Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
Yerp, I’m going to say it: I’ve found my thrill… and it’s Blueberry Hill Shou Mei. This is a crisp, refreshing shou mei white tea blended with real freeze-dried blueberries and organic flavors. No, it’s not as far out there as some of our blends. It’s not peanut butter, bacon, tuna fish sandwich on rye flavored tea. Just delicious, amazing blueberry flavor in our lovely hay-like shou mei.
Learn more about this blend here.
Learn how to subscribe to 52Teas’ Tea of the Week program here.
Taster’s Review:
Yum!
Yeah, I’ve had a few blueberry teas. Blueberry teas are not as popular as say, strawberry teas, but there are still quite a few blueberry teas out there and even some blueberry white teas and I’ve tried a few of them. But that doesn’t make this Blueberry Hill Shou Mei any less tasty!
One of the things that I enjoy about a 52Teas blend is the fact that there are (usually) chunks of the thing that I’m tasting in the blend. Like for this blend, as I was scooping out the tea into my Breville One-Touch tea maker, I found a couple of freeze-dried blueberries. Not just one little tiny berry. These are large berries and I must have scooped out at least three in the 2 1/2 bamboo scoops of tea that I measured into the basket of the Breville. (I generally use a little more leaf when it comes to white tea because the leaves are bigger and create more “space” in the scoop when I’m scooping it out.)
My settings for the tea maker: 500ml of water into the jug, 170°F and 3 1/2 minutes steep time. Delightful results!
This tastes just exactly how I hoped it would. Sweet blueberry-ish goodness with pleasing white tea notes of hay. The white tea is crisp and refreshing and doesn’t hide behind the flavor. The blueberry tastes sweet and a little tart and it tastes true to the fruit.
It’s a really enjoyable cup of tea that tastes wonderful served hot and even better iced. The tea can be resteeped and it still tastes wonderful. This is a win – even if it isn’t one of 52Teas more unusual creations. Sometimes simplicity is just plain tasty!
Strawberry Kiwi Iced Green Tea from Southern Boy Teas
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.
Verdant Tea – Our Next Sponsor in the Season of Giveaways!
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. PLEASE CHECK BACK WITH US NEXT WEEK THOUGH, THERE WILL BE ANOTHER GIVEAWAY SOON!
So far, we’ve had a phenomenal response to our Season of Giveaways! It looks like this season will extend well in to February … so there are going to be LOTS of chances to win!
But … I’ve got to be real here, THIS prize is one that I covet. I want this prize. If there was a way for me to declare myself the winner, I’d do it! But, alas, I can’t. What I’m driving at, though, is that this is one of the very best prizes yet! You’re not going to believe it … I still can’t believe it!
Verdant Tea is offering a full THREE MONTH membership to their Tea of the Month Club! Yeah, you read that right. Three months of tea from Verdant Tea! This is a $75. value! JACKPOT!
Verdant Tea is easily one of my favorite tea companies because – quite simply – they offer some really amazing, high-quality teas that are hard to find … some teas that I’ve not been able to find anywhere else! Their Laoshan Black tea is amazing, they offer some incredible Apothecary blends like their Xingyang Silk Road Spice, and of course some amazing Pu-Erh (when it comes to Pu-erh teas, I think that Verdant Tea is my #1 choice) like their Yanxin’s Reserve ’04 Shu Nuggets.
So imagine how amazing it would be to receive a box from them EVERY month for THREE months! Unbelievable, right?
To enter:
- First, visit Verdant Teas. Take a look around. While you’re there, get an idea of what teas interest you the most.
- Comment on this blog post. While you can earn additional entries, without the comment on this blog post, no entries will be eligible. Be sure to include in your comment a way for us to contact you (let me know if I can contact you on Steepster or on Tea Trade, for example, or provide your email contact information), I mean, in case you win, I need to be able to let you know that you’re the winner, right? In your comment, mention which tea you’d like to be part of one of the boxes that you receive from Verdant Tea. Now, I can’t guarantee that this tea WILL be in one of the three boxes, but, we’d like to know which teas from Verdant EXCITE you the most.
- Want to earn additional entries? OK! First, tweet about this contest. Your tweet should include a link to this contest, and you should also include @SororiTeaSister on your tweet so that we can see the tweet easily. Please also come back to this blog post and let us know that you’ve tweeted the contest, and include a link to the tweet.
- Another Entry? Sure! Go on facebook and mention this contest on your page. Again, be sure to include a link to this contest in your facebook mention, and after you’re done, come back to this blog post, and comment that you’ve mentioned it on facebook and provide a link to your facebook page so that we can verify it. (and yes, we do verify each and every one of these!)
Since this is our largest prize yet, I thought I’d throw in a couple of extra bonus entry opportunities:
- Bonus Entry #1: You can earn a bonus entry by liking Verdant Tea on Facebook.
- Bonus Entry #2: You can earn an additional bonus entry by following Verdant Tea on Twitter!
- Bonus Entry #3: You can earn an additional bonus entry by following our blog! To follow our blog, simply click on the little button that you see on the bottom right of the screen, and add your email address! It’s that simple!
OK, so, there are a few things you need to know. It was pointed out to us in the last giveaway that we neglected to mention who was eligible to enter this contest. This contest is open to all US and Canadian residents, except for those of us who are SororiTea Sisters and those who work for Verdant Tea. All other US and Canadian residents can enter.
You can enter until December 7. A winner will be picked via random.org on December 8, and after the winner has been contacted and verified, we will announce the winner and send the information to Verdant Tea so that the winner can claim the prize.
Best of luck to all entrants!
Congratulations to Raven for winning this giveaway during our Season of Giveaways! We will have another giveaway soon … keep your eyes peeled!