Day 7!
Have you had any figgy pudding yet this season? How about fig newtons? If you like figs, you will love today’s tea: Sticky Fig Oolong. This tea is also our first oolong of the 12 Teas of a Christmas set this year.
This tea has plenty of the bright, mineral taste oolongs are known for. These flavors are the right match with the sweet-yet-fresh fig taste. Beneath all the oolong brightness, the tea has a bit of complex, roasted, caramelized taste, making the fig part of the blend feel more like a candied dessert.
I’m always a bit intimidated by unflavored oolongs, so having a touch of holiday dessert flavor mixed in made this oolong more approachable for me. The sticky fig flavor isn’t overpowering, so if classic oolongs are your favorite teas, you will still find this blend to be very enjoyable.
I haven’t run into many fig tea blends so this is a great unexpected flavor for a holiday tea set, rounding out the Christmas theme.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description:
This tea was inspired by one of my customers who is also a frequent poster on Steepster, who – in one of her posts – mentioned that she’d like to see a fig tea from me. So here it is (and it won’t be the last, fig is one of my favorite fruits, I just haven’t gotten around with experimenting with fig in tea yet . . . but now that I have, I think I’ll keep it up because – YUM!)
So I started with these three ideas in mind: Holiday tea, Oolong tea & Fig tea. I crafted a blend of Oolongs – Ruanzhi, Wuyi and Qingxin cultivars – which I chose because I wanted the Oolong to be a little more fruity and a little less floral. To this lovely Oolong blend, I added some figs. For the holiday element, I added some cinnamon. For the final touch, I added a little honey essence.
Really lovely – this tea. The oolong is smooth and sweet. It has pleasing notes of fruit with just a hint of floral. The fig is well-defined and the honey compliments the fig nicely. The cinnamon is warm and inviting without overwhelming the cup. As I say: really lovely! It’s also organic, VEGAN, gluten free & allergen free!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Fig Formosa Oolong from TeaLeafs #VeganMoFo2016
Here is today’s contributing post for Vegan MoFo. Today’s prompt is “Close To Home” This means we are to make a food from our own country, state, or hometown. Because SororiTea Sisters is featuring vegan teas for Vegan MoFo I thought I would feature Fig Formosa Oolong from TeaLeafs for a few different reasons.
TeaLeafs is a wonderful tea shop in Williamsville, NY, which is near Buffalo, NY, all of which are my old stomping grounds. I was born and raised in and around Western New York and will visit whenever possible. Years ago I stop in at TeaLeafs and have been HOOKED ever since! They have over 200 loose leaf teas in stock and LOTS of teaware and collectibles!
As for this specific tea – Fig Formosa Oolong from TeaLeafs – I can’t say enough GOOD things about it! It’s an intensely fig flavored oolong tea. When we bought it the first time we had it iced and since my husband was with me we HAD to put natural rock sugar in it since he likes it sweet. Since I don’t usually put sweeteners in my teas I will say that I have had it BOTH ways and it’s EXCELLENT straight-up and stand alone – as well as – with natural rock sugar in it if you choose! Fig Formosa Oolong from TeaLeafs is also tremendous BOTH hot AND Cold. They sure don’t skimp on the fig flavoring and it’s SUPER TASTY! Fig Formosa Oolong from TeaLeafs is really AWESOME!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: TeaLeafs
Description:
Origin: Taiwan
Ingredients: Oolong tea, Cornflower, Poppy Flower, Natural flavor
A full, whole leaf base with a rich taste of Smyrna figs.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Miss Figgy from Tea and Tins
So, I have to say this first: the piggy sprinkles are DEATH-DEFYINGLY cute! (I think that’s a thing?) Also, I appreciate the fact that this is an extra-punny tea: not only is the name a pun, but the tea itself is both figgy AND filled with sugar-based figgy piglets. (Yes, the sprinkles do absorb fig flavor over time. I checked.)
Although you can smell the sweet flavor of figs through the packet, it gets even better while steeping. After steeping, the tea is a nice hazy cedarish amber color. The overall taste is a bit less figgy than I expected from the smell, though the flavor does build up towards the end of each sip. This tea is sweet enough to not need sugar, although it’s good with sugar too! And it’s quite smooth, with no more than a teeny hint of astringency.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type:
Where to Buy: Teas and Tins
Description
Loose leaf black tea, nicknamed Miss figgy!
Ingredients: black tea, fig taste with dried figs and pink pig sprinkles.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Cherry Fantasy Tea from TeaLyra
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black, Green, Roiboos, Etc.
Where to Buy: TeaLyra
Tea Description:
Imagine bowls full of juicy plump cherries, a summer breeze and easy living, ahh, a Cherry Fantasy! Top quality black tea provides the perfect base to our favourite cherry black tea! We think our blend has the best combination of both sour cherries, and sweet acerola cherries, offering a truly balanced cherry flavour! This brews a robust black cup, with bright cherry notes and a subtle ginger flavour.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Cherry Fantasy Tea from TeaLyra is the tea of the day filling my cup! Right off the bat I will tell you that I am overjoyed this doesn’t have hibiscus in it! I find that hibiscus is overdone in fruity teas like cherry for example and often power the rest of the flavor. So…thumbs up…already!
Black tea, sour cherries, freeze-dried Acerola cherries, freeze-dried fig pieces, and freeze-dried sour cherry pieces are the ingredients of this tea. I love that they used freeze-dried fruit in this, too!
Cherry Fantasy Tea from TeaLyra is nicely done and can be enjoyed hot or cold as-is. The Cherry Trio is at the prefect flavor intensity. I have to say that this is one of the best (if not THE best) cherry flavored black teas I have had to date! This one really surprised me and I am very happy about that! If you are a fan of natural cherry give this tea a try!
Apple & Fig Crumble Tea from Tea Blendz
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: Tea Blendz
Tea Description:
This tea is no longer available for purchase on their site.
Learn more about this company here.
Taster’s Review:
Apple & Fig Crumble Tea from Tea Blendz is no longer available for purchase on their site but I thought it was still worth a mention especially this time of year! Apples and Figs and Crumbles…oh my! I hope I am able to sample more teas from this company because they have some really interesting flavor combos and flavor names. Here at Sororitea Sisters we drink a LOT of tea and it’s always nice to come across a name and/or flavor combo we haven’t tried before. If you are from a company that has some interesting, different, or just plain crazy ones let us know!
As for this Apple & Fig Crumble Tea from Tea Blendz it’s pretty darn tasty! In the dry loose leaf itself I can SEE the black tea leaves, the dried apples, the dried figs, and perhaps some stray cinnamon and/or cacao nibs but I could be wrong. As I continued to taste the tea I can taste a bit of cinnamon so I’m thinking my assumption is correct there! The apple, fig, crumble, and spice ratios could not be more perfect! This Apple & Fig Crumble Tea from Tea Blendz is very well done!