Thursday, May 21, 2009

New Teas!

Holy cow! We have got a bunch of new stuff in the store, including four new teas! I'm going to show the teas off here and I'll post some of our new tea wares soon as well.

First up is one of two new wine-scented teas that Julee found at the World Tea Expo a couple weeks ago. This is called Pink Sonoma, a lovely white tea with rose petals and jasmine flowers, scented with cabernet.

I admit, I was skeptical at first about this tea. I mean, wine-scented tea? But after tasting it, I discovered that it had a wonderful fruity aroma, with a nice grape-like flavor. This one is excellent iced, wonderful for a hot summer day.

The second wine-scented tea is called Wild Monkey Marsala, a China black tea with cinnamon and scented with Marsala wine.

You can tell that a high-quality black tea was used for the base, because of all those lovely golden tips. The aroma is spicy and rich, with just a hint of wine. The flavor reminded me of dried fruit, and something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then it hit me: mince pie! The wine flavor adds that slight tanginess that mince pie has, and the spice and dried fruit flavor make a great combination. I don't know if we'll keep this for the summer, but I definitely think it will make an appearance this fall as a seasonal tea.

For something a bit more conventional, we have the Gopaldhara Estate Darjeeling. This is a first flush tea from this year, so it's one of the most recently picked teas we have.


As you can see this is a very "green" black tea, in fact I'm almost hesitant to call it a black tea. It has a light flavor with a bright, fresh aroma. The taste is unmistakeably Darjeeling, though.

And finally, a tea that I have been looking forward to for some time: Shincha Kunpu. This is a "first flush" tea from Shizuoka, Japan. Shincha literally means "new tea" in Japanese, and Kunpu translates to "fragrant breeze".

This tea has beautiful shiny dark green leaves with an intense vegetal aroma. There is a sweetness hidden in the flavor which can be accentuated with careful brewing. The color of the liquor is a bright, almost lime green. It's really got just about everything one could ask for in a Japanese green tea. We only brought in two pounds of this special tea, and when it's gone, it's gone until next year. I might do another blog post with a more in-depth review and photos of the brewing, so stay tuned!

That's all for the new teas right now, but I'll post some of our new tea wares soon!

Monday, May 4, 2009

Blend of the Month - May

This month's blend is Blueberry Citrus Mint, a blend of our Blueberry black tea with Sweet Citrus Mint tisane.



The licorice root in the tisane adds a pleasant sweet aftertaste, while the blueberry adds a hint of fruitiness. It makes an excellent iced tea, but it's great hot too.

This blend is available in the store as well as on the website this month.