My beautiful, foolish husband let me into a Harney & Sons store in upstate New York. I placed a few carefully chosen items into my basket, and moved toward the checkout.
“Is that all?” the doofus queried.
“I can have more?” I asked.
“That doesn’t seem like much stuff,” he said.
I tripled the amount in my basket.
One of my picks was this flower-fruit-coconut concoction that’s basically a bar in the tropics, distilled down into one alcohol-free mug. I felt like I was swimming up to a swim-up bar (I’ve never done this) with a big flower in my hair (I’ve never done this) in the background of Lilo and Stitch (I’ve never done this).
When it comes right down to it, I’m more of a forest/lake/inland kind of girl than a beach girl. I like how trees smell. I don’t like sand between my toes. But this tea, man, this tea almost makes me reconsider my stance. Almost.
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Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Harney and Sons
Description
Delicious, refreshing tea with a charitable twist. Named for GMHC’s slogan and logo, our Love Life tea is a refreshing blend of Japanese Bancha green tea with fresh flavors of strawberry, coconut, rich vanilla, and puffed rice for a light, fruity brew. 50% of the sales from this tea benefits GMHC, an organization devoted to fighting for an end to the AIDS epidemic and uplifting the lives of those affected.
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Raspberry Kissed Coconut Green Tea/52Teas
Raspberry and coconut is a tea combination I overlooked for a very long time but one that I loved when I finally tried it. My tea journey started with DAVIDsTEA and I quickly made my way through most of the teas on their wall. One that I always seemed to skip over was Fantasy Island. For whatever reason, it just never appealed to me until a friend sent a sample over in a swap. One taste was all I needed to get hooked. The combination of raspberry and coconut was magical and it left me all the more heartbroken when the blend was discontinued.
Thankfully Anne, the genius behind 52 Teas, blended up a raspberry coconut tea, Raspberry Kissed Coconut Green Tea. The tea combined fair trade single estate zomba green tea, organic coconut, organic raspberries, and organic natural flavors.
Unlike Fantasy Island which was a black tea, this has a green tea base and that green tea is imparting a vegetal flavor. This is a coconut green tea through and through. The raspberry is present but a secondary note to the coconut, adding some brightness to the drink. For a raspberry coconut tea, it is not as sweet as you might expect. It’s a rather mellow tea which makes it nice in the warmer months when you want something light.
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Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description
This tea is no longer available but click below to see the current green tea lineup.
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Walnut Green Tea/Aromatica Fine Teas
Monthly subscription boxes can be hit or miss. I have tried several along my tea journey including subscriptions by Amoda, A Quarter to Tea, Handmade Tea, myteabox.ca, Sips By, and Tea Sparrow. Some, such as the A Quarter to Tea box, offers selections from one company whereas others, such as the Sips By box, offer teas from a variety of different vendors in each box. The former is good if you know you like a certain company whereas the latter is fun for when you want to try and discover new things. Sometimes you discover gems, sometimes you discover disasters, and sometimes you find new things that are simply unremarkable.
I received the Tea Sparrow box as a gift. The teas are a variety of Tea Sparrow blends and blends from other vendors. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a tea that really stands out to me from this box which has so far put this subscription in the “unremarkable” category. With that said, one of teas in my Tea Sparrow subscription is this Walnut Green Tea by Aromatica Fine Teas. I have tried another Aromatica Fine Tea before, Ginger Cream, courtesy of my Amoda subscription. I really enjoyed that tea so my hope was I’d enjoy this as well. Moreover, this tea is also the first place winner of the 2011 North American Tea Championship so hopefully that means it’s a good one.
When I read the brewing instructions for this tea, it suggested steeping the leaf in “almost boiling” water for 2.5 minutes. Almost boiling is my least favorite temperature because it is so ambiguous. As a result, I decided to steep one cup for 2.5 minutes in 175F water (the “Green” setting on my kettle) and another cup in 200F water (what I would consider almost boiling to be) for 1.5 minutes. I figured I had the leaf so it could be interesting to experiment how different brewing parameters impact the tea flavor.
