Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
This tea is really tasty. The white tea is soft and smooth. It has a delicate, sweet flavor and it offers an interesting contrast to the tart and tangy flavor of black currant.
It’s a fairly simple blend – just white tea and black currants – but it tastes great!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I have been on a 52Teas kick lately. I can’t help it! I love the unique variety of flavors they have and offer. I am currently staring at my maple Cheesecake TieGuan Yin and wondering if I should splurge and dive into it or wait for another time.
Today I was more in the mood for a white tea so I went with 52Teas Black Currant White Peony, a tea where the dry leaf has has a very similar smell somewhat mulled red wine. I prepped this one at work so I thought I’d share a cuppa with my co-worker. She couldn’t wait to try it.
I prepped this up per the instructions on the package (water at 170F & steep for about 3 1/2 minutes) and I poured us a couple mug fulls. We both instantly remarked at how that mulled wine aroma was still there with the brew and how delicious it smelled.
We took our first sips and wow our eyes lit up. This is exactly the tea you want to be drinking on a dark and dreary day like we are experiencing today. This tea delivers a simple yet satisfying flavor of sweet yet tangy berries (from the black currants), slight notes of a flora hint now and again, all wrapped up with a lovely wine aftertaste. Really lovely. This is one I could see sharing with friends at afternoon tea with a biscuit or two.
Can’t really say enough good things about this one. A depature from the complicated and unique tea blends that 52Teas offers. As much as I love those teas, I love this one just as much. Sometimes the most simplest teas are the most satisfying.
White Cherry from Tea and Absinthe
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Tea and Absinthe
Tea Description:
Ingredients: white tea China Pai Mu Tan, green tea Darjeeling, green tea China -Fog Tea, -Lung Ching, -Jasmine Jade Pearls, cherries, coconut chips (coconut, coconut fat, sugar), flavor, rose buds
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
A couple weekends ago, my hubby and I had an amazing experience at St Louis’s Wizard World. My hubby had bought me a Doctor Who VIP package where I had my picture take with and met David Tennant and Billie Piper. I was crazy excited since they are two of my favorite Doctor Who characters and arguable the most iconic. While wondering around the convention, I stumbled upon a tea shop. I couldn’t believe it. Not going to lie, I think I squealed a little. It was a pretty neat set up and I couldn’t wait to check all of the teas out. I picked up a few and have started to finally dive into them.
Let’s start off with saying this tea is gorgeous to look at. Huge roses, cherries, gorgeous tea leaves. . .everything you would want to see in a tea, this has it. The dry leaf mixture has a lovely sweet floral smell. One that I couldn’t want to steep up.
While steeping this tea, I could definitely still smell the same sweet smell with a hint of an almost kool aid smell as well. Not offensive at all. Almost made this tea a bit more appealing. I was in the mood for a sweeter fruity tea.
I brewed this up per the package instructions, and about 4 minutes later, I was pouring the tea into my Doctor Who mug. The smell of the tea had a lovely almost bakery smell to it with a fruity sweetness. This is one of those smells that actually makes you hungry!
I allowed the tea to cool for a few and took my first sip. In the words of Doctor Who “Hello Sweetie”! This tea is incredible and a taste profile/experience I can’t say I’ve ever had before. And that is pretty crazy to say. I drink a crazy variety of teas each and every day and am always looking for something new. I can’t believe I have never came across a tea like this before.
Each flavor comes thru. You can pick up the flora white notes, the distinct Darjeeling touches, a rich buttery green tea base, with a lovely jasmine hint here and there. Throw in the sweet robust cherry (almost Kool-Aid like) flavor with hints of coconut all surrounding by again another sweet floral touch and you have yourself one amazingly complex tea. The tea isn’t so sweet that it is overpowering. I think the green tea and Darjeeling go a long way to tame the crazy sweet flavors down and bring a bit more vegetal feel to the tea. In just about every other sip you get a nice tart almost wine like flavor.
I am insanely impressed with this tea and can not wait to see how many infusions this tea will provide. I’m also excited to try this as a lovely cold brew tea. Especially for the summertime. I bet this tea will make a marvelous iced tea!
Really well done! If you haven’t checked out this tea company before, I encourage you too. So far I have had two of the 5 blends that I picked up from them and I’m impressed with both.
