Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Fruit/Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Pluck Tea
Tea Description:
A blend of dried grape skins from Niagara’s Organic and Biodynamic Southbrook Vinyards, layered with hibiscus and berries for a delicious fruit tea. Enjoy hot or iced. Caffeine – free
Learn more about August’s Postal Teas shipment here.
Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
Of the three teas that I received in this month’s box from Postal Teas, this is the tea that I was putting off trying. I was not looking forward to it. I can see the hibiscus! UGH! And because it’s dried grape skins, berries and hibiscus (all dark red) … it just looks like pure hibiscus!
So, needless to say, I didn’t have high hopes for this blend. To steep this, I got out my Kati tumbler and added 1 bamboo scoop of the dark, burgundy red leaves into the basket of the tumbler and poured water heated to 195°F into the tumbler and let it infuse for 4 1/2 minutes. Normally, I’d steep a fruit/berry/herbal tisane like this for 5 – 6 minutes, but because this looked like pure hibiscus to me, I went with slightly less time.
The thing about hibiscus is that the longer you let it steep, the tarter the flavor. Tarter? Tartier? More tart? In addition to a more tartness, the hibiscus turns the liquid into a thick, almost viscous syrup that is quite tart and not very enjoyable to sip. At least, not for me. I guess there are some people that dig that sort of thing.
Anyway, this tastes much better than I anticipated it would. Because of the short steep time, I don’t have a tisane with an unpleasantly thick texture. And because of the short steep time, I’m not tasting an overwhelmingly tart, hibiscus-y drink.
I can taste the berries! I can taste the grape! In fact, the grape is what I taste most. This tastes a whole lot like warm grape juice. I suspect that this tisane would taste really good iced and would go over well with children, and it’s a caffeine free alternative to all those sugary sodas.
The “berries” in this blend, because they meld in such a seamless way with the grape and the hibiscus, it’s difficult to discern what type of berry I’m tasting. It tastes like a berry/grape medley. The hibiscus is still there, of course, but it melds with the flavors of grape and berry in such a way that it doesn’t taste “hibiscus-y”. It tastes like a grape and berry juice that’s both sweet and tart. I am not one who particularly enjoys tart flavors so I added about half a teaspoon of raw sugar to the cup and this toned down the tartness to a tolerable level for my palate.
This is alright. It’s not my favorite tisane, but given how much I thought I’d dislike it, it turned out to be much better than I thought it would.
Overall, I enjoyed this month’s box from Postal Teas. And after perusing Pluck’s selection of teas, I’m finding a whole lot more that I’d love to try. Hey, Postal Teas, if you’re reading … you should feature Pluck again, soon!
Apple on the Green Tea from Pluck Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Pluck Tea
Tea Description:
Warming, soothing and fruity with a hint of cinnamon. This dried apple tea has been layered with premium green tea and just the right amount of spice for a flavourful but sophisticated tea, hot or cold.
Apple on the Green features MacIntosh apples grown in Niagara Ontario.
Learn more about August’s Postal Teas shipment here.
Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
OK, so far it’s been 2 for 2 with this month’s box from Postal Teas. I loved the Peach tea and I’m loving this Apple on the Green! Apple isn’t always the easiest flavor to get right in a tea. But this is one of the best apple teas I’ve tried … at least that I’ve tried recently!
That’s because everything is balanced nicely. The green tea has a sweet, slightly grassy, slightly creamy flavor that seems to elevate the apple notes in a very pleasing way. The apple has a strong flavor, but it doesn’t taste fake. It has a very good, authentic apple-y taste. The cinnamon is strong enough to be tasted and add a vibrant zesty flavor to the cup without giving the tea too warm or spicy a flavor. Everything is done just right with this blend!
OK, so I know that Pluck is a Canadian company and I don’t mean to take anything away from that, but this tea seems very “American” (United States) to me because here we’re all about the apple pie. This cup of tea is like apple pie a la mode without the crust. The creaminess of the green tea gives it an a la mode sort of flavor, the apple is sweet and juicy and the cinnamon gives just the right amount of warmth – it’s just like a delicious apple-y filling that my gramma would make for her amazing apple pies.
Maybe this tea is just making me feel a little sentimental.
To steep this tea, I used my small teapot and measured 1 bamboo scoop into the vessel. I heated the water to 180°F and poured about 12 ounces of tea into the teapot and let it steep for 2 minutes. Then I strained off the tea and enjoyed. For the resteep, I added an extra minute onto the steep time but did not increase the temperature.
So far, this is the best tea that I’ve tried from my Postal Teas boxes. This tea has made my subscriptions worth it.
This one also offers a pretty decent resteep. The apple flavor is a little softer than in the first steep, but it’s still quite tasty and I think it’s well worth it to resteep these leaves.
Just Peachy Black Tea from Pluck Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Pluck Tea
Tea Description:
This high grown luxury loose leaf black tea is blended with dried ripe peaches and apricots grown in Niagara, Ontario.
