Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Beacon Hill Tea Company
Tea Description:
This myriad of autumn flavors simply smolders. Grab a blanket and warm your soul with this spiced blend. Ingredients: honeybush tea, apple pieces, aniseed, lapsang souchong tea, cocoa nibs, rose hips, cinnamon, red peppercorn, orange peels, cloves, natural cinnamon flavor, natural orange flavor, safflower, natural hazelnut flavor.
Learn more about Beacon Hill’s Monthly Subscription Plan here.
Taster’s Review:
I’m running a little behind in my reviews lately, but I’m glad I’m seeing a light at the end of the tunnel in regards to my November teas. Crackling Fire was an offering the Beacon Hill Tea Company’s November box. The tea itself has such a lovely description. I took one whiff of it tho and I knew this tea and I were not going to be the best of friends.
This tea has a rather rich smoky flavor. One that I just couldn’t get behind, but I wanted to give it a try anyway. The rest of the tea sounded amazing. I brewed the tea up per the packaging instructions (212F-5 min) and took a sip.
If you are one of those that love that campfire smokey flavor. . .this tea is for you! The honeybush and apple pieces bring a sweet and tanginess to the tea while the hazelnut and cocoa nibs give this tea real definition. I wanted to like this tea so much but the smoky flavor just kept hitting me wrong. If that smokey flavor was just a bit less, I can see this being an insanely amazing tea. But for me, it just doesn’t work. All of the other flavors are fanastic, tho and for a flavored smokey tea I would have to say this is one of the better ones I’ve had. But-that’s ok that I didn’t like it. This is the first tea from Beacon Hill Company that I haven’t really liked. You can’t like them all and to each his or her own cuppa!
Fresh Books from Tea and Other Things
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black & Green Teas
Where to Buy: Tea and Other Things
Tea Description:
The first thing you inhale is the rich, smokey scent of a freshly opened new book. This tea starts off full of character with toast like notes, ending with a sweet rich caramel, and finally leaving you with a nostalgic feeling of a good, classic story.
Ingredients
Genmaicha (Japanese Green Tea + Roasted Rice), Hojicha (Roasted Japanese Green Tea), Lapsang Souchong (Chinese black tea that has been smoked over oak), Caramel pieces (Contains sugar + milk products)
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This tea was so intriguing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a tea for me.
This blend has so many uniquely different types of tea going on that I think it actually hurts the blend. The Lapsang Souchong absolutely dominates the rest of the tea and all you really get is a smoky black tea taste. The caramel, genmaicha, and hoijcha are lost in the blend. I do like Lapsang Souchong but this one I just really didn’t care for. It was an overload of smokiness.
Maybe if the Lapsang Souchong was taken down some, then the rest of the other blends could pop out and shine. Or maybe if the Lapsang was taken out completely. Now that would be a tea I would be all about.
The other unfortunate issue with this tea was that this tea and a sample tea were shipped in a regular letter style envelope without any padding or tissue paper to protect the tea. A lot of the tea was crushed and to even get the tea out of the envelope was hard. The Fresh Books tea was a 50g package and it was a pretty big package. The sample tea I think was protected by the 50g package and was completely fine. I’m not sure if this is why the blend tasted the way it did. The boyfriend had the sample pack (Cream of Early Grey) and really liked it.
This Etsy store showcases some fun sounding teas including fandom teas. I may check them out later or even send them a message asking if they can create this same blend without the smokey black tea. I think that blend would be amazing!