Apricot Goodness from Beleave Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Beleave Teas
Tea Description:
This colorful green tea with diced dried apricot has a sweet and bright flavor. Organically grown in China.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Beleave Teas isn’t a tea company I hear a lot about but I have to say I don’t know why. They provide a great variety of teas that are fresh and so far pretty tasty.
This particular tea blend is a lovely blend of dried apricots and a gorgeous helping of green tea. Mixed together you would think this would be a soothing loving tea . . and you are correct!
Brewed up per the package instructions, this tea gives you a lovely subtle blend of stone fruit love with a hint of a vegetal slightly grassy green tea base. Kind of a sweet yet subtly sweet blend that gives you a moment to reflect and settle. This tea isn’t one that will blow you away by leaps and bounds but for a gentle tea it fits the perfectly.
This is one of those teas you keep on hand and drink when you need a bit of a soothing calming loving tea to help you thru your day and into your evening. The flavors are really lovely and creates a setting that makes you fall in love with it. The flavors may not burst out of the tea cup, but the deliver spot on flavor, which sometimes is exactly what you are looking for.
If you haven’t taken a moment to check out Beleave Teas, its another awesome tea company to check out next time you are in the market to pick up some new tea!
Winter Spice Chai from Teabox
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Teabox
Tea Description:
A perfect tea for winter mornings. Take in the warm aromas of toasted almonds and spicy ginger as you brew a cup of this decadent chai blend.
Along with the mellow sweetness of almonds the liquor has notable spice accents which make for an inviting, astringent cup of tea. Sip it plain or with some sweetener, this tea will see you through chilly winters with its comforting warmth.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This tea. . .this tea has me all sorts of confused! I want to love it but there is just something holding me back .. . .
This blend is a chai blend that sounds amazing with all the right notes. I will admit that I am not always the biggest chai fan but this one just sounded amazing and had come highly recommended.
I brewed this up per the instructions on the package and was ready to be overtaken by amazing flavors of sweetness and spicy love. But when I took my first sip, I was greeted with a very overpowering whole mouth feel of astringent notes and not really the warm toasted almonds and spicy ginger. I looked at the packaging again to make sure that my parameters were correct and noticed that they say to add in sugar/honey to the mix.
So I grabbed some honey and added some in (not something I do very often). And VIOLA! Those harsher astringent notes gave way to the decadent chai blend that they describe. Sweet with a subtle punch of spiciness from the ginger. All that you could ask for and more from a chai. Really delicious and the honey just mixes in so well. A wonderful chai for sure.
Since I had to add the honey to get the notes to pop I can’t say I would ever want to buy more or try this one again but I am very glad to have tried it and will have no trouble infusing more for another cuppa!
Lughnasadh from Solstice Brews
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Solstice Brews
Tea Description:
Celebrate the harvest with this pineapple coconut green tea!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Shame on me! I found this poor neglected tea in one of my tea storage bins over the weekend. I should know better. I was so excited when I first received this tea but alas, it was pushed to the back of the bin. Well I have rectified this problem but drinking about 3 cups of this brew this morning!
This tea is no longer available on the Solstice Brews Etsy site but there are so many other amazingly awesome teas available. Like Tardis Tea. That one has my name written all over it!
This tea is a gorgeous blend of green tea, with huge and I mean huge bits of pineapple and coconut in it. I couldn’t believe how lovely the inclusions were for this tea. Normally you just get little pieces, but not with this tea. You could smell the tropical feel in the aroma coming off of the dry leaves.
I prepped water at 190F and scooped a few spoon fulls of tea into my infuser. Poured the water in and allowed the tea to brew for about 3 minutes. I was greeted and rewarded with a lovely light and refreshing cuppa that just shined. All flavors were present and accounted for.
The green tea was a lovely buttery goodness that laid the foundation for the other flavors to play off of. The coconut was sweet and gave that familiar flavor to the blend and the pineapple tasted like fresh pineapples! What I loved the most about this tea was that it didn’t taste like a pina colada but all those flavors were noted. I am not a big pina colada fan so that just made me happy. I loved how all of the flavors created a happy feeling tea that was so light but with rich flavors. Very refreshing and this would make an absolutely smashing ice tea with a pineapple wedge for a garnish!
Another reason why I love Solstice Brews so much. Her teas are solid and you can count on them being marvelous!