Soft and fruity… chill for an enchanting iced tea.
Learn more about August’s Postal Teas shipment here.
Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
My “August” box from Postal Teas arrived a few days ago, and I was eager to dive right in and try “this month’s” teas. This service is set up to ship at the end of the month, so these teas that I received in September are actually August’s teas, so it will be a little confusing for me to be calling this August’s box when it arrived in September. But it’s really not that important … at least the teas arrived, right? And I’m quite happy with this month’s selection.
And I’m even happier with the note that I received in the box. As I mentioned in my first review of the teas that I received with my first shipment, they include a handwritten note. I dig that, it communicates to me that they took a few moments out of their day to write something to me. While I love the convenience of shopping online and it’s how I do most of my shopping (at least for tea!), with the handling process of the many orders of so many companies out there it seems that the personal touch is lost. That “thank you for shopping with us” and the smile from the clerk is lost (and let’s face it, it’s lost when you shop at most of the big chain stores too) and that’s something that I – as a consumer – appreciate. So when I get a handwritten note with an order, even if it’s just something as simple as a hand-written “thank you” on the receipt, it tells me that a person was on the other side of this order. I like that.
And what I like even more is that this note … was written with ME in mind. They wrote this to me. They didn’t have some formed response that they wrote on everyone’s note of every package that they sent out this month. Let me show you what I mean. The note says:
Anne,
We love having your feedback!
We hope these are a little more exciting for you!
Be sure to let us know what you think!
OK. So not only are they addressing the fact that I sit here and write tea reviews, but they’re acknowledging that they read my reviews and they’ve taken my feelings into account while writing this note because I did express some discontent with the previous box because the teas – while they were classics and quite good! – were just a little … well, it was like, OK, I signed up for this new service and they’re sending me teas from a new-to-me company but they were teas that I could pretty much find anywhere. I could go to my local coffee shop and find those teas. So, I was like, “Um … boring!”
Hey, what can I say. After writing reviews for over five years, I guess you could say that I’m needy and what I need is something different. Something that I don’t already have in my pantry. (And my tea pantry is extensive.) So, yeah, my apologies to Postal Teas and Tease for sounding less than excited about trying something that I’ve already tried.
BUT … I’m not here today to talk about last month’s box. I want to talk about this month’s box! This is the first tea that I’ve tasted from this month’s box from Postal Teas. This month’s supplier for Postal Teas is a company called Pluck and it’s a company that I’ve not yet tried. And THAT’S why I like to subscribe to services like this. I like to explore teas that I’ve not tried before from companies that I’ve not yet heard of. This month, Postal Teas delivered that right to my mailbox.
The dry leaf is deliciously fragrant! It smells a lot like my kitchen did about a month and a half ago when I brought home a big box full of freshly picked peaches. Yum!
I brewed this tea in my Breville One Touch. I put two bamboo scoops of tea into the basket of the tea maker and added 500ml of freshly filtered water into the jug, and then set the controls for 212°F and 2 1/2 minutes (my go-to settings for most black teas).
The tea has a peachy aroma, and I smell more “black tea” notes now than I did with the dry leaf. The dry leaf is all about the peach, but now that the tea is brewed, I’m experiencing a lighter peach note and a little bit of black tea in the fragrance. It smells delightful!
Nice! The peach is a little elusive while the tea is piping hot so I would suggest letting this tea cool slightly before taking a sip. As the tea cools, the flavors develop. (And it’s AMAZING iced!)
The black tea is strongest flavor of this cup, and that’s the way it should be. When I taste a flavored tea, I like it when I can taste the flavors the tea promises, but I still want to taste the tea part too. Otherwise, I might as well just consume a glass of fruit juice. I want tea!
But that’s not to say that I don’t taste the peach in this tea, because I do. The peach is there, but it doesn’t overpower the tea notes. It’s a flavor that starts out subtle and develops slowly.
And what I like best about the peach notes here is that it tastes very true to the fruit. It doesn’t have an artificial peach taste. It tastes like peaches that have been picked off the tree and then liquefied and added to a cup of Ceylon tea. The aftertaste is delightfully peachy!
As I was brewing this tea, I thought about additions. I didn’t add anything to the cup, but a little bit of sugar might encourage the peach notes to emerge a little bit more and it might temper the slight astringent bite at the tail of the sip. But, it wasn’t too astringent and I could taste the peach notes without the sweetener so it’s not something that must be added. I was thinking that maybe a splash of milk or cream would give this a ‘peaches and cream’ sort of flavor but now that I’m drinking it, I think that the dairy addition would overwhelm the delicate notes of peach and you don’t want that!
It’s a very enjoyable cuppa, and it captures what this time of year is about to me – the sweet harvests as the summer comes to an end and we welcome autumn.
Smoke Show (Lapsang Souchong Black Tea) from Tease
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Tea Description:
“You smell like a campfire.” Edward says to me as I walk into the office with this smoking hot beauty. Sheena has blessed us with some of the first samples of this smoky wonder. She described it as the scotch of the tea world. Bold and boisterous, it’s a mans tea, able to convert any hard core coffee addict to a gentle tea sipper.
