Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Lemon Lily
Tea Description:
Loaded with blossoms, and scented with star anise and maple syrup, this white tea is show-stoppingly beautiful as well as a treat to sip. Again, we can’t stress enough that you need to let these delicate little cuppas need some time to cool. Once you do the grassy white tea blooms into the warm, smooth anise flavour, accented with a touch of maple.
Learn more about this month’s Postal Teas shipment here.
Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
Yay! My Postal Teas box arrived! It’s a happy day when I open the mailbox to find tea! I just love receiving parcels from Postal Teas and I was very excited that this month the teas featured are from yet another new-to-me company: Lemon Lily. A cute company name that brings a smile to my face because it makes me think of my youngest daughter. Her name is Lilith and we often call her Lili.
So the first tea I decided to try from this month’s box is Maple Leaf. All three of this month’s teas sound delightful, but Maple is what captured my attention immediately. I love maple!
I decided to brew this in my Breville One-Touch. I don’t usually steep white teas in my Breville because the leaves tend to be bulkier and need more room to expand so I usually steep a white tea in a teapot or in a Smart Tea Maker like this to give those leaves the room they need. However, upon examination of this tea, I saw that it was mostly flowers. I thought that the tea would have plenty of room to expand as it needed to in my Breville given the flower to tea leaf ratio of this blend.
As an added bonus, because this tea needs time after steeping to develop its flavor, I was able to set the Breville to steep – 4 bamboo scoops of leaf to 500ml of freshly filtered water (remember, there’s a lot of flowers in this, so I used extra leaf to compensate); 170°F; 3 1/2 minutes – and go take my shower. When I returned, the tea was brewed and it had been sitting for about 13 minutes. That seemed to me to be adequate “development” time.
LOVELY! I had my doubts about this after seeing all the flowers in this. It was hard to find tea leaves among all the flowers. But they’re there – because I can taste the tea.
I can also taste the flowers. This is a beautifully floral tea, but I’m glad to say that it doesn’t taste perfume-y. It has a wonderfully flowery aroma, it’s beautiful to smell as well as sip.
I can taste the notes of anise. I like the way the licorice-y flavor of anise melds with the flowers. They seem to play very nicely together. The anise adds just a hint of spice to the sweetness of the flowers. It’s quite pleasant.
And most importantly, I can taste the maple! OK, OK, I guess you could argue that it’s most important to taste the tea. And yeah, I’m with you on that. But, when I drink a maple tea, I want maple baby! And this blend has got the maple going on.
The sip starts off immediately with notes of flower. I taste the lavender and chrysanthemum. I like that while these floral notes are strong, they aren’t overdone. Even though it looks like they might be overdone when you take a look at the blend – there is a really well-crafted balance between tea, flower and maple notes here.
Maple and lavender are not necessarily two flavors that I ever thought of combining. But they work. Somehow … they work very well together. The maple seems to soften the sharpness of the floral notes just enough so that this doesn’t come off tasting like soap. The anise adds just the right amount of warmth to the cup while adding a touch of sweet licorice that tastes right at home with the sweet maple notes. The flowers add dimension to the sweetness while keeping everything balanced “just so” – to keep this from becoming too cloying or dessert-like.
And then there is the tea. The tea is a softer flavor here, not just because white tea tends to be a delicate tasting tea anyway, but also because there IS a lot going on in this blend. But I can still taste the subtle notes of sweet, hay-like flavor from the white tea.
A very enjoyable blend. Quite a wonderful start to this month’s Postal Teas box!
Pina Colada Flavored Honeybush Iced Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Premium organic caffeine-free honeybush with organic flavors.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’m not big on alcoholic drinks. In fact, I can’t tell you when the last time was that I last had a drink but if I were to guess, I’d say it’s been several months and that would have been one drink and I probably didn’t even finish it. I’m just not big on alcohol, I much prefer tea. I’m drunk on tea.
But I do like this Pina Colada Flavored Honeybush Iced Tea from SBT! It’s really tasty. The honeybush base is ideal because it adds a pleasant honeyed sweetness and the nutty notes of the herb add a nice dimension of flavor to the tea.
The pineapple is sweet and balanced with the flavor of coconut. I like that these two flavor profiles are so well matched. They aren’t competing with one another and one doesn’t overpower the other. They are content partners in this tropical tea-tail. I’m picking up on light notes of rum too. A light touch of rum that allows the tropical flavors to shine through.
And I love how easy it is to brew these teas from Southern Boy Teas. I hot brewed this pitcher of tea, bringing 1 quart of water to 195°F and steeping the large sachet of tea for 9 minutes. Then I poured the hot tea into my favorite glass iced tea pitcher and brought a second quart of water to 195°F and resteeped the pouch for 11 minutes. Because honeybush is a tisane with low tannins, you can steep it for longer periods of time without bitterness. This is the best way to get a full flavor from the tisane.
This is a really refreshing tisane. I almost wish I had tried it a couple of months ago when we were in the middle of one of the hottest summers I can remember. It would have made a great summertime “escape” for the taste buds. Then again, it’s kind of a nice getaway for the taste buds now that we’re experiencing a rather wet autumn. Hey, I still need some cold refreshment on days like this, don’t you?
Pumpkin Cheesecake Flavored Iced Black Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Southern Boy Teas
Tea Description:
Our awesome premium organic Iyerpadi black tea blended with organic pumpkin and cheesecake flavors.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
Mmm! This is really yummy.
