Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about Zoomdweebie’s tea of the week programs here.
Taster’s Review:
Over the last year or so, my iced tea consumption has definitely increased. A couple of years ago, iced tea was a summertime beverage. Period. I only brewed it during the hottest months of the year, because I preferred (and still do prefer) hot tea. But, I’ve found that it’s so nice having a pitcher of iced tea waiting in the fridge when I want something cold to drink and I want something cold to drink every day. I may not drink it as often as I drink hot tea and I do drink more iced tea in the warmer months than in the cold months. But I have reached a point where I’m drinking (and thoroughly enjoying!) iced tea on a daily basis.
So I have been enjoying exploring the teas from 52Teas/Zoomdweebies iced tea line: Southern Boy Teas. These teas are crafted with organic teas and flavoring and then bagged in large sachets to make brewing easier. Yeah, yeah, I do prefer loose leaf. However, when it comes to iced tea brewing, I have to admit that the convenience of the sachet/bag is one that is difficult to overlook. Yep, I’m just going to come right out and say it: I prefer a bagged or sacheted tea when it comes to iced tea brewing.
And what I like about these bags from SBT is that they’re large, unbleached bags. The tea leaves have plenty of room to expand and do their thing to produce a very flavorful tea. To brew this Strawberry Kiwi Green Tea, I heated 1 quart of freshly filtered water in the jug of my Breville One-Touch to 170°F and then I tossed the tea bag right into the jug of my tea maker and let it steep for 1 1/2 minutes. I poured the brewed tea into my favorite glass iced tea pitcher (I temper the glass first by filling the pitcher with hot water from the tap so that the glass isn’t “shocked” by the heat from the 170°F liquid!) Then I repeat the process, resteeping the tea bag but steeping it for 2 minutes with the second infusion and add this to the pitcher. Then I allow the tea to cool at room temperature a bit before I put the pitcher in the fridge. The next day, I have a pitcher full of tasty iced tea! (Oh, and I keep the tea bag for next time. I stash the tea bag into an airtight container and put it in the fridge, and then I resteep it again. The green teas are especially GREAT for maintaining their flavor for a second 1/2 gallon of iced tea.)
My first impression of this tea: Hmm … I couldn’t really taste strawberry and kiwi. I can taste the green tea and I can taste a fruity sweet element to this but did it really taste like strawberry and kiwi to me? No. I found myself having to think “OK, what tea did I brew last night?” The flavors of strawberry and/or kiwi were not immediately recognizable.
My second impression: My second glass … OK! Now I can taste more of the intended flavors! I can taste more distinct strawberry notes. The tea has a delicious strawberry sweetness and I’m getting that tart berry tingle in the aftertaste. As I’m drinking, I can taste the kiwi too. The kiwi is less discernible than the strawberry. And I can still taste the fresh green tea flavor too: sweet, slightly buttery and smooth.
The more I sipped on this tea, the more I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t say that it’s my favorite tea from SBT but it is refreshing and I found myself guzzling it. Even in the beginning when I couldn’t really immediately pick up on the flavors of strawberry and kiwi, I was still gulping it down because it’s still a very good, thirst-quenching glass of iced tea.
And the second pitcher of iced tea from this sachet is even better than the first. The strawberry and kiwi flavors are much more focused in this pitcher. Tasty!
Chai-napple Gunpowder Tea from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
Crazy? Or genius? You’ll have to be the judge. I’ve taken some smoky gunpowder green tea and blended it with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and freeze-dried pineapple to make a chai-napple gunpowder. Get it? Chai-napple? I kill me.
Learn more about this blend here.
Learn how to subscribe to 52Teas’ Tea of the Week program here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh, yum, nom, nom!
I generally brew ‘chai’ blends using either a teapot or my Kati tumbler because I find that the spices of a typical chai seem to attach themselves to my Breville tea maker and the scent (and the flavor) stays with the tea maker until I give it a good soak brew in baking soda. I learned this fairly early on with my first tea maker (about four years ago!) and so I changed my approach to brewing chai teas as a result.
For this “Chai-napple” tea, I used my Kati tumbler. I added a heaping bamboo scoop of tea to the basket of the Kati system and then filled the tumbler with 175°F water and let the tea steep for 2 minutes. I generally add a little bit of turbinado (raw) sugar to a chai to bring out the spice, but I found that the pineapple lent a certain sweetness to the cup and it really didn’t need additional sweetener. I guess if you want to add it, it wouldn’t hurt … but try it first!
For the record, the spices do cling to the basket of the Kati too, and I find to rid the tumbler and basket of the spices, I simply sprinkle some baking soda into the cup and basket, and then fill the tumbler with boiling water and let it sit for a while. This does the job!
When I took my first sip of this tea while it was freshly brewed and still rather hot, I could taste the pineapple and the green tea notes very distinctly. I wasn’t tasting a lot of the spices, but the pineapple and green tea flavors were quite strong.
