I love brewing up tea with fresh herbs from the garden or from the kitchen. With all the turkey and holiday meals in the wintertime, I feel like sage is an especially appropriate herb to be brewing this time of year, so I ordered a bag of Sage Wellness tea from Plum Deluxe.
This is a tea with a green rooibos base, which provides the perfect, gentle background for the other herbs and flavors. In the dry leaf, there are plenty of fuzzy, grey-green leaves from the sage, a pleasure to touch and smell. Rose petals and lemon peel add to the dreamy fragrance.
Beyond the rooibos and sage, this blend also features fruit pieces like strawberry and rosehips, and fruit flavoring from strawberries and peaches. The sage feels like Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing, but the strawberry feels like a summer harvest. With the two fragrant, flavorful factors of sage and strawberry, the whole blend is reminiscent of a fresh, blooming herb garden.
Not too sweet and not too savory, the fruit and herbs come together to make an atypical take on familiar flavors. With a blend so beautiful to look at and so tasty to brew, I like to pretend that I was wandering in a fantasy garden, plucking bits of sage and picking perfect strawberries to add to my perfect cup of tea.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Plum Deluxe
Description:
Nourish body + soul with the wisdom and healing of fresh herbs and fruits! Our sage + green rooibos herbal tea artfully blends lemon and orange with a pinch of strawberry and peach to make a delightfully refreshing, flavorful tonic wonderful for when you have those emotional blues or just want a cup of something calm and restorative.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Toasty and Floral: Keemun Black Tea from The Tea Spot. . . .
Fine quality, unflavored black tea always makes me feel like a serious tea aficionado. So I brewed up a cup of Keemun black tea from the Tea Spot and put my semi-professional tea-hat on. Keemun tea is a well-known black tea from China. The leaves are dark, with medium length and medium twists in shape. No extra blossoms or fuzzy buds, just deep, rich tea leaves. Dry, in the bag, the tea smells earthy and musky, very complex.
The Tea Spot describes this tea as having notes of “smoky pine, orchid, crushed apple.” I was very intrigued. Brewed, the keemun has a much sweeter taste alongside the damp earth tones, which must be the “crushed apple” flavors coming through. The earthiness is not as strong or overwhelming as sour pu erh tea, but more lush, like wet leaves or freshly-turned soil. There is a touch of the “orchid” floral notes in the scent of the tea, but I don’t notice it as much in the taste.
The more I drink the tea, the more a toasty, almost-caramel aftertaste starts to appear. And despite all my talk of savory, masculine flavors, there is a hint of a brighter note, more reminiscent of breakfast teas, with a lighter, almost lemony tone.
There is a lot going on in this tea, and lots of details to savor and enjoy. For mornings when you want to feel sophisticated and expand your tea palette, you can’t go wrong with Keemun from the Tea Spot.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: The Tea Spot
Description: A splendor of toasty flavor and aroma! The most refined and perhaps the most well-known of Chinese black teas, this Keemun is handpicked in Anhui Province. This tea has an indescribable flavor, with the most delicate hints of smoky pine, orchid, crushed apple and a rich, sweet body.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Warm Fuzzy – Hand-blended tea from PaperBoxGoodies
Today’s blend, Warm Fuzzy, comes from Etsy shop PaperBoxGoodies. This teabag came with a cute tag and tea charm, helping remind me that each bag is hand-filled by the small Etsy shop.
Warm Fuzzy lives up to its name, With fuzzy chamomile blossoms and green tea, this is a cozy, relaxing blend. The grassy green notes pair easily with the floral, lemony chamomile. For a tea with blend of herbal ingredients, this was gentle and sweet, definitely not bitter or medicine-like. I think this blend is best with touch of honey to bring out the natural sweetness in the chamomile. I prefer teas with a bit more spice or boldness, but this is a kind, comforting brew for when you need to calm down and drink something nice-and-easy.
I don’t see Warm Fuzzy in stock on PaperBoxGoodies’ Etsy shop, but there are other intriguing flavors with names like Purple Snozberry, Bluesfest Green, or Passionmint Green. After the quality of Warm Fuzzy, I look forward to trying other blends from PaperBoxGoodies.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: PaperBoxGoodies
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
The Stuff of Fairy Tales: Organic Nettle Tea from Republic of Tea
Nettle makes me think of ancient forests, fantasy novels, or fairy tales. I imagine a character moving through the woods getting stung by nettle, or collecting herbs like nettle for a tea or potion. The herb’s prickly reputation is featured in folk tales where the hero needs to grasp a bunch of stinging nettles, or make a cloak of nettles to fend of some malicious force or break a spell. (As a side note, apparently there is a world nettle eating championship. Who knew?)
All that magic in mind, how does nettle taste as a tea? The Nettle blend from Republic of Tea tastes slightly green with a strong flavor of creamy vanilla, and just a hint of mint. It’s unclear to me if the creaminess if from the vanilla flavoring or part of the nettle. This brew has a smooth and buttery mouthfeel like certain green teas.
I did a little research and the internet tells me that nettle leaves should taste reminiscent of spinach or cucumber, green and mineral in flavor. I’m not picking up on anything strongly like that in this blend, the vanilla clearly takes over. Maybe I’m in luck, as a spinach tea doesn’t sound all that appetizing.
On its own merits, the Nettle blend from Republic of Tea is a easygoing herbal vanilla brew, with a hint of something green and minty. I’m glad such a prickly herb was transformed into something so soft and comforting.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Republic of Tea
Description:
Nettle leaves have been known to support the body in a variety of ways. Studies have shown that it can help reduce joint inflammation and can help support kidney function.* Nettle tea has also been popular as a tonic for centuries to help women through all phases of life- from menstruation, through pregnancy and breastfeeding, to menopause. A touch of mint and vanilla makes this tea a joy to sip.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Palas Supreme from BOH Teas. . . .
Orange pekoe teas tend to get that name due to some quality grading and inspections that take place, rating the size and quality of the tea leaf and so on. I once had a colleague who only drank orange pekoe tea, they wouldn’t settle for anything else. So when I find out the tea I’m tasking is an orange pekoe, I already feel fancy before opening the bag.
This time, I brewed Palas Supreme from BOH Teas. Billed as an orange pekoe tea, the leaves looked to be good quality, long and dark and curly that unfurled in shape and flavor as I brewed.
This tea tasted bright and sweet, not too sharp or tart. There were slight citrus flavors and some gentle floral flavors, but main taste of the the brew was driven by a smooth and bright black tea taste.
BOH Teas describes Palas Supreme as a flowery pekoe. While it does have floral accents, it is not the blooming garden of flower flavors and scents that I would expect from a “flowery pekoe.” This tea stands out because it isn’t all about the tart sharpness of the black tea. It actually has a smooth mouthfeel and while there are orange notes, they aren’t biting citrus, instead tasting much more like sweet mandarin oranges.
As the tea cools there are more date and raisin after tones beneath the sweet citrus and smooth black tea.
This is is part of the BOH Teas garden collection and it even ships in a butterfly-and-blossom-themed canister. I didn’t get as much floral flavor as I expected, but this tea is still a delicious orange pekoe fit to brighten any day.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: BOH Teas
Description:
When you savour the taste of this tea, the first thing you experience is its aroma. This fine garden tea is cultivated on the cool tropical slopes of Sungei Palas. The Flowery Pekoe of Ceylon and Assam varieties imparts an exquisite and delicate aroma. With its pure and delicate fragrance, this large-leafed amber tea is best enjoyed plain throughout the day.