Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Golden Tips
Tea Description:
Our second flush ‘Arya Ruby Black Tea’ is a classic example of Darjeeling summer royalty. The well-made leaves are wiry and have a delightful appearance with plenty of silver tips. Manufactured to perfection, the tea boasts of an immensely complex character with abundance of muscatel flavor. The fruit-flowery notes flush your mouth with a sweetness that is pleasant and comforting. The aroma scents of rich caramel with a slightly woody character. The nose is sharp and slightly fruity which resonates muscatel richness. Overall, the tea has a fantastic texture, a balanced and rounded body with an extremely smooth flavor that leaves a sweet lingering aftertaste in your mouth. An excellent limited edition Darjeeling second flush black tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Having tried Arya Ruby Darjeeling teas in the past, I was pretty confident that I’d enjoy this. It’s one of my favorite Darjeeling teas out there.
And this is indeed lovely! Sweet, delectably fruity and delightfully floral!
To brew this tea, I used my Breville One-Touch. I measured 2 bamboo scoops of tea into the basket of my tea maker and added 500ml of freshly filtered water. I set the temperature for 195°F (my go-to temperature for Darjeeling teas unless they look really green, then I might lower it to 190°F or even 185°F.) I set the timer for 2 1/2 minutes and I let my tea maker do the rest.
A few minutes later, the tea is done! Mmm!
The sip starts out with some what I’d describe as a medley of floral and fruit notes. By mid-sip, hints of fruity muscatel shine through. Subtle yet lovely notes of grape! A mild astringency toward the finish.
I’d categorize this as a medium bodied tea, it’s got a little more texture to it than a typical Darjeeling, but it certainly isn’t as hearty as say, an Assam tea. It would make an excellent afternoon tea!
A really lovely Darjeeling. I’d recommend this to any tea drinker, and especially those who might not have liked Darjeeling in the past. I believe this Darjeeling could change their opinion of Darjeeling!
Summer Garden Citrus Mint Blend from Verdant Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green & Oolong Teas
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Tea Description:
Summer calls for a blend that’s crisp, sweet, and tangy enough to be a showstopping iced tea. We wanted to do something a little different to celebrate the season, so we sourced a beautiful Wenshan Baozhong Taiwanese oolong tea as the base of our recipe. Wenshan Baozhong is an extremely green oolong, full of grassy notes, but with floral and creamy aftertastes. Mixed with a dash of Yunnan Jingshan Green to round out the body, we think this makes the perfect green base for summer.
To bring out the fruity and floral notes naturally present in Wenshan Baozhong, we picked out creamy and sweet orange peel, rich lemongrass and a juicy bergamot. We use roasted dandelion root and licorice root to draw out the sweetness and help you make a satisfying iced tea- no sugar necessary! Finally, we make it crisp and refreshing with a dash of lavender and spearmint. Enjoy!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Wow! This tea really is the perfect summer refreshment. This summer has been so hot and uncomfortably muggy that there have been times when I couldn’t bear to brew a pot of hot tea because even though I know that hot tea tends to be more cooling than a cold drink, I couldn’t bring myself to brewing something hot to drink. Thank goodness I had a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge for times like that.
This! This tea would make a perfect iced tea. I’m drinking it hot right now, and even served hot, it’s incredibly refreshing. The base of Yunnan Jinshan Green and Wenshan Baozhong Oolong makes for a wonderful sweet and light flavor with a lovely creamy texture. It’s lightly vegetal with just the right buttery note.
The lemon grass, orange peel and touch of bergamot adds a bright citrus note. The bergamot does not give this an Earl Grey-ish sort of flavor, but instead just enhances the sunny citrus flavors with it’s zesty character. I don’t know that I necessarily taste the dandelion root, although I do taste a toasty, nutty flavor which may be the presence of the roasted dandelion root. I also don’t taste a lot of licorice. But I do get a nice sweetness here – it’s pleasantly sweet without the addition of sweetener.
But the real star of this cup is the spearmint. It adds just the right touch of crisp, cool minty flavor without getting too aggressive. It doesn’t overpower … everything tastes very harmonious. This tea is named perfectly: Summer Garden Citrus Mint Blend. I taste fresh leafy notes, citrus, mint. It’s a beautifully smooth and enjoyable cup.
I can’t wait to be drinking this one chilled tomorrow! YUM!
Summer Romance Tea Blend from ArtfulTea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black & Green Teas
Where to Buy: ArtfulTea orArtfulTea on Etsy
Tea Description:
Let this magical blend carry you away like a summer of love. Sweet papaya and strawberries intertwine with black and green teas for an intoxicating, exotic flavor. Refreshing hot or iced.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Mmm … this Summer Romance Tea Blend is TASTY! I often have my misgivings about a tea blend such as this, where two totally different tea types are used – in this case, it’s black tea and green tea – because it’s difficult to determine just the right steeping parameters to use. Black teas usually do best with boiling water (or at the very least, near boiling) and the green tea leaves may end up scorched if I were to use boiling water to brew them. So with blends like this, I usually cater to the more delicate tea, and so I brewed this with 180°F water, and then I steeped it a little longer than I normally would a green tea: 3 minutes.
