Hi Everyone!
I just wanted to post a little reminder to everyone who reads this blog that I – LiberTEAS – together with my oldest daughter, have launched a Kickstarter Campaign – please check out the campaign here!
As I mentioned in my previous post about this topic, Frank of Zoomdweebies – which is the ‘parent company’ of 52Teas and Southern Boy Teas – wants to narrow his focus on his iced tea business (aka Southern Boy Teas). As a result of this decision, he asked me if I wanted to take over the 52Teas brand.
Frank is also looking to expand Southern Boy Teas, please visit his Indiegogo campaign!
Success with these two campaigns will mean:
- Keeping 52Teas alive (Frank has said that he plans on closing 52Teas if we aren’t able to take it over!)
- Helping Southern Boy Teas grow into a nationally recognized brand.
I’m very excited about this opportunity! It’s a chance to get back into flavoring teas – something that I’ve missed quite a bit since closing LiberTEAS. I missed it more than I thought I would!
Please visit my Kickstarter campaign and help us reach our goal! We can’t do this without your help!
The Great 52Teas Take Over!
Please visit out Kickstarter Campaign here and help us take over 52Teas!
So it’s been no big secret that I am a big fan of 52Teas! If you’ve read many of my reviews, you know that they’re part of my tea collection – a big part of it!
Recently, I was approached by Frank of 52Teas (he’s the Chief Zoomdweebie of 52Teas and Southern Boy Teas) and he told me that he wants to narrow his focus to the iced tea business, that his passion is iced teas. So, he has been trying to get things going for his iced teas so that he can take Southern Boy Teas to bigger and better things.
Please consider helping Frank raise funds to accomplish this by contributing to his Indiegogo Campaign.
But there’s still 52Teas. So, he asked me if I wanted to take over the 52Teas brand.
Wow!
What an opportunity!
Actually, what Frank said was:
Unless we take over the 52Teas brand that after March 2015, the five plus year mission to create a new tea every week will end.
I don’t want to see 52Teas come to an end. I’ve really enjoyed many of those teas. And there were some that yeah, I thought I could improve on – well, this opportunity gives me the ability to do that too!
My passion for tea is pretty obvious at this point, at least to those of you who have read my ramblings for any amount of time. I love tea. So, this is an outrageously amazing opportunity for me.
I was a little worried though, because I did try the tea thing once before as LiberTEAS. That’s how I got my moniker, I used to blend and flavor my own line of teas and sell them online. I closed that business because while I loved creating the teas, I didn’t love the business end of things. I didn’t love paperwork and making sure that my inventory was accounted for and filing taxes and stuff like that. Hated it!
So, I thought long and hard about this decision. Then I thought about it some more. Then I turned to my oldest daughter for advice. I went into the discussion hoping that she’d either tell me: Yes! You should do this … or NO! You shouldn’t even think about it.
What I didn’t anticipate is that she’d ask me: “Can I do this with you?”
And so, our partnership was born. Amethyst is a very focused, organized type of person that is just the kind of person I need to do the stuff that I wasn’t fond of doing before: She enjoys paperwork and all that other stuff. With her heading up the business side of things, that frees me up to stay creative and keep working on amazing tea blends. Because that’s what I do best.
When I started out in the tea business more than ten years ago, I can honestly say that I was very naive and I didn’t really know what I was doing. All I knew is that I wanted to create the best chocolate tea that I could. And I did that. And I also created some other amazing teas too. But I didn’t really have the contacts I needed to push those teas to the next level.
But in the last six years, I’ve been reviewing teas and that has put me in touch with some pretty remarkable resources. I am less naive and I feel like I’m going to be able to take 52Teas to new heights.
I want to be creating teas again! I want to be the person who is creating those unique and yummy flavor combinations like Raspberry Almond Cookie and Coconut Lime Cupcake.
The only obstacle is that we need money to get our project off the ground and that’s where you come in. I recently launched a Kickstarter Campaign and I’m hoping that I can count on your support to make my dream a reality.
I have the passion for tea. My daughter has the business sense and the drive to propel the business. We just need the ‘Kick Start’ to make it all happen.
Please help us make this happen! We can’t do it without you.
You can visit our Kickstarter Campaign here. Please help in any way you can – even five dollars will help us get that much closer to our goal!
