I would describe today’s tea (Akiya Estate Arunachal Pradesh FTGFOP 2016) as “juicy.” It has a plum/nectarine vibe to it like someone stealthed a little bit of Goya fruit juice in there. It’s a straight black, which makes this a delightful surprise. The flavor is bright & perky, like the appearance of the tea itself (golden tipped leaves, much lighter than the average black).
I think this tea would be a good introduction to straight blacks. I, too, once feared the straight tea. How could it be so complex and interesting as everyone says? Are they cray-cray or something?
Liking straight tea has not classed up my personality whatsoever. I’m wearing a sweater with a cartoon fox illustration on it. My desk has three stuffed animals (Grumpy Cat, Pikachu, Deadpool), three action figures (Captain America, Winter Soldier, Mystique), and a Dog-A-Day calendar on it. There are also two sarcastic pen-mugs, one of which says “CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY,” and the other of which says “CUSTOMER SERVICE WEEK.” I also have a Penn State Nittany Lion Lego-compatible mini-figure hot-glued to my lamp.
My point here is that this tea — like many straight teas — is not un-approachable. You can feel free to try it. Explore it. Get in there and see if you can taste those mysterious Other Flavors. Much like alligator allegedly “tastes like chicken,” this tea “tastes like juice.” Get on board!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Capital Tea Limited
Description
Exceptional quality golden tipped leaves from and esteemed tea maker in Arunachal Pradesh near Assam. These leaves produce an incredibly well rounded and sweet tasting medium bodied tea liquor with complex malty flavour notes and with stone fruit-like overtones
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Molasses Spice Cookie Honeybush fromm 52Teas. . .
I used this tea as an experimental “guinea pig” in an attempt to figure out if this article was true.
For those of you who are busy today, the upshot of the article was that the “scientific” best way to make tea is to microwave it.
I made this tea a few weeks ago (traditionally), and forgot to review it. But I have a pretty good memory of how it was. So I decided to drop the tea into my gravity steeper and zap the whole shebang for a minute and a half.
The result: weak tea that wasn’t even hot.
I put the tea in there for another minute and a half. Then I left the tea in the steeper for anther 5 minutes. The result was the same basic tea that I’d made the old-fashioned way. But with more work.
Enough experimenting. Let’s get to the review.
This is a great chai slammed together with sweet honeybush. The creator of the tea was worried there wasn’t enough cinnamon, but I think that the lesser amount of cinnamon allows the other flavors a moment in the spotlight.
The honeybush is very sweet and creamy. It’s a great contrast against the chai. The result is kind of a gingerbread/snickerdoodle vibe. I see where the author was going with that. It’s not my favorite kind of cookie, so I don’t have a strong point of reference, but I have eaten chunks of gingerbread houses*, and I think it’s close.
* It’s a Christmas tradition. I start devouring scraps. Sometimes off people’s works-in-progress.
Happy sipping, Internet!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description
This tea is no longer available but click below for teas that are.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Partying Like It’s Not My Birthday, Earl Grey Style. . . .A Quarter To Tea Blend. . .
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you combined Earl Grey with a cupcake?
Don’t worry if that thought passed you by. Because it did NOT escape the lovely people behind A Quarter To Tea.
And the result is super-fabulous.
This is an Assam Earl Grey (yum! citrus!) with Bavarian Cream mixed in, giving it a super-creamy no-milk-needed vibe. It’s like an orange-and-vanilla cupcake. HAPPY. BIRTHDAY. TO. ME.
(Note: It’s not my birthday. This fact saddens me 364 days a year, which is the overwhelming majority of the year. There is a song out there, called “Party Like It’s Not,” which features the lyrics “Nobody gives a damn about the day that you were born! This song is for everyone who it ain’t your birthday! You gotta party like it’s not, party like it’s not!” This song brings me UTTER JOY, and you might like it, too.)
The sprinkles in this blend contribute to the tea’s birthday feeling.
Why are there sprinkles? Why are they green and gold?
I couldn’t figure out what the heck “support the green and gold” meant on the back, or why it was called “Earl Bay.” If you’re a jock, you’re probably In The Know by now.
For the rest of us, it’s because AQTT are Green Bay Packers fans, hence “Bay” and the colors. Are they celebrating a good season? The joy of football? I honestly would not know. My in-laws are the only NFL people I know, and they’re Steelers people. (If you want to talk Penn State football, though, I’m your girl. And no, I don’t want to discuss That Other Thing. Ever again.)
