Category Archives: Black Tea

Tea Thyme

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Here is a drink I found using tea. Hopefully your weekend was less stressful than mine, and you won’t need a glass to decompress. Though maybe just one for fun. 🙂

Tea Thyme

  • TOTAL TIME: 5 MIN PLUS; 2 HR STEEPING
  • SERVINGS: MAKES 1 DRINK

This drink uses a homemade vodka tea and  to sweeten it, local honey.2011-cocktails-tea-thyme

TO MAKE TEA VODKA

  1.  In a jar, combine the vodka with the English Breakfast tea bag. Let stand at room temperature for 2 hours, then discard the tea bag. For every 12 ounces of vodka use one tea bag.

INGREDIENTS

  1. 2 thyme sprigs
  2. Ice
  3. 1 1/2 ounces Tea Vodka
  4. 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
  5. 2 teaspoons honey mixed with 2 teaspoons of water

DIRECTIONS

  1.  In a cocktail shaker, lightly muddle 1 of the thyme sprigs. Add ice and the Tea Vodka, lemon juice and honey syrup and shake well. Strain into a chilled martini glass or coupe and garnish with the remaining thyme sprig.
MAKE AHEAD
The infused vodka can be kept covered at room temperature for up to 1 month.
Sourced from Food & Wine Online Archives

A Tip for Tea — Oil in my tea?

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So have you ever poured yourself a nice cup of tea, only to realize there is a thin layer of what looks like scum or oil across the top of it? When I first started drinking loose tea, I ran into this problem a lot. I was convinced that it was because I wasn’t washing my tea cups well enough or somehow there was still soap residue in them. There was a while there when I definitely went slightly over board on the scrubbing and rinsing of my tea cups. When it was still happening, I started to get paranoid about the quality of water. Turns out, it wasn’t the my questionable dish washing skills or the water, it was the tea itself.

Oil in My TeaSome teas, particularly black teas, have a high volume of essential oils in them. As you steep the tea, this oil is released from the leaves. For all those who don’t remember this science experiment from way back in fifth grade, (or anyone that doesn’t cook) oil and water don’t mix. So when you pour yourself a nice cup of black tea, a lovely thin layer of oil coats the surface of your tea. Some folks do remove this layer of oil went it appears, but it isn’t necessary. While this might not look all the appealing it doesn’t harm you. In fact, considering all the buzz there is out there on the internet about how tea oil is good for you (either for your skin or hair or to promote digestion, honestly I don’t pay too much attention to such things), you might want to guzzle it down. Except don’t, your tea at this point is most likely burning hot. 🙂 Also, arguably in removing the tea oil might also alter the taste of the tea. It’s up to you.

Quick side note, for anyone interested in trying out Golden Tips (a premium variety of Assam), it has a lot of essential oils in. Considering it can be a quite pricey tea, some people are very surprised by this layer of oil, and get a little bit testy. But now you won’t!

So the next time you see that lovely layer of film on your tea, have no fear, and drink up!

 

Tea Advent Calendar — Day 24

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Christmas Chai — Organic black tea, rooibos, ginger, cinnamon, green cardamom, vanilla and with natural flavors.Day-24-B

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone! This is the perfect tea to end this advent calendar with.  Even all the ingredients sound christmasy!I brewed this tea for 5 minutes with boiling water. This tea is a great blend of flavors, though out of them all it is the cardamom that I taste. The tea is a great variation on your traditional chai tea.

Overall Rating: 3.5 cups

3.5

Hope everyone has a great christmas and I will see you in guys in a couple of days.

Tea Advent Calendar — Day 23

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Chocolate Coconut Tea — Black tea, shredded coconut, chocolate chips, and natural flavors.

Day-23Christmas is almost here, barely even two days away. 🙂 I am really excited about this tea. I don’t know if I have ever seen a tea with chocolate in it, so I am interested to see how it tastes.

I brewed this tea for 5 minutes in boiling water. This tea smells like coconut, as one would expect. As for flavor… it is somehow both weak and bitter at the same time. You can’t really taste either the chocolate or the coconut, and all you are left with is a sub-par black tea. I don’t know if the black tea that was used wasn’t of the greatest quality or if the blend of additional flavors distorted the tea, either way the result isn’t the greatest.

Overall Rating: 1.5 cups

1.5

 

 

 

Tea Advent Calendar — Day 21

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Fennel Chai — Black tea, ginger root, cinnamon and fennel seeds with natural flavor.Day-21

I am really excited to try this tea. The combination of all the ingredients sounds really appetizing. As this is a black tea, I steeped it for 5 minutes with boiling water. This tea smells mildly of licorice, which is the fennel seeds. As for taste, it similar to you typical chai teas, but with a hint of cinnamon on the back of your tongue. If you normally don’t like the dairy aspect of traditional chai, this good alternative. You have all the flavors of chai tea without the creaminess.

Overall Rating: 3.5 cups

3.5

 

Tea Advent Calendar — Day 20

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Orange Creme Dessert Tea — Black Tea, orange peel, vanilla pieces and natural flavors.

Day-20-BSo this tea smells like exactly like a creamsicle. So if you don’t like that, run away now. 🙂

The taste of tea, while similar to a creamsicle, is slightly different. It is almost a black tea, with a floral vanilla overtone of flavor rather than orange. You certainly smell the orange, but it isn’t the most dominate in taste. Every now and then you get a relative strong dose of orange, but is isn’t in every sip. Who knows why? All and all, I am not a fan. It isn’t a bad tea to drink, I just personally don’t particularly care for it.