After allowing the tea to cool to a more drinkable temperature, I began to pick up on more of the warm notes of spice. I find that the three spices – cinnamon, cardamom and ginger – are blended in such a way to provide a deliciously warm medley of spiced flavor without tasting too spicy.
The pineapple is the real star of this cup, though. It is sweet and juicy tasting, and I like the way it melds with the spices as well as the sweet, slightly nutty, softly smoky note of the Chinese gunpowder green tea.
And I noticed that the leaves had not yet completely unfurled with the first infusion and they were begging for another infusion. Who am I to refuse? I infused the leaves again, adding an additional 30 seconds of steep time.
With the second infusion, I could really taste the cardamom! The cinnamon and ginger were a little more forward with this infusion as well. I still got a good flavor from both the green tea and the pineapple too. This is a blend you really SHOULD infuse a minimum of two times to get the true “chai-napple” experience!
The pineapple was a little softer in flavor with the second infusion, but I like the balance of flavors better this time around. I can taste each of the components and it becomes a really tasty alternative to the “usual” masala chai! I taste a little bit of ginger’s bite, a cozy, sweet cinnamon flavor and the warm, comforting flavor of cardamom along with the juicy, delicious flavor of pineapple.
The gunpowder green tea is a delightful base because it’s gentle earthiness and understated smoky note offers a compelling contrast to the sweet burst of flavor of the pineapple and the warm notes of spice.
This truly is a unique chai. If you’re one who wants your chai blends to be hot and spicy, this blend might not be for you, because the spices are pretty mellow when compared to some of the spicy chai blends I’ve sampled. But if you’re one who likes something with a mild level of spice and something just a little different (like pineapple!), I recommend giving this blend a try.
White Pear Tea from Simple Loose Leaf
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Learn more about Simple Loose Leaf here.
Tea Description:
Premium white tea from Fujian region of China infused with the taste of ripe pears. Warm and sugary aroma, like a freshly baked pear, with a pear skin crisp finish. Wonderfully smooth and rounded, perfect hot or iced.
Ingredients: White Tea, Apple Pieces, Natural Pear Flavor
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about Simple Loose Leaf’s Co-Op program here.
Taster’s Review:
Recently, Simple Loose Leaf announced some changes to their program. This month’s teas will be the last of the “Selection Club” teas and next month is their flagship month of their new (and improved!) Co-Op program/membership.
How this plan will work (or at least, how I’ve been made to understand that it will work!) is this:
- Every month, you receive a box of samples of the latest teas that have been added to the Simple Loose Leaf store. Each monthly box will contain somewhere between 4 – 6 teas and these will be sample size (1/4 of an ounce. I like that size!)
- If you like what you taste, you can shop with Simple Loose Leaf to receive a full-sized package of the tea at a 50% discount off of Simple Loose Leaf’s regular retail prices. (That is to say that all your purchases outside of the sampler box each month will be sold to members at a 50% discount! I like that!)
- The membership price is $15/month and you can cancel at any time. There’s no contract or requirement outside of the $15/month. No annual fees. (Hey, that’s better than the deal I’ve got going with my cell phone! And I like tea better than I like my cell phone.)
- You can also buy gift memberships. (Nice gift!)
- To join or learn more, click here.
I’m personally really excited at this new plan because I’m a taster. I like the new sampler size of the teas that will be sent each month as part of the subscription.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I loved their Selection Club, and this month’s Selection Club box was filled with many exciting tea selections. Like this White Pear Tea. It’s awesome!
By the appearance of the dry leaf, I would speculate that the base used for this tea is a Shou Mei base. The leaf looks like other Shou Mei teas that I’ve had and among the tea leaves are chunks of dried apple.
Why dried apple? Well, I don’t know for sure but here’s what I think (and my opinion is based on my experiences that I’ve had as a tea blender): the dried fruit that is added to a tea like this adds relatively little flavor to the brewed tea and basically the purpose of the dried fruit is not to “flavor” the tea but to add some visual appeal to it. And dried apple is much easier to find than dried pear and apple and pear look very much alike. In my experiences with blending teas, dried apple adds very little to the overall flavor of the brewed tea. It might add a delicate sweetness to the cup but not a lot of true apple flavor.
To brew this tea, I grabbed my Kati brewing system and scooped out a heaping bamboo scoop into the basket of the Kati and then I added just a wee bit more tea leaf. Not quite a half a scoop … not even quite a fourth of a scoop. Just a wee bit. Then I heated the water to a low temperature (170°F) and poured the water into the tumbler and let the tea steep for 4 minutes.
The brewed liquid has a really delightful aroma. It smells like warm pear with delicate notes of white tea. It’s a sweet, fruity and really quite delicious fragrance!
The flavor tastes as good as the aroma! The white tea is a delicate flavor: sweet and hay-like. It’s smooth, not bitter and if there’s any astringency to this, I’m having a hard time finding it! Maybe a twinge or two of pucker in my cheeks at the very end of the sip. It’s a very flavorful white tea.
