Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: The Tea Shelf
Tea Description:
A signature spring harvest tea from the mystical hills of Darjeeling, the fluffy soft textured admixture of single leaves, both rolled and open, are complete with bright silver buds. The light golden liquid is a very clean tasting tea, with a subtle floral bouquet accompanied by notes of apple and honey. A remarkable tea which expresses itself beautifully.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This tea’s pouch was one of those teas that I happily found int he back of my tea stash. One of the problems with having a nice large stash of tea, teas seem to hide and almost get forgotten. I was excited to see I still had a few offerings from The Tea Shelf to try. So far, I’ve enjoyed checking out their selection.
From the very first looks of this tea, it looks just bright and happy. The tea leaves are a gorgeous light green with twinges of yellow popping thru here and there. Just a tea that screams for spring to come back to us here in the Midwest.
Brewed up per the package instructions, this tea’s brew has such a gorgeous color, a really lovely amber coloring. First sip in and this tea is just spot on. All of those gorgeous slightly vegetal notes combined with a subtle malty flavor with hints of a floral touch. A really nice complex cuppa that gives you a variety of different flavors in each sip. I would almost say this tea is a nice cross between a black, white, and green tea.
I’ll be sipping on this tea for some time. Just gorgeous and hitting on the right notes for me today! Yum!
2 Quart Cold Brew Coffee and Tea Infuser Mason Jar from Country Line Kitchen
Tea Information:
Tea Product: Cold Brew Infuser
Where to Buy: Country Line Kitchen
Tea Description:
- Make your own cold brewed coffee easily and without the mess in our two quart mason jar brewing system. Components are easy to clean and dishwasher safe.
- Made with high quality, BPA free materials. Includes a Ball brand jar and lid, heavy duty stainless steel filter and silicone seal. Includes an instruction manual with several pages of recipes!
- Uses a versatile and durable mason jar for brewing. No fragile borosilicate glass or plastic containers. Add your own mason jar to store your cold brewed coffee while making a fresh batch.
- The extra large filter allows a 1:3 coffee to water ratio that results in a strong coffee concentrate. In addition, the silicone seal allows the jar to be shaken during brewing to ensure thorough wetting of the grounds to extract the maximum intensity from the coffee.
- Also makes a great loose leaf tea infuser and fruit infuser. Make a batch of delicious sun tea or infuse ½ gallon of water with your favorite fruits!
Learn more about this tea product here.
Taster’s Review:
Who doesn’t love a fresh crisp glass of cold brewed tea? The problem is that I haven’t found the best way to go about making it. Sure you can just dump some tea leaves into a vessel of you choice and put it in the fridge overnight. But the problem with doing that is the mess that it creates afterwards. Tea leaves always end up in your tea and you have to scoop out the remaining leaves and wash and rewash the vessel to make sure it is clean. Hence, it is a pain but the tea tastes amazing. Cold brewed tea allows the tea leaves to really explode with flavor and sometimes hidden flavors that you couldn’t taste in a hot brewed tea will become more pronounced.
Welcome to my teaware family this wonderful 2 QT Mason Jar Infuser! Yes, the main purpose for this infuser is to make iced coffee but I have to say I haven’t even tried iced coffee yet in this delight. I am just addicted to the cold brew tea I have been devouring over the last week.
The concept is quite simple. A giant (very cool looking) Mason Jar with a filter that runs the full length of the jar and a plastic lid. That is it. Put your tea leaves into the fine mesh filter, fill with fresh cold water, screw on the lid, and wait. 8-10 hours (or less depending on your preference) and you have yourself some wonderful cold brew tea. I have been cold brewing teas like mad and loving the flavors and undertones that I hadn’t picked up from the tea when I drank it hot. I have also found that some teas that I may not have necessarily cared for taste amazing cold brewed, giving me a chance to drink down some teas I have been neglecting in the back of the ol tea stash.
I actually used the same leaves for almost a week, just continuously pouring in fresh water and allowing the tea to sit for a while. To clean the infuser all you have to do is scoop out the tea leaves in the filter, toss them in the garbage or garden, and clean the glass jar. That is it. No harder than cleaning any other kind of infuser.
A really great way to enjoy your tea and the fact that the get up is easy to clean and easily fits in your fridge (another bonus!), just makes this product even more enduring to me. I’m buying another one so we can have one for coffee and one for tea but I have a feeling I’ll be just using the second infuser for more tea!
Dragon Well/Long Jing from Teabook
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teabook
Tea Description:
Our green tea comes from Hunan, Zhejiang and An Hui provinces in China. In China today, most green teas are still pan fired like originally done in the Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368); this helps to dry the leaf in a way to prevent much oxidation to preserve the green color. From a health perspective, green tea is increasingly popular for its content of EGCG (epigallocatechin), an antioxidant which studies show may have a number of health benefits. Green tea flavor and aroma are often referred to as vegetal, mild, cleansing, and sometimes savory or buttery. The tannins range from bitter to sweet depending on the variety.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Teabook is an tea company with a very interesting concept. They provide consumers with individually wrapped servings of loose leaf tea. The packaging looks very similar to that of a tea bag. Each month you’ll receive a box from Teabook with that month’s tea in it individually packaged for your convenience. A very cool idea. To have loose leaf tea packaged in a way that you don’t have to re package it to make it portable makes me want to instantly run out and sign up. Right now it looks like they mainly have straight teas on the site, but I can see this being just a fantastic new way for loose leaf tea drinkers to get their tea.
