Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Christine Dattner Paris
Tea Description:
An ocean of Flavors. black Tea of china flavored with blackberry blueberry blackcurrant and strewed with blackberries blue dolphins sugar and flowers of cornflowers.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Le Grand Bleu, or the Grand Blue from Christine Dattner Paris is a French tea available one more than one place online. I actually got this tea from a company that sells Christine Dattner’s teas, Flaavor . They sell a few different French company’s teas repackaged under their name. They have a great selection of small scale French tea companies. But if you are looking for a specific tea, I would suggest looking for the direct website.
This tea looks And smells live blueberry heaven. I the main attraction, Dolphin Sprinkles. I mean that really could be the whole article. But! Cutesy sprinkles in tea does not make for a standout tea. Luckily, the tea lives up to it’s sprinkles.
There are other flotsam and jetsam in the loose leaf, and to me, they all look good. Blueberries, blackberries, and little corn flowers for the hell of it. The scent of blueberries is strong and rich. I brewed this tea up western style, 5g of leaf to 16oz. The aroma itself was pretty amazing. The fresh blueberry complimented the raisin and malt notes of the black base tea like cheese on potatoes. The black tea is robust and in your face, but still comforting, like hot chocolate in front of a campfire. The little blue dolphins in this tea dissolve slowly, dissipating into the deep dark brown sea of tea.
I tend to shy away from berry and other fruit flavors in black tea, the combinations are either boring to too contrasting to the nuances of the base black tea. But this tea proved me wrong. I liked the combination so much that it may have changed the way I look at fruity blacks forever. And the dolphin sprinkles certainly don’t hurt.
Soul Good Organic Oolong from Tea Leaf Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Tea Leaf Co.
Tea Description:
A perfect cup of all natural apple cider to warm you up this autumn and winter.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The last couple of weeks have been crazy and the next week is going to be even more so – so it’s nice to have a tea like this Soul Good Organic Oolong from Tea Leaf Co. to help me collect myself and find a sense of calm. Tea is delightful like that – I love how I can sip it and it helps to de-stress me.
And what a delightful tea this is!
Even though it’s not autumn or winter – I am enjoying this cup of “apple cider” tea. It’s pleasantly sweet with a nice essence of apple and warm spices. And even though these flavors are prominent, they don’t overwhelm the sweet Oolong tea which appears to be a Tie Guan Yin based on the little green pellets of tea that I saw when I was measuring out the tea.
And the flavor and texture suggests a Tie Guan Yin tea to me. It’s sweet and has a soft, slightly creamy mouthfeel. There’s a light, buttery flavor to the tea that melds quite beautifully with the notes of apple and the spices.
The ginger is really nice – it’s warm and peppery without being too spicy. Generally when I think “apple cider,” I think of cinnamon flavor but I like that ginger is the star of this show – I’m really enjoying how nicely the apple and ginger taste together.
And the apple is wonderful here – it’s a strong flavor. My own experience with tea blending has taught me that apple can be a difficult flavor to nail but Tea Leaf Co. has nailed it here! It’s sweet and apple-y and authentic! This tastes very true-to-the-fruit!
A really lovely tea – and while it does have a very autumnal flavor to it, this is something I can see myself enjoying year round!
Mango Kiwi Green Tea from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
Here’s a lovely organic Ceylon (Sri Lankan) green tea blended with freeze dried mango and kiwi and organic mango and kiwi flavors. It’s a little tart, a little sweet and all refreshing.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about 52Teas’ subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
My review of this Mango Kiwi Green Tea may just be my last “SororiTea Sisters” review of a tea from 52Teas. In just a few days, my daughter takes over the business side of things with 52Teas and I become the mad tea artist! And since I’ll be crafting all the teas for 52Teas as of June 1st, I wouldn’t feel right about writing a critical review about the teas that I create. It just wouldn’t be ethical, you know? I’m excited and nervous, it’s a huge step for us but I believe it’s a step in the right direction.
So this review is a little bittersweet with an emphasis on the sweet, but I will miss writing reviews!
To brew this tea, I used my Breville One-Touch. I measured 2 bamboo scoops into the basket and poured 500ml of freshly filtered water into the kettle. Then I set the temperature for 180°F and the timer for 2 minutes. And a few minutes later, I have TEA!
