Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Blackbird Tea Co website or Blackbird Tea Co Etsy Store
Tea Description:
If you’ve ever been to Morocco, you know the pleasure of drinking green tea with mint and ample amounts of sugar after dinner, or really, just about anytime. Our blend of loose leaf gunpowder green tea, peppermint and spearmint will help your meal settle – and the bonus? Fresh breath.
Brewing Instructions – Using water that hasn’t quite yet boiled (about 180 degrees Fahrenheit), steep 1 teaspoon of tea per 8 oz. of water for 2-3 minutes. Enjoy.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I am exhausted right now so I wanted a tea that was both refreshing and invigorating. I thought maybe a mint tea would do the job so I grabbed for a tea from a company I didn’t know about until recently.
Blackbird Tea Co has a presence both on Etsy and with their own website. They have a gorgeous website. Simple but beautiful. I love how the pictures of the tea are not over done and they let their sleep package do the talking. I was sold from the moment I saw their slick canisters.
Since this is a green tea, I just used the water for our coffee machine here at work and popped the tea into the water. As I sat waiting for the tea to steep, I enjoyed the delicious mint aroma I could smell. I felt that bit of pep that I was looking for.
Let this steep for about 3 minutes and took my first sip. This tea delivered on the taste I was looking for. Brisk green tea with a soothing refreshing mint that really invigorates your senses. Green tea with mint is a pretty simple tea but it has to be done right. Sometimes the mint can really overwhelm the tea or go the opposite way and be hardly noticeable. That is not the case with this blend. The peppermint and spearmint play nicely together in my cuppa and the green tea provides that smooth delicate feel with hints of a roasted flavor in every other sip or so. Very nicely done.
This tea gave me exactly what I need today. Just a bit of pep with a gorgeous mint background. I’m excited to try this as a mint iced tea. I’m thinking this would be a marvelous prepared that way. I do have a favorite Marrakech Mint from Tealated that I adore but this one is right there along with that blend. All the different aspects are just so fantastically present and not one flavor controls the flavor. I hope all the Blackbird Tea Co teas are this fantastic!
Grapefruit Grey Black Tea from Acquired Taste Tea Company
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Acquired Taste Tea
Tea Description:
A new addition to our Earl Grey collection. This black tea combines bergamot, grapefruit and mandarin to create a pleasant variation on an Earl Grey theme.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I like to do what I call the ‘Earl Grey Test’ whenever I encounter any kind of earl grey. First cup is all natural, to see how the base is in comparison with the bergamot. Second cup is with the finest bit of sugar, to wake up the sweetness of the black tea and the flavoring. Third is with a dash of cream. So how did this one hold up?
Grapefruit earl grey is an interesting take on a classic. The dry leaf is quite strong of both bergamot and the tangy grapefruit notes. Too bad that did not translate to the steeped leaf. Now, I love bergamot, but I feel like this was too strong. It overpowered the grapefruit notes. The base was a bit too robust and dusty for my taste, but adding some cream definitely helped.
Too bad! I had such high hopes for this tea. I really want to like it, but the blerghamot is simply too strong for my taste. I think I like smelling this tea than drinking it. If a strong bergamot is your scene, then go for it! Or, know, go for Republic of Tea’s Earl Greyer… Like the company name suggests, I think this tea is just an ‘Acquired Taste.’
Strawberry Fields Tea from Sunshine Cottage
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Sunshine Cottage
Tea Description:
Plump, ripe, juicy strawberries with a cold, smooth cream – mmmmm! This is summer time heaven in a cup! A dash of half & half would enhance the flavor even more. Carefully blended and hand packaged, this tea will quickly become a favorite!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Strawberries in fresh cream. . .anybody a fan? Anybody? I am!
This tea reminds me of crisp sweet strawberries in fresh cream. Just like a fancy restaurant used to offer that my parents took me to quite often. When my dad was ready to go out to eat, we went all out. This particular restaurant also served bananas ‘n cream. I would always get one or the other for dessert.
