Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Harney & Sons
Tea Description:
This elegant tea is a special tea for that special event. Mutan White tea with a touch of lemon-vanilla to taste, nicely offset with pink rose petals.
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
A really nice blend from Harney & Sons. The delicate white tea is flavored with just a hint of lemon and vanilla and rose, creating a soft, sweet, and brightly flavored cup.
The white tea is a sweet and smooth tasting tea and these characteristics are enhanced by the addition of vanilla. The light touch of vanilla makes the tea taste just a little sweeter, a little smoother and a little softer. It adds a pleasant creaminess to the cup.
And I like the way the creaminess plays with the notes of lemon. The lemon is bright and tart, but not pucker-y tart. The sweetness of the vanilla curbs the lemon so that it doesn’t come off as sour. Instead, it tastes a little bit like someone may have dissolved a little bit of lemon curd into my tea! YUM!
To brew this, I used a lower temperature (as is usually the case when it comes to white teas. I almost always go with a temperature that is 170°F or lower, this time, I used the 170°F) and steeped the sachet for 3 1/2 minutes.
Something else that’s kind of neat about this blend is that because it is the “Wedding Blend,” it can also serve as a wedding favor! You can even special order it with the name of the bride and groom and the wedding date imprinted on the lid of the little “tagalong tins” (these tins really are adorable). How awesome is that? Can you think of a cooler wedding favor to give to your guests on your special day?
White Currant Tea from Caraway Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Caraway Tea Company
Product Description:
Juicy aromatic currants paired with the delicacy of white tea leaves delivers a smooth flavor profile with a deeply fruity finish. There’s a lot of flavor is this healthy white tea.
Ingredients
China Pai Mu Tan, China Cui Min, rose hip peel, freeze-dried blackcurrants, flavoring, mallow blossoms, cornflower blossoms.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about UniqTeas here – UniqTeas is the “sister site” of Caraway Tea where you can create your own unique tea blend!
Taster’s Review:
Oh yum!
As I was preparing this review, I had the teacup sitting just under my nose (well, about a foot from my nose) and I enjoyed the fragrance of the tea. It smells really yummy. And as I was enjoying the aroma, I started thinking: there really aren’t a lot of currant flavored white teas. I’ve encountered quite a few currant flavored black teas and maybe a couple of currant flavored green teas, but I think I’ve only tried a couple of currant flavored white teas.
And that’s a shame, because I think that the tart with a touch of sweet flavor of currants seems really well paired with the crisp sweetness of white tea.
What I’m drinking now – this White Currant Tea from Caraway Tea – tastes a lot like a sweet wine, only without the tannic quality of a wine. Sure, tea has tannins too, but I find white teas to be less tannic than black teas. Perhaps this is because I brew my white teas at a lower temperature. Or perhaps it’s because they’re just less tannic. I don’t know.
Disclaimer: I’m not a tannin expert.
So, imagine if you would, a sweet red wine without the tannins. Now, imagine it … served hot. That’s what I’m tasting now. Since I don’t usually drink wine hot, I’m thinking that this tea is a stunner served iced. (Then again, I don’t drink wine much at all. Hot or otherwise.)
The currant flavor is lightly tart – not puckery – and there is a pleasant sweetness to it too. The white tea is not overpowered by the flavors of this tea. It is light and refreshing with delicate vegetal notes and a sweet, airy quality. I also notice a hint – just a hint! – of a warm, gentle spice to this too. Like a slight peppery kick. It’s a nice contrast to the tart and sweet fruit notes and the light sweetness from the white tea.
A really good tea. This is one that I’d happily drink again!
Blueberry Hill Shou Mei White Tea from 52Teas
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!
Kenya Silver Needle Purple Varietal White Tea from What-Cha Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White (Purple)
Where to Buy: What-Cha Tea
Tea Description:
A delicate tea with sweet hints and a gentle taste of peony flower.
A completely new tea which has just been released to the world; Kenyan purple varietal silver needle white tea represents the latest development in purple varietal tea from Kenya. It is a very subtle and delicate tea which requires the greatest of care and experimentation to unlock its full potential.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
These leaves are beautiful. They are so long that they almost look like pine needles (they don’t smell like pine needles though!) They are darker in color than the typical “Silver Needle” – they have more of a purple-ish hue than a pale green or silvery color. If I look closely, I can see very fine, short hairs on the leaves. The aroma is soft with notes of flower and a hint of vegetation.
To brew this tea, I grabbed my glass tea cup. I added 2 pinches of tea to the cup (these leaves are much too long to be measuring with a scoop!) and then added the water, heated to 175°F. I steeped the first cup for 3 minutes and added 30 seconds onto each subsequent infusion.
I don’t often use this cup except for the times that I brew a “blooming” tea or other tea that I want to watch steep, and this was one that I thought would be interesting to watch because the “silver” (they look more purple than silver!) needles are so long and elegant looking, I thought that their dance would be something cool to watch. Unfortunately, they didn’t really dance much. But they still produced a delicious drink!
The liquid is very pale. It almost looks “white” – not an opaque white but a very clear, transparent, slightly off-white, almost yellowish colored liquid. It almost looks like water, it’s so pale! I’m happy to say that it doesn’t taste like water!
The flavor is quite delicate though, especially in this first cup. It is sweet and floral. The floral notes hint at sharpness, but don’t quite get there because the overall tone of the beverage is so delicate. It’s quite lovely and soft. It’s one of those types of teas that you want to take some time to drink so that you can allow it to take you on a journey. So many layers of flavor. A soft, pleasant mouthfeel. No astringency noted in this first cup.
My second cup was much stronger in flavor than the first. Still a rather delicate tea, I am picking up on more flavor this time around. The floral notes are less sharp and have melded with the other flavors. I’m noticing a sweet, creamy flavor this time. Still sweet and floral, but the creaminess softens any of the floral sharp notes. At the tail, I pick up on a light fruity note that tastes of peach and orange.
A third cup? Sure! These leaves just keep on going. This cup seemed less creamy than the previous one. I could pick up on some nutty tones this time. The sweet floral tones are still there. I’m picking up more fruity flavor this time but it’s less distinct. In the second cup, I tasted distinct notes of peach and orange but this time it’s more like an indistinguishable fruit.
As I sipped on this tea, I tried to compare it to other Silver Needle teas I’ve had. This has less of a “hay like” quality to it, and the fruit notes are different. Usually, I get like a delicate melon-like flavor from a Silver Needle – but here this is more like peaches and citrus. I don’t get so much of that “fresh, airy” refreshing quality from this tea, instead, I taste more of a creamy, sweet, nutty flavor.
Sure, it’s different. But that’s what makes it so good! I love it when I discover a new tea like this!
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!