Sencha Sensation from T2 Tea

Sencha Sensation from T2 Tea is a flavored green tea blend with added flower petals.  Since this is a green tea, remember to keep your water temperature cooler than normal to bring out the best flavors.

When brewed, this blend smells buttery and tropical.  These flavors continue into the taste with passionfruit and citrus flavors complementing the lush and fresh green tea base. The tea is sugary from the fruitiness without being candy-like, and the end of each sip features more of the natural celery or sweetgrass flavors of the green tea leaves.

I drank this blend warm on a rainy day for an afternoon pick-me-up and the fruity and floral flavors helped sweeten my mood.  This would also be a great tea to cold brew. The cooler temperature would suit the green tea and the tropical flavors always taste better over ice.

Let yourself get swept up in the Sencha Sensation.


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: green
Where to Buy: T2 Tea
Description: A blend of petals with sencha green tea produces a light floral taste and citrus aroma. A subtle flavoured green for those who like a delicate brew.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Paksong Green/ Rakkasan Tea Co

A bit of a cold has taken hold of me. So I apologize in advance as my taste buds are a bit perplexed. This tea is reminiscent of other roasted greens with the roasted notes but the impact isn’t quite the same. It hits you like a light tap and then the entire flavor wheel just disappears. Not even an aftertaste. The light flavors are of asparagus with slight grassy undertones. The wet leaf smell, even with my nose somewhat clogged, is a wonderful wok roasted smell. You know that smell you get from a lovingly cared for, nicely aged wok? That homey vegetal scent. If you are a fan of green tea definitely give this one a try.


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Rakkasan Tea Company
Description:

Paksong Green is a large-leaf, green tea grown on the Bolaven Plateau of southern Laos. This fine green tea owes its character to the careful hand-processing of artisan farmers. After plucking and withering, the tea leaves are hand-rolled. Then a short roast on a wood fire gives the tea a subtle, slightly smoky finish with notes of baby corn, young asparagus and seaweed.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Amba Ceylon Green / Rakkasan

Trying hard to concentrate on all the unique aspects of this tea while watching my son push our electric grill back and forth in the kitchen and screaming at it when it hits an obstacle; so forgive me if this post is a bit jumbled.

A green tea very light in flavor. With my first cup I tried to eat a cinnamon roll but the roll overpowered the tea. Unlike many green teas this one isn’t abundantly grassy. It may take a few cups of this one to truly begin to understand the flavors.

Sometimes I feel like I need to only drink one tea for awhile in order to open my palette to unique flavors. Drinking too many different teas at a time can impede this. The flavors seem to be mainly vegetal with hints of summer florals.


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Rakkasan Tea
Description: This is a unique pan-fired, hand-crafted tea that is part green and part oolong due to the unusually slow wither. It is also the hardest tea for us to get. Grown at an elevation of 3,300 feet, it has buttery caramel and citrus notes that layer with soft vegetal and fruity peach accents with a hint of mint.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Stocking Stuffer Alert! Clarks Tea Cubes-Green Tea Mint. . . .

Instant tea has been one hot fade this year and I’m not going to lie, I’m intrigued by this concept.   I will always be a loose leaf tea girl at heart, but as the end of the year approaches and the holidays really start becoming more hustly and bustly (are those words?), I find myself grabbing more convenient options when it comes to my tea on the go.  Clarks Tea Cubes fits that bill perfectly.

Clarks Tea Cubes offers three flavors of instant tea cubes where you basically prep your water, plop in your tea cube and you are set. No mess and no accompanying tea bag to throw away-which is what Clarks Tea Cubes is all about. The convenient instant tea without anything to throw away ie tea bag or additional packaging.  I was instantly drawn to the green tea offering and couldn’t wait to see what this tea was all about.

So I prepped this cuppa up like I would any green tea blend.  Once the water was ready to go, I threw in two tea cubes and let the tea do its thing.  After a few minutes, the tea was ready and to my surprise, there was no sediment at the bottom of the cuppa like I expected. I did notice that there was sugar in the tea so I prepared myself for this blast of sweetness but I’m happy to report that did not happen.

Refreshing mint with a subtle green tea base was what I got. Sip after sip, I was happy and then I got about half way through the cuppa and gave my cup a swirl.  Sadly, that stirred up the sugar that must have been hiding towards the bottom and now the cuppa is insanely sweet and overpowering the rest of the cup.

I wish Clarks Tea Cubes offered a sugar free version of this tea because I really don’t feel like the tea needs the sugar. But this is such a great idea and I was super excited to try it.  Because of the sugar bit, I’ll be sending this tea off to another Sister to try, but I was incredibly happy and thankful to try it.  And I’m hoping one day, Clarks Tea Cubes will offer will offer a sugar free version so I can greedily drink this tea down as iced because I can see this tea being amazing in that fashion!

If you have a tea lover on your list this holiday season, these tea cubes would be a great stocking stuffer!


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Clarks Tea Cube
Description

Try our Green Tea Mint Travel Tin with 12 cubes in each tin.  Use 1 cube per cup!

 

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Cauldron Cake Genmaicha from 52Teas

52Teas recently did a whimsical and tasty set of Harry Potter inspired tea flavors.  One of these blends is Cauldron Cake Genmaicha. I love the toasty puffed rice and warming green tea of genmaicha and 52Teas is the master of fun genmaicha flavors.  Throw in a Wizarding World twist and I couldn’t wait to try this tea.

Cauldron Cake Genmaicha is inspired by a chocolatey, frosted cupcake.  Alongside the familiar starchy rice flavors there are smooth cacao nibs, nutty cacao shells, and creamy white chocolate chips.  A dash of sprinkles makes the loose leaf look even cuter. This tea looks very festive prior to brewing, with a wide variety of shapes and colors, and smelling like a sweet cake dessert.

This blend reminds me a bit of the honeybush-based blend Rocky Road.  Both blends have cacao nibs, cacao shells, and white chocolate chips. However, 52Teas has been able to fit even more vanilla frosting flavors into the Cauldron Cake Genmaicha blend.  The extra creaminess comes off as marshmallowy when paired with the puffed rice and roasty green tea.

I tend to drink my genmaicha teas without any milk or sugar, but this might be a fun latte to try in the future.  Just be sure to top it off with a little whipped cream and sprinkles for the full effect.

 


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: green genmaicha
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description:

Our fifth and final new tea for Harry Potter Month 2018! When I was going through my ideas for Harry Potter inspired teas, this one was at the top of the list because CAKE! Originally, I had considered doing this one as a black tea, however, I already had two black teas planned for the month so I decided to rethink the blend and create this as a Genmaicha blend instead.

Now, I haven’t ever had a Cauldron Cake, but the Harry Potter Wiki describes them as a mass-produced cake from Qizilbash Quality Confectionery in Pakistan. I confess that I’m not at all familiar with confections from Pakistan either. So when I went about creating this tea, I decided that a cauldron cake is probably a lot like a cupcake – only probably a bit more rounded at the bottom like a cauldron.

So I did my best to go with that kind of inspiration: a chocolate cupcake … err … cauldron cake with a cream filling and perhaps a light coating of chocolate ganache over it and then garnished with colorful sprinkles. And here we have our organic, Matcha infused Genmaicha blended with cake essence, cacao nibs, cacao shells, vanilla bean, white chocolate chips (vegan, of course) and sprinkles (also vegan, nut-free & gluten-free!)

It’s quite yummy and I believe that Honeyduke’s would be happy to serve this tea to their patrons!

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!