My first “gourmet” flavored tea was by Dammann Freres, and it felt like a whole new wonderful world had been opened up to me. It astonished me that they could put so many flavors into a single tea without them competing and turning it into a pure mush in which one flavor could not be distinguished from another. I remember seeing “biscuit” flavor listed and thinking, “Hah! How can you make tea really taste like biscuit? It probably just tastes like vanilla!” And then I sipped and my eyes widened and I said, “OOOOOOOOH! It tastes like biscuit!”
Not flour-y buttered biscuits from the good old Southern USA, but a lightly sweet European biscuit. They NAILED it. Oh, delightful pastry, how I love thee!
That first tea had lots of different flavors, but this one boasts of just biscuit and four red fruits. They have achieved marvelous balance with this tea, as the sweetish biscuit flavor rises hand in hand with the fruit flavors in a perfect blending. I detect mostly strawberry, not tart but not candy sweet.
The biscuit flavor keeps it feeling like a decadent grown-up tea and not a candy tea for a children’s tea time. The base has nice heft. I steeped it just below boiling and at about three minutes. (I have found that I prefer those parameters for almost all black French teas.) I definitely made nommy noises. We all cried, “Encore!” when the pot was finished.
The good news is that the second steep was just as good as the first. Bravo, Dammann.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Damann Freres
Description
A blend of black teas with the delicious scents of red fruits, combining the aromas of cherry, strawberry, raspberry and red currant for an irresistibly fruity tea.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Sakura & Berry/Lupicia -Stephenia-
Each year Lupicia Tea, a Japanese tea company, comes out with a Sakura collection to celebrate cherry blossom season. The collection changes each year and for 2021 the theme is traditional Japanese culture that has been handed down through the generations, such as crafts and traditional Japanese patterns. The collection is well balanced and features a green tea, a decaf tea, black tea, rooibos, even a sakura matcha! The tins this year are beautiful and feature a lovely floral motive. I have wanted to try teas from Lupicia’s Sakura collection for some time so I decided this year that I would order a few.
The first one I am reviewing is Sakura & Berry. This has a black tea base with salted cherry leaf, rose petal and flavoring. The description says that this has a “sweet strawberry flavor.” The dry leaf smells amazing and actually made me think of when my mom would make me strawberries and cream oatmeal as a kid. I steeped the tea up at 212 degrees for 3 minutes.
I really love this one. The first taste is a nice fruity strawberry flavor, nothing too strong. It actually has the same strawberry flavor as strawberries and cream oatmeal but without the cream aspect. On the second taste I get a hit of the black tea base, it is smooth and mellow. I had hoped that I would get taste of the salted cherry leaf however that didn’t come through in the flavor.
Overall this is a tasty strawberry tea in a beautiful tin and certainly worth trying if you love strawberry-flavored teas. I really enjoy Lupicia tea, in fact their rooibos-based honeydew melon tea is in my top 5 favorite teas of all time! If you are interested in the Sakura collection I would not wait as fulfillment for the US comes from the online Hawaii Lupicia store and they get very limited amounts of inventory on these special edition collections.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Lupicia
Description
We are happy to announce the arrival of our seasonal SAKURA & BERRY tea: A blend of Darjeeling and Nilgiri black teas with salted cherry blossom leaves, mixed with sweet strawberry flavor and aroma. Popular as a hot or iced tea, try it with a bit of milk! A LUPICIA Hawaii staff favorite. (Only available in limited quantity)
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Rated R/T By Daniel. . . .
As a tea addict I go through periods where I am obsessed with certain types of tea. My current obsession has been raspberry flavored teas. So, in my typical tea addict fashion, I have been scouring all of the tea companies I could think of looking for raspberry teas. This brought me to T by Daniel. I have heard great things of the company and the teas for some time now but when I saw that they had a raspberry tea named Rated R, called that as it is “rated R for raspberry content,” I knew that I it was time to give the company a try. T by Daniel is a Canadian company however shipping to the Midwest was very fast. I love that they included a handwritten thank you note to personally thank me for my purchase. I really appreciated this little touch.
I ordered several tea varieties but Rated R was the tea that really prompted my order. Lets begin with the smell. This tea has such a bright and robust raspberry smell. It reminds me of those little gumdrop raspberry candies. Not only does the tea smell amazing but the dry tea is very pretty. It has a black tea base with white coconut flakes, large white gumdrops, red raspberries and pink rose petals peeking out. Also, the flavorings added are all natural. This is very remarkable to me to have such a strong raspberry smell with all natural flavors
I steeped this tea up at 212 degrees for 3 minutes. It has a very smooth and enjoyable black tea base that hits the tongue first followed by a lovely natural raspberry flavor on the back side of the taste. The raspberry flavor does not get lost in the black tea taste, rather it compliments it very nicely. The coconut adds a touch of creaminess to the blend to round it out. I am very pleased with this tea, it has become my “gold standard” of raspberry teas.
I have now tried several teas from T by Daniel and have to say I am very excited by what I have tried. They have a cool, hip vibe to their company that I love and the owners, a husband and wife team, are very engaging. I really think that they are up and coming and I look forward to more great teas from them!
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: T by Daniel
Description
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
White Berry from Naked Teas Galore. . .
I keep calling this tea Berry White, perhaps because I think it should be named for the singer or just a fun pun. However, its White Berry which is more descriptive than anything given this is a tea made up of White Peony, Silver Needles, rosehips, blue cornflowers, flavoring.
I had just enough in my sample pulled from a traveling teabox to try this both hot and iced. Both methods were steeped for 4 minutes in 175F water, as per the company’s recommendation.
I started with the hot tea since that is the more standard brewing method and thus my control for flavor. Though it is a pretty smooth, summery tea, it lacks the berry flavor I hoped for. Instead this, to me at least, tastes vaguely floral.
Iced, this is even more floral and that I attribute to the white peony base. In fact, if I didn’t know any better I would have thought I was drinking a glass of iced white peony tea as opposed to a flavored white tea. Though that might not seem like a bad thing for those who enjoy this type of tea, it is not what I have been promised and so I find myself disappointed.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Naked Teas Galore
Description
Smooth, light & refreshing berry tea!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
