mind & stay focused.

This invigorating black tea & yerba mate blend was specifically designed for a tea lover whose favorite tea was discontinued. We recreated it for her, and to our delight, we loved this blend and decided to whole world should have it. It definitely helps you to stay focused and has a great energy. Enjoy!

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Earl Grey Cream Tea from Aromatica Fine Teas

 

Just what my morning needed…Earl Grey Cream Tea from Aromatica Fine Teas!  This is a mighty fine Earl Grey Cream!  Upon opening the package I could clearly see the ingredients of Ceylon Black Tea and Cornflower Petals.  The aroma was what you would expect for an Earl Grey with a bit of sweet-cream to boot!

Once I added my hot water to this Earl Grey Cream Tea from Aromatica Fine Teas the tea in the cup infused to a medium shade of brown and filled the air with a creamier Earl Grey aroma.  The aroma was ‘just right’ it wasn’t overly strong to make your eyes water but it was certainly pleasing!

On the taste buds – Earl Grey Cream Tea from Aromatica Fine Teas – lived up to its name!  The Earl Grey flavor was a solid strength and followed by just the right amount of smooth from the ‘cream’.  This tea was fantastically done!

 


Fullscreen capture 8262016 81231 AMHere’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: Aromatica Fine Teas
Description: Ceylon black tea, cornflower blossoms, flavour.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Ceylon Idulgashinna Hand Twisted Blue Nettle Oolong from What-Cha

bluenettleoolongTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Oolong

Where to Buy:  What-Cha

Tea Description:

A delightful tea crafted by workers meticulously hand twisting and tying tea leaves together to form a ‘blue nettle’. The leaves within the ‘blue nettle’ show varying levels of oxidisation and as a result the tea exhibits characteristics typical to white, oolong and black teas!

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This is a very cool tea; and while I don’t know for sure that’s it’s unique to What-Cha I’ve personally never seen another oolong rolled like this. When I opened up my sealed package I was quite surprised too; the ‘nettles’/spears of tea are actually quite large and thick – maybe about the length of my pinky finger? And just slightly thicker across than the widest part of my finger. For my tasting, I used two of the nettles/spears since the suggested measurement was 1-2 pieces and I was using a mug just slightly bigger than 12 ounces.

The first infusion was very soft and delicate, like a very lightly oxidized oolong but with flavour notes traditionally found in white, oolong, and black teas  – exactly like What-Cha describes in the tea description! The notes I observed throughout the cup were apricot, overripe peaches, hay, flowers, malt, and a dewy/rainwater like flavour. The emphasis was on the really supple stonefruit notes though. It also surprised me a little that the nettles stayed almost completely the same shape as they were before steeping – just slightly ‘swollen’ from steeping.

The second infusion was quite similar to the first – though the apricot, hay, and malt notes all got increasingly more prominent and I wasn’t tasting overripe peaches or the same ‘dew’ flavour anymore. The mouthfeel was initially soft, but it left a tingly feeling on my tongue like I’d eaten too much pineapple recently. All subsequent steeps followed the layout of this one up until the flavour started to really suffer. The nettles never really completely unwound, either.

This was a fascinating tea, and I really enjoyed it quite a bit! However, that said, the first infusion actually was my favourite. There was something really perfect about the taste of apricot and fresh rainwater. It’s hard to put it into words.

Organic Herbal Blue Tea from Blue Chai

Blue Tea BlueChai Tea - Dried Butterfly Pea Flowers - Blue Tea FlowerTea Type:
Herbal Tisane/Blue Tea

Where to Purchase:
Blue Chai

Product Description:

Discover the amazingly deep blue color and experience the smooth, floral flavour of our best butterfly pea flowers.
The luscious aroma will remind you of green tea, yet Bluechai’s blue tea is a herbal tisane that is refreshing, cleansing, without any caffeine and unique in color and taste. It’s wonderful hot or iced.

Tasters Review:
Here at Sororitea Sisters we LOVE finding a new kind of tea or tisane base and when we were contacted by the folks over at Blue Chai we really didn’t know what we were in store for.  At first I thought it was just a ‘pretty name’ for a tea company and I was thinking ‘Chai”.  BUT…this was more than a tisane or a ‘blue tea’ it was an experience!  This is the first time I have had “Blue Tea” and I will say I’m impressed.  Not just because it’s a good tasting tisane – it’s fresh and like flowers and peas – and lucky for me I LOVE the taste of fresh peas…it’s also because this is a full experience that goes beyond any tisane I’ve ever had thus far!

What might seem ‘simple’ turned out to be amazingly beautiful and somewhat ‘trippy’.  But I wouldn’t want it any other way!  THE ingredient in this tisane is 100% Dried Butterfly Pea Flowers also known as Clitoria Ternatea.

If you do ONE thing today make sure it’s THIS…check out these AMAZING photos from their site!  They load a little slower but it’s totally worth the wait!

Of course I’m drinking some more of this as I type this and I’m really enjoying it.  It’s putting a smile on my face and changing the way I look at the day ahead.  Pretty powerful words for a tisane, eh!?  The aroma of this is soft and subtle floral and sweet pea combination.  The color post infusion is an insanely dark blue color which I LOVE.  The taste is much like the aroma…softer, sweet, and subtly floral.  It doesn’t leave much of an aftertaste which I appreciate and NO it’s doesn’t turn your tongue BLUE!

The website is a plethora of information, folks, so be sure to check it out!  One thing I’m interested in – is the following bit of info I found on their site…

But don’t just drink this tea, use it in cooking, baking – perhaps add it to oatmeal … really! The blue color of the tea can be used as natural, organic food coloring to make blue rice for example.  Enjoy Bluechai hot to create comfort, calmness and warmth or add ice and lemon juice to get a mouthwatering drink that refreshes and revitalizes.

How AWESOME is that?  And if you check out the photos you will see a lot of those examples!  Natural and organic food coloring?  I’m TOTALLY there!  I just might have to purchase a larger bag of this for non-sipping and to try and tinker with – anything from crafts to creative cooking!  I can safely say – I’ve never been this EXCITED about a Tisane before!  WOW!  What an experience!