This is a black tea but one that is done with finesse. I loved how the black tea provided a richness in the background while the strawberries and cream flavor where allowed to play. I did get slight hints of astringency so this one I don’t think would be very forgiving if oversteeped. There is also a very subtle and quite hint of a malty finish, which provides a bit of complexity. The strawberries had such a beautiful fresh flavor while the cream had a lush silky feel. Seriously. This tea was good. I recommend all the teas at the Sunshine Cottage. I’ve tried several and only didn’t care for a few and that was probably my fault for oversteeping. I would love to try this one as a cold brew or as a latte.
Now, to find a tea that tastes like the bananas n’ cream the restaurant also offered. . . .
Dorian Grey Black Tea by Luhse
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Luhse
Tea Description:
STORY:
Queen Song is clearly not your typical gorilla. She’s a risk taker and norm-breaker. She couldn’t just leave traditional Earl Grey tea alone.
TEA DESCRIPTION:
Earl Grey’s flamboyant brother. Added vanilla takes average Earl to a whole new level.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Dorian Grey is one of two Luhse flavoured blends I picked up with my recent order. The first thing I noticed about the full bags is how unique and well thought out the branding is. Everything from the colouring (midnight blue), to the white, searchlight-like logo, through to little things like the font and bigger things like the slogans is spot-on for the 20s, prohibition-era theme. Luhse are really sorted from a brand perspective, and that’s a nice thing to see. The “story” somehow makes their blends more than just tea, and it adds a lot to the appeal, that’s for sure.
Dorian Grey is an Earl Grey Cream, and it smells delicious from the moment I open the bag. Sweet, rich, and gloriously decadent. It’s a fairly unassuming blend to look at – just fairly small, uniform black-brown leaves. I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 3.5 minutes in boiling water. It brewed up pretty strong, so I added a splash of milk.
To taste, this is one of the creamiest Earl Grey Cream blends I’ve tried. The initial sip is full-on vanilla; sweet and rich, with an intense creaminess that reminds me very much of premium vanilla ice cream, or perhaps crème anglaise. The earl grey is very much second fiddle, but it’s possible to find the bergamot lurking in the mid sip. It’s not over-strong, which I appreciate in an Earl Grey blend, but it does manage to cut through some of the heady vanilla sweetness. It’s a pleasing, citrus-laced counterpoint, and adds a layer of depth to the flavour. The black base can hardly be tasted, but it’s smooth and unobtrusive, and it lets the flavours shine.
I’m really impressed with this one. It more than lives up to its promise, and it makes for a deliciously tasty cup. It would make for an excellent introduction to Earl Grey Cream blends (although possibly you’d be spoilt forever), or a fabulous treat for existing fans. This one blows others out of the water.
Rice Crispy Treat Black Tea from The East Indies Coffee and Tea Company
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: East Indies Tea Company
Tea Description:
No one can resist the fluffy, gooey marshmallow taste of this fun blend!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The East Indies Tea and Coffee Company is probably the most old-school tea company I have ever dealt with. I have never even heard of them until Marzipan from Steepster offered a group buy of their teas. They so their teas to Della Terra, which is on hiatus until further notice. I am such a sucker for tea names, I figured, why the hell not?
The first tea to try out of the gate, this was also the first tea I pulled out of the box. This is such a fragrant tea! The dry leaf is just dripping with gooey marshmallow sweetness. There are pieces of rice crispies in the bag, lending to the malty smell, as well as some strange dust of pulverized cereal pieces. It’s probably one of the strongest smelling teas I have smelled. (probably to date, it’s quite the head rush!)
Upon steeping the tea, I do get a bit of a sour note from the base black tea. Nothing that makes me want to put down the cup though. I can see this tea being a treat iced, because of the robustness in the cup. The rice crispness of the tea is the show stopper here, the sweet marshmallow and the rice flour richness is quite strong, and I expected no less from this blend. I actually resteeped this too, with interesting results. The sweetness was almost all that was left, and there was little malty note from the tea base/rice crispies. A crazy decadent black tea, great for you dessert lovers out there!