Overall Rating: 2 1/2 cups

2.5

 

Tea Advent Calendar — Day 19

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Darjeeling — Black tea from Darjeeling

This is perhaps one of the most well-known teas in the world. Darjeeling can be any number of black teas, but they are always from the Darjeeling region in India. It is also known as the Champagne of Tea.Day-19

For anyone new to Darjeeling tea, in simplest terms there are three tiers of quality. The lowest tier is those that are in tea bags since the leaves in them tend to be the crushed cast offs of other Darjeeling teas. The middle tier is loose leaf teas (or those found in sachets)  that are of relatively good quality. The highest tier is loose leaf teas that are of the highest quality. If you were to try a sample of each of the three tiers, there would be a distinctive taste difference between all of them. This Darjeeling tea, while it certainly is better than any random Darjeeling you get in the supermarket, it isn’t anything speculator; it is solidly in the middle tier of Darjeeling teas. Personally for me, since Darjeeling teas are so ubiquitous, I prefer those of a higher quality. But if you are just starting out in the world of tea, this tea is a great jumping off point.

Overall Rating: 3.5 cups

3.5

Tea Advent Calendar — Day 16

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Tropical Iced Tea — Organic black tea with safflowers, marigold, cornflower, and blue mallow flower and natural flavors.

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So I didn’t realize today’s tea was an ice tea, until about 30 minutes ago. There are several ways to make ice tea, but most ofthe traditional methods take several hours (typical 4 to 12 hours depending on the method). Since I don’t feel like staying up till midnight… or later, I used a short cut. 🙂 Basically, I boiled water and steeped the tea for 5 minutes. I then poured it over a cup of ice, and then put it in the fridge for 15-20 minute to cool it down. I then served it with a couple of extra ice cubes, and a little bit of sugar to add that hint of sweetness.

Day-16-BI am not exactly sure what the various flowers in this tea add flavor-wise, because for some reason the only thing I taste with this tea is a mango or peach. It is good, just not sure where that flavor came from, perhaps the ‘natural flavors’? Considering that it is called ‘tropical’ ice tea that might be a good guess. At which point I have to wonder what was the purpose of all the different flowers in the blend?

 

Overall Rating: 2.5 cups

2.5

 

Tea Advent Calendar — Day 14

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Breakfast Tea — Golden tips whole leaf black tea from Assam.

Assam is a region in India known for its production of tea. It is actually the largest tea producing region in the world. The majority of the tea produced there is black tea, and are ubiquitously called Assam black teas. What makes this tea special is its ‘golden tips’. Golden tip teas are harder to produce and there for more expensive. It is my understanding that golden tip teas are picked earlier than regular teas resulting in immature tips, which accounts for the smaller leaves that are lighter in color. Additionally they have a slightly longer oxidization process, which also adds to the golden tones of the leaves. As I Day-14have mentioned before, Assam teas are rather strong, and therefore normally cut with milk and sugar, however Assam teas with golden tips tend to be milder in flavor, so it might not be necessary.

I steeped this tea for 5 minutes in boiling water. This is a relatively mild tea that has this great caramel-butter flavor to it. There is also a hint of the maltiness that is often found in more mature Assam teas. For those of you that tend to stay away from Assam teas due to their bold, and sometimes slightly bitter flavors, I would recommend that you try this tea. It is a great, crisp, light bodied tea, without even the hint of bitterness. Personally speaking, I love this tea, and even though it is called a ‘breakfast tea’, it is a tea that I would love to have throughout the day.

Overall Rating: 5 cups

5

 

 

Tea Advent Calendar — Day 13

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Cranberry Tea — Organic black tea with cranberry pieces, natural flavor, and safflowers*.

Day-8

Day 8 — Black Cherry Tea

I am not going to lie; I am slightly hesitant to try this tea. I love cranberries. I love everything about them, from the tartness with a hint of sweet to the crunchy pop they sometimes make when you chew them. This time of year I tend to eat them raw. On Day 8 of this Advent Calendar, they had a Black Cherry Tea, which I did not like at all. And basically, if you swap out the ‘natural flavor’ of the cranberries, for ‘natural flavor’ of cherries, it appears that you would have the same tea. They even look extremely similar, same black teas leaves with the pink safflowers. There is one redeeming aspect of this tea though, unlike the Black Cherry Tea, this tea actually has pieces of the fruit to flavor it. Hopefully this tea will be bearable.

Day-13

Day 13 — Black Cranberry Tea

As this is a black tea, I steeped it for 5 minutes in boiling water. As I feared, I am not impressed with this tea. Even with the addition of cranberries in this tea, it still, like the Black Cherry tea, has that medicinal flavoring to it. Tea, while can be used for medicinal purpose should not taste like medicine, especially the artificial fruit flavors used to mask the taste of the actually medicine. I am not sure if it is the addition of safflowers (honestly before this calendar I don’t think I ever heard of safflowers before) or their choice of ‘natural flavor’ or black tea, but this just isn’t cutting it.

Overall Rating: 1 1/2 cups

1.5

*Once again, individuals who are pregnant or breast-feeding might not want to consume safflowers. See my Tea Advent Calendar — Day 6 for more details.