The pear is also quite flavorful and I’m happy to say that it has an authentic pear-like flavor. It reminds me of the flavor of a baked or poached pear (not the spice part but the sweet, soft part of the fruit).
Having tried quite a few pear teas in the past and occasionally being disappointed by the pear flavoring, I am happy to say that this has a really amazing pear flavor. If you’re looking for a really good pear tea – this is it!
Chocolate Orange Flavored Honeybush from 52Teas
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tisane Description:
Caffeine-free organic honeybush blended with organic cacao nibs, freeze-dried orange sections, marigold petals and organic chocolate and orange flavors. I was a bit reluctant to offer a chocolate tea outside of traditional hot tea drinking weather, but one of my helper elves insisted there is no wrong time to make a chocolate tea. After tasting this delicious blend, I have to say I totally agree with her.
Learn more about this tisane here.
Learn more about 52Teas’ subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
I could smell the orange as soon as I opened the pouch! The chocolate notes are less apparent than the orange but then again … oranges are a bit more fragrant than a bar of chocolate. The dry leaf has a lot of petals (these don’t really affect the flavor) and little chunks of cacao nib and dried oranges combined with the oxidized organic honeybush leaves.
When I brew honeybush (or it’s South African “cousin” rooibos), I usually brew it in my Breville One-Touch tea maker and that’s how I brewed this. I measured out 3 bamboo scoops of the tisane and put it in the basket of the tea maker, and then I poured in freshly filtered water up to the 500ml mark. I set the settings to 195°F and 10 minutes and then I left it alone to do its thing. That’s what I love so much about the One-Touch … you just put the tea and water into it, set the settings and the tea maker does the rest! Ten minutes later, I had a pot of Chocolate Orange flavored Honeybush!
The orange notes are a little softer in the brewed liquid, and I can smell notes of chocolate as well as notes of honeybush. It smells sweet, orange-y, chocolate-y and nutty.
The flavor is similar to the fragrance. The sip starts with sweet, orange-y flavors. Then I notice the nutty, honeyed flavor of the honeybush and notes of chocolate. I wish that the chocolate notes were stronger – but if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, that wish should come as no surprise to you. I always want more chocolate. More chocolate = better. Always.
As it is though, I feel that the chocolate notes here are lacking. The orange is such an abundant flavor and it seems to overwhelm the chocolate a bit.
Oh, it’s still quite a tasty blend, but this is definitely more orange than it is chocolate. I like how the honeybush melds with these flavors – the nutty, earthy notes of the honeybush work well with the richness of the cacao notes and the sunny notes of orange.
It’s a sweet, dessert-y type of tea, and because it’s naturally caffeine free, this would be a great late night snack for those who are looking for something sweet but don’t want to indulge. This is guilt free sipping!
Shou Mei White Tea from Simple Loose Leaf
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Learn more about Simple Loose Leaf here.
Tea Description:
White tea, considered by many tea experts to be the finest tea on earth, comes primarily from the Fujian Province in China. It is very lightly processed with sunlight and low temperatures. A standard grade Chinese Tea, Shou Mei White with its downy silver tipped leaves has a sweet, floral aroma and a mild, smooth, lightly sweet, pale yellow liquor.
Ingredients: Shou Mei White Tea
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about Simple Loose Leaf’s Selection Club subscription program here.
Receive 25% savings on the Selection Club from Simple Loose Leaf. Just type in SISTERSELECTION25 in the coupon field and save 25%! This discount is applicable only to the monthly Selection Club subscription and not the retail selection of teas.
Taster’s Review:
I’ve been drinking quite a few flavored Shou Mei white teas lately, but it’s been a little while since I’ve had a pure Shou Mei. So I was happy to be able to reacquaint myself with an unadulterated Shou Mei!
I’m very pleased with the quality of these leaves. The leaves are soft and are covered in fluffy fuzz, and the leaves vary in color from pale green, silver, and light brown. This is not the “typical” Shou Mei that sometimes looks and feels like dried, brown leaves. This appears to be a higher quality tea leaf to me.
And the difference is not only evident in the appearance of the leaves but the flavor of the tea. I steeped these leaves at 170°F for 3 minutes. The liquid is a pale amber color and has a delicate, hay-like aroma.
The flavor is sweet, fresh and light. It has a crispness to it, evoking thoughts of a cool spring morning. It makes me think of the dewdrops on fresh new leaves in spring. There is also a distinct “hay-like” flavor, like the air after a cutting of hay. I spent my adolescent years in an area that grew a lot of hay and alfalfa and you could always tell when the local farms cut their hay as the hay cut imparted a distinct essence to the air that was not only experienced by the nose but also the taste buds. That’s what I’m tasting (and smelling!) with this tea now.
It’s quite a pleasant cup of Shou Mei! And this tea offers multiple infusions. I’m currently on my third infusion, and the flavor just will not quit! (A good thing, because I’m really enjoying it and I’m not ready to stop drinking it!) A great choice for this month’s box from Simple Loose Leaf!