This tea that I am trying from Teabook is a Dragon Well. I have tried several different types of Dragon Wells from different tea companies and was excited to try out this offering. I brewed this tea up with the water temp at about 180 per the guidelines provided on the package. I poured the contents of the package into my steeper and watched the leaves dance as the water was poured in. I let the tea steep for about 4 minutes and took my first sip.
The major flavor note that you get from this tea is a nice pleasant vegetal note that is rich and satisfying. I took my cuppa into a meeting. As the meeting was progressing, I started to notice that the pleasant vegetal note started to turn more and more into a deeper richer and dare I say darker vegetal flavor.
As much as I love my green teas, I have to say this one may just not be for me. As the tea cools, that seaweed like flavor becomes more and more pronounced. It reminded me of a rich black tea that you allow to cool for way too long and it has become too astringent for you. Similar situation here.
I’m still not sure how I feel about this particular offering yet. I think this would be one to try again later on but I still love the idea of Teabook and plan on checking into it. Such a great concept!
The Cake Is A Lie! from Geeky Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black, Green, Roiboos, Etc.
Where to Buy: Geeky Teas
Tea Description:
Black tea, natural vanilla flavour, candy sprinkles, natural creme flavour and natural caramel flavour.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I will admit it right off the bat. I have tried to play Portal and I was absolutely awful at it. To the point where my kiddos were like “It’s ok Mommy, you are good at other things.” I used to think I was good at video games, guess that just isn’t the case anymore. In that moment, I knew I was old. (ha!)
Geeky Teas is one of my favorite tea shops. They produce fun unique handed blended teas that scream with personality and of course I love the idea that they are based on fandoms. The Cake Is A Lie blend is a mix of black tea, vanilla flavorings, candy sprinkles, creme flavor, and caramel flavor. Just take a whiff of the dry leaf mix and you can smell each and ever one of those ingredients. The dry leaf smells simply divine. One of those teas that you feel like you are gaining weight just by smelling the tea.
Brewed up with freshly prepped boiling water, I allowed this tea to steep for about 4 minutes. I waited a few moments to let the tea cool and took my first sip. Oh my Goodness! This tea isn’t just good. It’s brilliant! This tea is the king of dessert teas! The black tea is the silent base that is giving the flavors to be the star. The creme and the caramel are the flavors you really get along with a chocolate note here and there. The flavors all combined really doesn’t taste like a chocolate cake. I have tried so many different teas that say they taste like cake, this one really does!
This may be the best tea I have tried yet from Geeky Teas. I see a large pouch of this blend in my future!
Asobu Ice Tea Infuser Glass Water Bottle To-Go
Tea Ware:
Where to Buy: Amazon
Tea Description:
- 14-Ounce Iced Tea Infuser Glass Water Bottle
- Made of heat resistant, insulated glass
- Removable top and bottom lids for easy use with loose tea leaf
- A great Tea thermos and mug
- Dishwasher safe 100% BPA free
Taster’s Review:
Sometimes we get so excited about the tea we drink that we don’t chat about the amazing pieces of tea ware that are out there. Recently I picked up a few and some of them have really impressed me. As a tea enthusiasts who has to constantly re-organize her kitchen and desk at work because of all the tea ware she gets, I always love hearing what others pick up that help me brew up my favorite beverage. This particular bottle is one of those pieces.
This cold brewing bottle is fantastic. Easy to use, easy to clean, as far as I’ve experienced-leak proof, and most important of all- the easiest way to cold brew tea that I’ve come across so far. I love cold brew tea but I didn’t have a great way to do it. I came across this bottle and instantly bought it.
The bottle itself is super easy to put into action. This bottle comes in a few pieces, a top lid, a bottom infuser, and a lid for the bottom of the bottom, plus the bottle itself. All you need to do to create delicious cold brew tea is unscrew the infuser bottom basket, add in your loose leaf tea (more than you would for brewing your typical hot tea), put the infuser into the bottom of the basket with the opening facing out, screw on the lid, flip the bottle over (make sure that bottom lid is screwed on tight), and screw the lid on. Place the bottle in your fridge overnight. When you wake up, you’ll have fresh cold brew tea. Simple and easy without having to have several pieces of tea ware to get the desired effect. What is even better is that the bottle is a nice size and it fits perfectly into the side of my laptop bag or in my purse. It can also double as a fruit infuser if you are in the mood for more of just a plain fruit flavored water.
Such a great tool and I’m so glad to have it. Cold brewing tea can sometimes draw out hidden flavors in your tea that you couldn’t pick up brewed hot. It is also a great way to use up any extra tea that is hanging out in your tea stash since you have to use more tea than when you brew hot.
I’ve been using this bottle for cold brew for about 2 weeks now and have found that I have been reaching for the bottle to make iced or cold brew tea more than my tea pots. Just a fun piece to have!