Yummy tea! Just like the description above says, this is a little sweet and a little tart. I like that it’s neither too sweet nor too tart, though. The sip starts out sweet with notes of mango. The mango seems to be the strongest flavor in the cup, with the kiwi playing in the background. At the finish of the sip, I start to notice the tart notes and those tarty flavors tickle on my tongue in the aftertaste.
The green tea is light and fresh tasting. It has hints of grass and a delicate buttery taste. It’s not bitter or astringent. The vegetal notes of this tea aren’t particularly strong. It’s a very soft, pleasant green tea. This is the kind of green tea I’d recommend to someone who thinks they don’t like green tea because it tastes like vegetables. This … doesn’t taste like vegetables! It’s just delicate and lovely.
A really nice tea! A good tea to have in the cupboard now as the weather is getting warmer because it tastes GREAT iced!
Mimosa Black Tea from Lupicia
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Lupicia USA
Tea Description:
A black tea is scented and inspired by mimosa flowers that denote the arrival of spring. Floral and refreshing citrus aroma.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
They say that America runs on Dunkin’, but I think that old saying needs to be updated. I manage a small breakfast-oriented restaurant and if I am not mistaken, the humble mimosa reigns supreme. Nothing like a slab of bacon, a couple waffles and a mimosa to cure a hangover. We oftentimes sell more mimosas on the weekend than coffee.
Even though, I still love the smell of orange juice and cheap champagne. It smells like breakfast to me. I don’t care for alcoholic beverages in any way, but I like the flavor profiles. The idea is much more romantic than actual execution and resulting effects it may have. When I stumbled upon the funky gold tin on Lupicia’s website, I was completely sold. tea. Now if only I could get it in bulk to sell it in my restaurant… the possibilities!
The tea leaves give off an aroma that is so eerily exact to the combination of fresh squeezed orange juice and champagne that it’s a bit confusing at first. I wouldn’t have thought that a black tea would have been the best choice for a such light and effervescent drink. But when I steeped this tea in a small teapot, it turned into a surprisingly delightful drink. Comforting, bright, it’s got that great orange zest flavor and a slightly boozy tang of the champagne. I have tried this tea both hot and cold, and while the hot version is quite nice, i like my citrus-flavored black teas iced much better.
Sometimes certain special and limited edition teas on the Lupicia website are rather hard to find. You really have to dig if you want to find any interesting or different blends than what you’d see at first glance. There is a treasure trove of cool teas and beautiful tins just waiting to be taken home and loved forever. This is a great find, and I can soundly recommend it for those of you who enjoy a great citrus flavored black tea.
Raspberry Matcha from 3 Leaf Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green/Matcha
Where to Buy: 3 Leaf Tea
Tea Description:
Vegan, Gluten Free
Ingredients: Matcha, natural flavors
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is a fairly new company, and one I actually wanted to order from since they’ve got a pretty diverse selection of flavoured matcha and I was interested in seeing how it differed from what Red Leaf Tea offers. Unfortunately they don’t yet ship to Canada, so it was great that my fellow SororiTea Sister TheLastDodo was able to send some for me to try!
Instead of my usual matcha in milk I prepped this cold shaken in a DAVIDsTEA timolino with plain old water. Since this is a new company to me and I’m not familiar with their base matcha I wanted as much of a “plain” taste as I could get.
Visually the matcha is a really bright green colour – exactly what I want to be seeing! It smells really intense, and maybe a little bit artificial? That’s something I don’t want to be getting from this one. Hmm; I kept my expectations really neutral going into this.
I actually liked it a lot; I thought the raspberry was very sweet and natural tasting with just a tease of natural tang to it. It also didn’t seem to eclipse the flavour of the matcha itself which tasted subtly grassy and very, very floral. It had me thinking loosely of both orchids and peonies. The artificial smell I was picking up didn’t cross over into the flavour – hooray! Plus, the flavour and base together worked very well – the floral components absolutely complimented the natural tasting raspberry.
It definitely makes me wish I could try more flavors from this company – in particular I’m curious about the pineapple matcha and the apple matcha. I love the pairing of pineapple and floral flavours like orchid so I can see that working really, really well. Basically, I’m saying people should give this company a little bit more love because hopefully then they’ll be able to expand their shipping into Canada!