First cup I drank was the cooler cup, the one brewed at 175F. Lookswise, this cup was much lighter than the tea brewed at a higher temperature, a bright-ish yellow versus a deeper brown-gold. To me, this tasted like liquid brittle. Nutty and sweet with more walnut flavor than almond. No vegetal/grass flavors from the base tea and no pineapple or coconut in sight.
The second cup, brewed with a little more leaf and at 200F, is a lot more buttery though still tastes of brittle. I think more coconut comes through when brewed like this but less walnut which is really meant to be the focus in light of the tea’s name.
This tea is made of chinese green tea, sencha, brittle, coconut rasps, candied pineapple pieces, walnut pieces, flavor, and almond pieces. Given that list, I was surprised that not much of the base nor pineapple was part of the taste of either cup. Personally, I think I preferred the tea brewed at 175F just because it was more distinctly walnut and thus more true to its name though the two were fairly similar flavorwise. Overall I found the tea to be unique and good, definitely one of the better options provided in my Tea Sparrow subscription, but ultimately I just don’t reach for nutty blends or green teas all that quickly. As such, while I can appreciate this as a good tea, an award-winning tea even, I just don’t feel the need to keep it around all the time.
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Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Aromatica Fine Teas
Description
Chinese green tea, sencha, brittle bits (sugar,hazlenuts), coconut rasps, candied pineapple bits, walnut pieces, flavour, almond pieces.
“What a fantastic and sophisticated profile for a blended green tea!”
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Tasting Notes for 2018 Autumn Laoshan Green / Verdant Tea
More tea, less steep time. Less tea, more steep time. Too much water, less flavor. Each tea has unique steeping parameters. Each steep will be different. Even for the same tea of the same harvest.
Edamame. Very vegetal. Slight astringency. Clean and crisp
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Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Description:
This harvest is picked in the cool autumn air after resting the plant through summer. The result is crisp, fresh flavor with more savory green bean and cream that Laoshan for which Laoshan is famous. The He family’s signature green tea is fed by mountain spring water, picked by hand, and cultivated sustainably using traditional chemical-free farming techniques including growing rows of soybean between rows of tea to restore nitrates to the soil. The extreme northern climate means cold winters and short growing seasons, but the He Family perseveres, protecting their tea in greenhouses over the winter. The result is a deeply sweet and delicate green tea unlike any other in the world.
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Raspberry Lemonade/CuppaGeek Teas
Tea friends, I am BEYOND pumped to review this tea for you today. Why, do you ask? Well, our sweet and wonderful SororiTea-Sister, CuppaGeek, has officially launched her OWN line of amazing teas, and this is the first one I’ve had the opportunity to sip! Nichole is far too humble and sweet to ever brag on her own teas, so let me be the first (and certainly not the last) to do so: THIS WAS AWESOME. As soon as I saw Nichole’s teas go up for sale, I ordered a few goodies, and Nichole generously sent me a few extras to try. Seeing as her teas arrived on one of our many unseasonably warm days lately, I picked the one that sounded the most delicious for cold-brewing, and immediately popped a few teaspoons into a glass mason jar with some water overnight.
The next morning, I had a bright and beautifully pink brew awaiting me. Upon first sip, I knew this is exactly what my dehydrated summer self was craving– tart and a bit sweet, fruity and lemonade-esque while still maintaining the integrity of the green rooibos (my fave) and green tea. I loved that the lemonade in this tea didn’t just come from lemon flavor, but from one of my favorite herbs (lemon verbena), and a host of other delicious fruit and citrus combinations. As delightful as this tea was on its own, with a tiny splash of lemonade, it’s absolutely elevated to the next level. The slightly tart raspberry flavor (bolstered by just a hint of hibiscus) really shines, giving me that summer-fruit deliciousness that I crave from May-September.
Overall, I was BLOWN AWAY by Nichole’s first go at blending her own flavors (seriously, if girl is this good right out of the gate, what’s next to come?). I’m dying to try more in her repertoire– a Doctor Who inspired green earl grey and herbal Cotton Candy fruity blend top my list right now– and am so excited to see what’s next for this new tea company. Help me offer a big and happy congrats to our Sororitea-Sister, CuppaGeek!
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Leaf Type: Green/Green Rooibos
Where to Buy: CuppaGeek Teas
Description
This tea is available by request. Contact CuppaGeek Teas for more info!
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