I’ve tried 52Teas version of Pumpkin Cheesecake tea previously and it was yummy too. Rather than being a blend of black teas, though, this appears to be a single type of tea blended with the flavors. I like the black tea base, it’s smooth and rich and provides an enjoyable and solid background of flavor for the flavors of pumpkin and cheesecake.
I like the combination of pumpkin and cheesecake especially because the creaminess of the cheesecake flavor really enhances the pumpkin. I’m a fan of squash and I think that it just tastes better when there is a creamy element added to a winter squash dish, even if it’s a bit of browned butter that has been added to the squash mash. That little bit of creamy really elevates the dish.
And the creaminess of the cheesecake flavors elevates the pumpkin here too.
This is sweet and there are hints of spice. I taste subtle notes of cinnamon in the background. Not a strong flavor – it doesn’t intrude and become a focus of the tea, but it’s enough to add just a little warmth to this autumnal iced tea. The black tea is a rich, robust flavor that doesn’t get overwhelmed by the flavors. The cheesecake is sweet, creamy and tangy. The pumpkin is sweet, rich and savory. It’s a really delicious combination of flavors that is very well rounded on the palate.
Really good!
To prepare: I used the hot brew method for this, heating 1 quart of water to 212°F and then steeping the teabag for 2 minutes and pouring the tea into my glass iced tea pitcher (temper it first so that it doesn’t break from the shock of the heat). Then I repeated the steeping process, resteeping the teabag for 2 1/2 minutes in a quart of 212°F water and adding that quart to the pitcher to make a half gallon of iced tea. Delicious!
Birthday Cake Batter Flavored Iced Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
Birthday Cake Batter flavored … iced tea? Wow! OK, I really wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. The idea of cake batter flavoring and tea sounded just a little weird. OK, it sounds a lot weird! Am I right?
But it didn’t sound so weird that I wasn’t going to try it. I had to try it. I love cake batter. (That’s the best part of making a cake!) And I love cake batter flavored things. Specifically, I’m a huge fan of Cold Stone’s cake batter flavored ice cream. I don’t go to Cold Stone often, but on the occasions that I do go, I do try other flavors but none that I’ve tried have managed to lure me away from that cake batter flavored ice cream. It’s just too good.
But iced tea? Hmm. I hoped for the best as I brewed it. I went with the hot brew method, bringing 1 quart of freshly filtered water to a boil and then I dropped the tea bag into the water and let it steep for 2 minutes. Then I poured the tea into my iced tea pitcher and started the process again, this time steeping the bag for 2 1/2 minutes. Then I let the pitcher come to almost room temperature before I stashed it in the ice box. Today, I have a pitcher full of cold, refreshing iced tea that tastes like … well, it tasted like cake batter!
Imagine that! This really does taste like cake batter. I’m amazed at how well Southern Boy Teas NAILED this flavor. I taste the sweet, creamy, lightly buttery flavor of cake batter. All that’s missing is the texture!
And I do still taste the tea. And together with the cake batter flavor, it’s a really smooth and well rounded flavor that is rich and sweet and decadent. It tastes a little bit like I’m sipping on dessert rather than iced tea! And I’m not opposed to that at all!
This might be my favorite flavor yet. I’m glad I have another pouch of this flavor because I want to try cold brewing it next time!
Cherry Chocolate Flavored Iced Black Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
Occasionally – perhaps more often than ‘occasionally’ – Southern Boy Teas introduces a flavor that I’m not too sure about. I find myself wondering how well those flavors will meld with iced tea.
I’ve tried 52Teas (Southern Boy Teas parent company) Cherry Cordial Black Tea as well as their tribute to one of my all time favorite ice creams: Cherry Garcia. I enjoyed both of those. So I didn’t have a problem thinking that the flavors of chocolate and cherry would work with black tea. But how would this taste as an iced tea?
Well, it tastes like what the name of the tea suggests: It tastes like a chocolate cherry flavored iced tea!
To brew this, I used the hot brew method, heating 1 quart of water to 212°F and let the “jumbo tea bag” steep for 2 minutes. Then I repeated the process, letting the second quart steep for 2 1/2 minutes.
With my first few sips, I found myself looking for the chocolate flavors. You know me, I’m all about the chocolate! By the time I was finished with my second glass of the tea, I realized that even though the chocolate flavors are a bit lighter here than I would like them to be, the balance works. It works so well that I didn’t want to stop drinking it!
Right about here is where I’d say something like more chocolate = better. However, even though the chocolate notes here are not quite as chocolate-y as I would normally like, I find that as an iced tea, the lighter chocolate flavor works. If this was a hot tea, I’d want more chocolate, definitely.
But I’m enjoying this as it is! I think that a stronger chocolate flavor – while it would be awesomely delicious – it wouldn’t be as “refreshing” and “thirst quenching”. I think that a stronger chocolate note would be heavier on the palate. Here, the chocolate is strong enough to be tasted and enjoyed, but still light enough to be an iced drink that refreshes me.
The cherry is a sweeter cherry note. Because it melds with the black tea and chocolate notes in a harmonious way, it doesn’t come off as tasting cough syrupy to me. It is just a light, sweet, fruity note that accentuates the chocolate and black tea.
The black tea is a brisk, invigorating tea that doesn’t overpower the chocolate notes. Instead, I think that the chocolate and black tea play together very well, creating a slightly creamy, decadent, bittersweet chocolate flavor that melds with the black tea notes seamlessly.
A really tasty iced tea.