The elderflower flowers look like micro chamomile blossoms, yellow and spherical. Though the elderflowers are so tiny, it almost like a bag of pollen. The small blossoms are a golden color and very fine in texture. When brewing this tea, be sure to use your infuser with the finest mesh or smallest holes.
Brewed, this tea is surprisingly earthy and savory, and not very floral. The tea has a woodsy fragrance like crushed dried flowers or cut hay. Some of the flavor notes remind me of the brighter pu erh teas I’ve tried, so if you aren’t a floral tea fan, this blend might just be your favorite exception.
The taste of the brew continues to support the earthy, dried grass tones, but coupled with a new, buttery flavor. The taste is a bit more vegetal than the scent, with a crisp, celery note. As the brew cools, and the more I drink, the more I detect a sweeter, brown sugar undertone. Plum Deluxe recommends the brew with a bit of sweetener, which helps bring forward the toasted sugar or brown butter flavors even further.
Just Elderflower is a unique blend in appearance and taste, making for a thoughtful and flavorful one-ingredient brewing experience.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Plum Deluxe
Description:
Just Elderflower is part of our “just” line of thoughtfully-source, single ingredient herbal teas. Elderflower is a curious, floral, and fragrant tea ingredient. Despite its delicate nature, it steeps up for a wonderful, calming, curing beverage.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Chocolate from Pu-Erh Numi Teas. . . .
I’ve found that sometimes pu-erh teas can be a bit complicated, there’s a lot of history and process that’s worth knowing if you take your pu-erh seriously. However, I had a completely different experience with Chocolate Pu -Erh from Numi, which is one of the most approachable pu-erh teas I’ve tried.
Pu-erh teas are known for their exceptionally smooth mouthfeel and their earthy taste. Adding chocolate to that combination sounds like a great idea. This Chocolate Pu-Erh came in an easy-to-use sample tea bag, not in a big tea cake, so no special tools or teapots were necessary. Just add hot water and a mug. The dry tea smelled a little sour with a hint of vinegar. However, once I brewed the tea, the flavors were far more inviting, with a strong fragrance of cocoa and roasted nuts.
This tea had a forward chocolate flavor, but it was rounded out by the more savory, earthiness of the pu erh tea underneath. There is a hint of fermentation flavors that I expect from pu-erh teas; a subtle undertone, almost like wet leaves or flowers, slightly sweet and slightly sour. The richness of the pu-erh leaves and the decadence of the chocolate are only enhanced by the creamy, velvety mouthfeel as I sipped this tea.
If you are tired of the bright and biting flavors of breakfast black teas, try a pu-erh tea like Chocolate Pu-Erh from Numi. The rich, smooth, taste and texture are a completely different experience that may open the door to a new world of teas to try.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Pu erh
Where to Buy: Numi Teas
Description: This velvety infusion combines black Pu∙erh tea and organic cocoa. Accented by whole vanilla beans and sweet orange peel, this decadent blend is rounded off with nutmeg and cinnamon for a spicy finish.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Let’s Get Sassy with Pootea Tang from Modest Mix. . . .
Modest Mix has some seriously sassy tea names, often involving satisfying expletives. If that sounds up your alley, I highly recommend browsing their store for some blends with fired up names that suit your attitude. The blending services of BlendBee were used to craft these teas, so you know they will be flavorful and balanced.
In line with the Modest Mix theming, the Pootea Tang blend is a bold and flirty treat. With cacao nibs and orange peel, it is equal parts smooth and chocolatey, and bright and tangy. Juicy citrus is the driving force in this blend, powered up even more by the complementary flavors of tart rose hips. The taste of the cacao nibs and the black tea itself come to light in the back of each sip, and in the soft mouthfeel that follows the first burst of orange.
In a stroke of tea-blending genius, this blend uses an assam black tea base. The assam is strong enough to carry the flavorful orange, but smooth enough to compliment the cocoa, dessert-like flavors. This is a tasty blend when you are feeling a little sweet and sour and want a tea blend to match your mood.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Modest Mix
Description:
You f**king love chocolate don’t you? How about some added orange for that tangy zest that your bad*ss body craves? You’re welcome.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Classic Masala Chai from Chai Safari. . . .
As a chai tea lover, I’m surprised I haven’t run into more Chai Safari teas in my experience. Needless to say, I was excited to brew up a cup of spicy tea and try a new flavor.
I took one look at the dry leaf of this tea and immediately wanted to look up the ingredients. The black tea leaves are processed into small pellets, which is typical for some types of chai, but I was confused when I saw the green tulsi leaves mixed in. It’s not everyday that you see green ingredients in a chai tea, it’s usually lots of golden ginger and warm, brown cinnamon. Classic Masala Chai blend from Chai Safari has many of the classic chai staples like ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon, but it mixes in some more surprising ingredients like black pepper, tulsi (holy basil), and saffron.
Brewed this is everything you would expect from a chai tea: bold and warming, with the spice-cookie flavors of ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom. I love the idea of the peppercorns in my teas, but it is hard to pick out the pepper flavor in this brew. Maybe some of the heat I associated with the ginger is actually from the black pepper.
The piece that sets this chai appart is the inclusion of tulsi and saffron. These herbs add just a hint of floral sweetness in the scent and aftertaste. These refined flavors are an unexpected compliment to the bolder spices and made me realize that there is more to chai than ginger and cinnamon alone.
I will have to adventure into Chai Safari again and check out more unexpected chai tea flavors!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Chai Safari
Description: The Classic Masala Chai is India’s most popular chai. India’s own home grown recipe and consumed as a staple beverage across the country. This blend of exotic spices is the experience that will take you for a trip on this journey. The chai has dominant flavours of dried ginger and cardamom pods with a touch of black pepper’s spicy aftertaste. The sweet undenotes are delivered by cinnamon, Tulsi and a pinch of Saffron.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Bold Breakfast from Dunkin Donuts
I love getting donuts at Dunkin Donuts, I’d be hard-pressed to tell you a flavor of donut that I didn’t like. On occasion, I’ll get an iced coffee or an iced tea, but usually my focus is solely on the donuts. But this is a tea blog not a donut blog! This time, I tried Dunkin Donuts’ Bold Breakfast black tea at home.
Like the best tea companies, this sample came in a silk pyramid tea bag, and there were visibly whole leaves of tea in the bag- no crushed tea powder here. I brewed it following their instructions to use boiling water and steep for 3 minutes.
The resulting brew was dark and gently fragrant. It looked like tea, smelled like tea, and guess what? It was a completely serviceable breakfast tea. It had the traditional black tea tartness and crisp mouthfeel, with plenty of flavor and caffeine to wake you up. The flavor was a bit one-note though, missing the malt or complexity of other loose leaf breakfast blends, but its one flavor is perfectly capable on its own.
Like many breakfast teas out there, when brewed black, this tea could be a tad bitter. If served iced with slices of lemon and sugar, or served hot with milk or honey, it would easily turn this tea into a more refreshing or comforting brew.
Serve this tea in a teapot on a tray, and your guests won’t suspect your tea purveyor is Dunkin Donuts. Sweeten the tea tray with some donuts and it might just be the best way to serve this tea yet. Hmm, maybe I just need a frosted donut to dunk into my mug and then this brew will be perfect!