Which made me think: if I were going to make a sports blend based on my university, what would I do? Penn State is known for its ag program and its Creamery, so I think I’d make it a creamy blueberry (blue) with vanilla/yogurt bits (white) and cornflower petals (blue). And sprinkles (blue and white, in the shape of paw prints or cats). I think the base would be black — not for any University reason, but because that’s what I like best.
If you were going to celebrate sports (or some other local themed thing), how would you make YOUR tea?
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: A Quarter To Tea
Description
Support the green and cold even on the coldest days with this creamy, scrumptious Earl Grey blend.
This Earl Grey features vanilla, hopps, bavarian cream and some totally team worthy sprinkles!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
2016 Loose Leaf Gu Hua Sheng from Verdant Tea. . . . .
I ordered a giant basket of pure teas from Verdant because I was trying to be more worldly. I was like “I am going to UNDERSTAND this tea. I am going to BECOME ONE with MORE VARIETIES.”
Today’s pick: a pu’erh! That’s fermented tea. Sort of intimidating. All the pu’erh I’ve ever loved has been in a blend. The only other one I’d tried before this was sort of appalling, so I was nervous to try this one. (I only ordered a tiny sample, just in case).
This one, 2016 Loose Leaf Gu Hua Sheng, tastes a little bit like a toasty sencha green tea mixed with yam or some other starchy vegetable. The description for this product on their site describes this flavor as “plantain.” I think I can pick up a sliver of banana-ish taste, but I’m not really familiar with plantains
I’m mostly into blacks and sweet teas, but I enjoy this cup. It’s different from what I typically drink, in an exciting and not-intimidating way. I think that this is a good introduction to pu’erh for a n00b like myself.
This is also a tea that one could feel good about purchasing. According to Verdant, proceeds from this go to books and operating costs for the sleepaway Zhenyuan Jiujia Wengang Village Primary School. The Collective that grows this tea is the “stewart” to the “truly wild” 100-300-year-old tea trees “that grow in one of the oldest and most remote tea forests in the world, on Mt. Ailao.”
They use traditional methods. And they look really happy about it.
If you’d like to try one of the Collective’s teas, here they are.
I feel nice about it and I hope you do, too!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Pu-erh
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Description
Master Zhou’s Gu Hua harvest is a careful blend of maocha from trees aged between one hundred and three hundred years old, picked for a balanced and rich full body and aroma. Gu Hua is the very early autumn harvest prized for its rich flavor and intense aroma. These truly wild trees grow in one of the oldest and most remote tea forests in the world, on Mt. Ailao. Every leaf is hand picked and carefully sun-dried without applying heat or using machinery for the most natural and pure flavor.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Atlantis Found. . .An Adagio Teas Custom Blend From Our Own TeaEqualsBliss. . . . .
My television often displays shows about Earth’s mysterious past. Ancient Aliens, Curse of Oak Island, What On Earth, Mythbusters, Finding Bigfoot, and Hunting Hitler have all graced our screen.
My husband cannot get enough of unsolved peculiarities. We’ll be eating a meal and he’ll be like “did you know that the skull fragment the KGB presented as evidence of Hitler’s death was tested? And it’s FEMALE?” or “have you ever seen pictures of the circles in South America where nothing grows — and NO ONE KNOWS WHY? THE SOIL IS FINE” or “did you know the sphinx was probably a dog, not a lion?”
So when I got a tea called “Atlantis FOUND!”, I was pretty psyched. Finally: one of those historical enigmas has been SOLVED.
CROSS ONE OFF THE LIST.
This is a very tasty chocolate-vanilla-fruit tea. It’s punchy fruit — blueberry and raspberry — in an ocean of what tastes like milk-chocolate. In summary, a very nice dessert tea.
I sometimes wish that Adagio’s default black tea had a little more oomph, but that doesn’t disrupt this tea very much because the other flavors are so strong. The meh-nature of the black tea can be canceled out somewhat by adding a little bit of vanilla almond milk (or whatever your choice of add-in might be).
I’m going to make up a batch of this and keep it in my insulated bottle as I hike through the tundra looking for the elusive Yeti. I think he’d dig it.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea (Flavored)
Where to Buy: Adagio Teas
Description
Atlantis FOUND! All Black Flavors Blend – Blueberry, Vanilla, and Chocolate Chip
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!