These parameters produced a very flavorful, tasty cup of tea.
Of the two types of tea leaves, the black tea offers the strongest flavor. I taste a rich flavor from the black tea, although I’m sure that it would be far more robust if I had chosen to steep this at a higher temperature. The green tea is not quite as discernible, but, I do notice some light, buttery notes from the green tea. The overall cup is a bit lighter and that has to do not only with the lower steep temperature but the presence of the green tea. And despite my “misgivings” about black/green tea blends, I do like that these two teas were utilized as the base for this tea because it’s a very unique sort of taste and I like the way the flavor of the base plays with the notes of strawberry and papaya.
The rosehips don’t give off a lot of flavor to the cup, but I do notice a slight bitterness from them which acts more as a slight “brightness” to the sweet fruit notes rather than make the cup taste “bitter.” The same is true of the sunflower petals. They add a subtle sharpness to the cup, accentuating the sweet flavors of papaya and strawberry.
This tea blend is aptly named, for it does taste a bit like summer in a teacup. At the moment, we’re experiencing a rainy summer day. These are the kinds of days that I look forward to in the summer, because it cools things off for a while. We had some pretty obnoxiously hot days over the past couple of weeks, and I was ready for the rain to come and bring the heat to a halt. But the tea that’s in my teacup reminds me of just how lovely summer can be.
Jeju Summer Harvest Korean Green Tea from Spire Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Tea Description:
A delicious Korean green tea with a light, fresh herbaceous taste and a vibrant green liquor colour.
Learn more about Spire Tea on their website.
Taster’s Review:
I can’t recall the last time I’ve tried a Korean tea … I know that I’ve certainly tried them, but, they are not as easy to come by and so my experience with them has been limited. So I was very excited to try this Jeju Summer Harvest Korean Green Tea from Spire Tea.
And this is delightful. It has much of what I’d expect from a green tea. It has that light, “green” taste that falls somewhere between the flavor of sweet grass and mild steamed vegetables. There is a very faint buttery undertone to this cup as well which adds a nice emphasis on the steamed veggie taste.
It is a pleasantly sweet and mellow cup, but there is a certain invigorative quality to it as well. It has a fresh, crisp, clean kind of taste that perks up the taste buds. There is some tangy astringency toward the tail, and the aftertaste is sweet.
Overall, I find this cup to be very rewarding and soothing, especially nice after a long day. I did find that the flavor waned slightly as it cooled, so this is one that I’d recommend drinking while its hot. But, that’s just fine with me, because it seems so relaxing to sip as a hot beverage. Very nice.
Organic Sticky Rice Oolong from Driftwood Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Driftwood Tea
Tea Description:
As with all of our scented teas, Organic Sticky Rice Oolong is naturally flavoured. It gains its unique scented from a herb native to the Yunnan Province of China – where many of the Chinese/Thai population of Mae Salong descend from – called Nuo Mi Xiang Nen Ye.
The leaves of this small aromatic plant are layered with freshly picked Thai Oolong 17 and allowed to slowly impart their beautifully sweet, sticky rice aroma.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
When I first opened the pouch of this tea, I was shocked by the scent. It really smells like rice. This smells like the Jasmine Rice that I prepare for my family on a regular basis (the rice that I keep on hand and my preferred starch for the family meals). The aroma becomes even more obvious as it brews … it really smells like I’m cooking rice! If my husband were home, he’d be asking me for a bowl of rice!
The flavor is very much like rice too. It tastes like the rice that sort of sticks at the bottom of the rice cooker, that becomes slightly caramelized. This is my favorite part – because it tastes sweet, has a wonderful, chewy texture and has a delicious caramel-y flavor to it (and it’s even better if I top it with a drizzle of melted butter). This rice treat tastes a lot like a cross between kettle corn and caramel corn … and that’s why I love it so much.
And this tea tastes so much like that! But I taste the Oolong too. It has hints of vegetal and floral notes, with the floral notes revealing more of themselves as I continue to sip.
With subsequent infusions, the rice fragrance in the brewed tea diminishes quite a bit, but the flavor is still there. It is softer, but it is still there. It still tastes like popcorn, but, some of the buttery quality is gone now, it’s not quite as creamy now as it was in the first cup. The floral tones begin to emerge – this is a different cup, definitely, than the first. Still very enjoyable, but I find myself wanting a little more of the creamy caramel notes that were so delectable in the first cup.
A really delightful tea – I don’t know if it is quite as good as an Ali Shan Oolong (my favorite!) but, it is definitely good for a change of pace. This could easily become a staple in my cupboard because I can see this tea becoming something I CRAVE! I love it.