It’s bold scent is definitely softened when steeped. The air will hold on to this campfire scent, reminding us of weekends camping and long weeks at the cottage. It also reminded us how much we like whisky. We brewed up a small pot, iced it and served it as mixer in our weekend Manhattans.
The flavour, while still maintaining a hint of smoke, is very earthy and gentle. Perfect for mornings or an evening of cocktail sipping. Mix 2oz of iced Lapsang Souchong with 2oz of whiskey, a splash of fresh apple juice, and a squeeze of lime for a perfect evening drink.
Learn more about July’s Postal Teas shipment here.
Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
By now, I’ve mentioned my lack of enthusiasm for Postal Tea’s choices for my first month of trying out this subscription service. They went with the “classics” and the theme “One Classy Lady.” OK, I get it, and I even understand the desire to want to offer subscribers three classic teas that all tea drinkers should at least try. But for those of us who are pretty well acquainted with these “classics,” the teas in this box end up being just a little … less than exciting.
I do LOVE the box though. First of all, it’s packaged beautifully in a slim box. The sample sizes are just the right size for a pot of tea. I liked getting a handwritten note from Postal Teas (it’s a small detail, but it’s one that I really appreciate) and I really liked receiving the tea notebook. These little touches made the box very special, so I am hoping that next month’s shipment from Postal Teas has something just a little less classic for their subscribers.
In the meantime, I have a cup of Lapsang Souchong sitting before me. I can smell the heavy smoky note. The description above is accurate in saying that it smells smokier than it tastes. This is true of just about every Lapsang Souchong tea that I’ve tasted. I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought much about it, because the aroma is so smoky that it’s often difficult to separate the scent from the taste because these two senses are very connected. But this is a tea that definitely benefits – at least for me – to not inhale deeply before taking that sip as I would normally do, because then the sip tastes less smoky.
Another way to help eliminate some of the smoke is to brew it “properly” – again, at least properly for me. I always give Lapsang Souchong leaves a rinse before I infuse the leaves by steeping the leaves for about 15 seconds and then straining off the liquid and discarding it. This gets rid of a lot of the overpowering smoke, but not all of it. There’s still some smoke – but it’s a lot more enjoyable now because it’s not overwhelming me.
212°F for 15 seconds, strain and discard liquid, and then infuse the leaves at 212°F for 2 1/2 minutes – 3 minutes. Strain and enjoy. I don’t usually go over 3 minutes.
This is a pleasant Lapsang Souchong. Smoky, yes, but there is a delightful complexity beyond the smoke. A delectably sweet caramel undertone with notes of stone fruit. I know I’ve probably used this descriptive before in other reviews when describing the flavors in a Lapsang, but it’s applicable and it’s what I’m tasting: imagine charring a ripe plum over a smoky campfire. That’s what I taste. It’s sweet and it’s really quite lovely … and certainly worth the effort of the extra brewing step to be able to enjoy these flavors.
This tea is one of three that I received in my July Postal Teas subscription package, and currently it’s available only to Postal Teas customers and isn’t currently on Tease website, which is why I didn’t include a direct link where you could buy this tea.
I enjoyed the classic teas that Postal Teas sent me this month … but as I said, I’m looking forward to what they will send with the next shipment.
First Date (Genmaicha Green Tea) from Tease
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Tease
Tea Description:
Antioxidant rich green tea blended with roasted rice simulating the first date snack staple – popcorn on movie night!
Learn more about July’s Postal Teas shipment here.
Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
This “First Date” is the second tea that I’m trying from my July box from Postal Teas. It’s a genmaicha green tea – Japanese green tea blended with roasted rice. Not a tea that’s new to me, I’ve had a lot of genmaicha teas in my years as a tea reviewer.
It’s a sweet Japanese green tea blended with sweet, roasty-toasty rice. Pleasant. Agreeable. And I’m enjoying my pot of tea that was made possible by my new subscription to Postal Teas and by Tease.
It’s a nice tea to have after a meal, because I find it to be sweet and almost dessert-like without tasting over-indulgent. A good tea to choose to unwind with later in the afternoon, when you’re not quite ready to go “caffeine-free” but you don’t want something too stimulating.
It’s a good tea, but, as I’ve said, I’ve had a lot of genmaicha teas, and this isn’t anything out of the ordinary.
I guess I’m still feeling a little underwhelmed by the teas selected for the July Postal Teas box. After perusing the Tease website, I felt like there were several intriguing teas to choose from … this isn’t one I would have selected, so I’m hopeful that they’ll impress me with next month’s box.
I certainly enjoyed receiving the package with the notebook and the handwritten note (a really nice touch) … and I really like the size of the packages of tea from Postal Teas – it’s just the right amount for a pot of tea. However, I am hopeful that for August, the box from Postal Teas will prove to be more inspired.