Frozen Summit Oolong Tea from Dachi Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Learn more about Dachi Tea’s Kickstarter Campaign Here.
Tea Description:
Also known as a Dong Ding Oolong, this tea has a woodsy aroma with notes of granola and butterscotch, which tease you into a heavy-bodied soup that has the minerality or river rocks and a malty flavor that some say is akin to a carefully crafted Indian Pale Ale. Forget the hollowness of a caffeine rush, this assertive tea comes with a boost of chi that energises you from the inside out and it’s coming to takeover the west!
Follow Dachi Tea on Facebook.
Taster’s Review:
I love the sweet, nutty notes of a Dong Ding like this Frozen Summit Oolong from Dachi Tea.
The aroma of the dry leaf is nutty, a little sweet and there are some fresh vegetal tones to the fragrance as well. The leaves are tightly wound into pellets that unfurl slowly as they brew. The brewed tea has a stronger nutty scent, but I found that the vegetal notes had softened with the brewed cup. I noticed that as the tea “pellets” began to open, there are quite a few stems in this tea.
To brew this tea, I grabbed my gaiwan and measured a bamboo scoop of tea into the bowl. Then I heated the water to 180°F and performed a re-awakening rinse for 15 seconds, discarding the liquid. Then I steeped my first infusion for 45 seconds. I strained the tea into my teacup and steeped the leaves again, this time for 1 full minute. I combined the first two infusions into my teacup and now it’s time to enjoy! (I repeated the process for cups 2 and 3!)
I found the tasting notes from Dachi Tea to be interesting, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone describing the nutty notes of a Dong Ding as “granola” but I totally get it. Yeah, there’s a warm, nutty flavor (and scent) and there is an almost ‘oat-y’ quality to it as well. Hints of honey too! I don’t smell (or taste) much of a butterscotch essence – at least not yet. I look forward to discovering that flavor (hopefully) in the infusions to follow.
The tea has a pleasant, rich mouthfeel. It is very soothing, like a broth.
Overall, this cup is a light tasting cup – but that light flavor won’t last! I can already pick up on notes of mineral in the distance and a slight vegetal note to the flavor. The vegetal note is less obvious than the roasty-toasty, nutty flavors, but every once in a while, I pick up on a slight taste of vegetation with whispers of flower weaving its way into the sip.
I suspect in the next cup, I’ll enjoy stronger flavors and hopefully that butterscotch note will reveal itself!
Ah! There it is! The butterscotch! I can definitely smell it (as well as the nutty notes) in this second cup and I can taste the butterscotch notes too. This is cup is sweet and nutty – just like the first – but I think that the sweeter notes are even more intense this time around! Mmm!
I’m tasting fewer of the aforementioned vegetal notes and few of the floral tones that I discovered with the first cup. I’m also picking up on some light malt notes as mentioned in Dachi’s tasting notes, reminiscent of the few ‘gourmet’ beers that I’ve tasted. (‘Gourmet’ beers should be interpreted as something that costs $6.99 a can rather than $6.99 a six-pack.)
There is a slightly dry finish to this cup, but I only really notice it when I’m trying to find out if I notice any astringency to the cup. That is to say, it’s not a strong astringency or something that really stands out unless I’m trying to ‘find’ it.
The third and final cup was smoother than the second. I found the second cup to be sweeter but the third cup to be more unified and even less astringent than the second. I pick up on hints of apple in this cup. The sweet notes are more like honey than they are butterscotch. The aforementioned malt notes are less noticeable this time.
Overall, this is a really enjoyable cup and I’m thrilled that I got to try it. I love that Dachi Tea has reached their goal on Kickstarter and will, therefore, be funded. I also love the packaging of this company! Inside the box was a beautiful metallic, coppery gift bag that has been labeled with Dachi’s logo, and inside the gift bag are their four flagship Oolong teas. (So, needless to say, I’ll be reviewing the other three teas very soon!)
This new company approached me to help spread the word about their up-and-coming company as well as their Kickstarter campaign which has been enormously successful. However, every bit helps, so why not consider supporting Dachi on Kickstarter and get some really great perks in the process (in this case, perks = tea and other great stuff!) This Kickstarter campaign ends soon!