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Category Archives: Tea
Hot Tea Month: Orange Dulce
Mighty Leaf’s Orange Dulce is part of my daily rotation of teas. While my fellow Earl Grey lovers might find the orange essence a mere echo of the bite of bergamot, I find it a refreshing change, going for the subtle over brass. The vanilla turns this drink into a sort of instant London Fog, perhaps a sweeter springtime one.
Mind you, I still drink Smith’s Lord Bergamot in the mornings, but Orange Dulce is quite right at any time of the day. Even during 6 hour meetings.
January is National Hot Tea Month
According to the National Tea Council, this month is Hot Tea Month. I thoroughly approve of this.
Having missed the last two days of tea, I’ve decided to link to a couple older posts about two of my favorite teas:
Harney & Sons’ Chocolate Mint
Queen Mary’s Creamy Earl Grey
Every day this month (counting today) I’ll review a new tea in my cabinet. And I’ve got quite a few.
Diggity Tea: Tweets Since 2011-Jun-12
Anyways I’m gonna have #tea. It was a fellow I call my Crimney who introduced me to Earl Grey. Tea is a respite from many things.
Sun, 12 Jun 2011 10:09:07 -0700
My parents used to drink Jasmine, and for a while I didn’t drink #tea. Thanks to Crimney I nowadays can drink an Earl Grey/Jasmine blend.
Sun, 12 Jun 2011 10:11:19 -0700
(It’s @mightyleaf‘s Beatles Blend, by the way. A unique green/black #tea blend, which are rare enough.)
Sun, 12 Jun 2011 10:12:33 -0700
On @uptontea‘s Earl Grey Lavender: I didn’t notice the lavender very much. It was all Earl Grey, practically speaking. #tea
Sun, 12 Jun 2011 12:17:57 -0700
On @uptontea‘s Earl Grey Blue Flower: the corn flowers round out the taste, but not as much as mallow flowers would. Just a preference. #tea
Sun, 12 Jun 2011 12:39:09 -0700
@TwiningsTeaUK @katiedidwhat I mostly enjoy full leaf tea. So currently it’s just Lady Grey which I found on Amazon.
Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:14:18 -0700
For lovers of Earl Grey tea and chocolate tea, @uptontea‘s Earl Grey Chocolate is bliss. #tea #teaisgood
Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:29:21 -0700
@winnie3k It’s even a pretty tea to look at! Which I love for a complete tea experience.
Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:31:30 -0700
Whoever blends this Almond Sugar Cookie #tea has my eternal gratitude. #teaisgood
Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:56:00 -0700
@gailcarriger the solution is almost always tea, at least for me, heh. I’m glad the link is useful!
Mon, 13 Jun 2011 23:30:50 -0700
Getting through the day with Almond Sugar Cookie, obtained from @PerennialTea in Seattle. It is the most divine cookie tea I’ve ever tasted.
Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:43:55 -0700
@Pixelfish I find that blending in a good vanilla tea will sooth a lack of milk for an Earl Grey.
Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:57:29 -0700
@Pixelfish It really depends on the vanilla tea you’re using, too. You want one that is really vanilla-y to the point of marshmallows.
Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:52:19 -0700
@Pixelfish Hmm. I might try Numi’s version of vanilla black tea. It should have been called Marshmallow.
Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:25:06 -0700
Drinking my first maté, @queenmarytearm‘s Afternoon Tango. Like a chocolate banana. Bit fussy to brew, somewhat like a green tea that way.
Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:42:54 -0700
It’s becoming a nightly tea ritual for me—@mightyleaf‘s Calming Moon, which manages to live up to its name. To bed, after a few things.
Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:31:25 -0700
Diggity Tea: Queen Mary’s Creamy Earl Grey
Maker: Queen Mary
Type: Earl Grey black tea
Brew: 1 tsp / cup, boiling, 3 min
While Earl Grey’s brisk citrus flavor is quite welcome, it can sometimes pack a punch—hence why it’s often a favorite tea to mix with milk, especially if it’s a black Earl Grey. Such a milk and black Earl Grey drink is popular enough to have a name: the London Fog.
For the dairy-intolerant among us, or for those without easy access to milk, there’s still a way to have a London Fog kind of experience: by softening the taste of the bergamot oil with another ingredient. While such blends normally use cream and/or vanilla flavoring to do this, Creamy Earl Grey instead uses malva flowers.
Malva is otherwise known as marsh mallow, which sounds familiar to you if you’ve ever had S’mores. Marshmallow confections these days have no actual marsh mallow ingredients, but they used to use the roots of the mallow.
The malva/mallow flowers are quite effective softening taste—they can be used as a thickening agent after all—and do so without adding what may to some be too much of a milk flavor. In contrast, some Earl Grey blends use corn flowers, which look pretty but seem not to do much for taste. Lavender softens taste in another way, by adding floral notes, but for flowers in Earl Grey, nothing beats malva for me.
Rating: 4/5—an excellent everyday tea for a more subtle afternoon Earl Grey
Diggity Tea: Harney & Sons’ Earl Grey Supreme
Maker: Harney & Sons
Type: black earl grey tea
Brew: 1 sachet / 12 oz, 5 min at boiling
It’s not a tea bag, it’s a sachet. I make this distinction only because the first one contains tea dust, while the second one contains actual tea leaves. The first, for black teas at least, tends to make a quick, brisk (or often bitter) brew, while the second needs a longer steep time but ultimately has a more full taste. It’s the difference between Bigelow’s Earl Grey tea packets and Mighty Leaf’s Organic Earl Grey sachets, but I digress from this post’s star, Harney & Sons’ Earl Grey Supreme.
And it truly deserves the name “supreme”. Not because it adds extra bergamot, but because this tea uses higher quality tea leaves—very high quality, and so it doesn’t need the extra bergamot to enhance this endearing taste of any Earl Grey tea. There’s no bitterness to overcome, nothing to block the scrumptious melting of Ceylon and bergamot.
However.
I’ve discovered my new supreme Earl Grey, and it isn’t this one. Still, Earl Grey Supreme still gets my nod for best tea naming itself Earl Grey.
Rating: 4/5—one of the best Earl Greys around.
Diggity Tea: Harney & Sons’ Bangkok
Maker: Harney & Sons
Type: flavored green tea
Brew: 1 tsp / cup, 3 min at 170ºF
Bangkok is another great, unique blend from Harney & Sons, as just about all their “famous city” teas tend to do. While there are various coconut teas out there, Bangkok adds an extra ingredient: ginger. This elevates the tea from just another coconut tea to the very soul of an authentic Thai curry. But tea-like: the big-leafed tea is particularly excellent and sweet. While I generally will not drink most green teas—genmaicha being a particular exception—I will drink this one.
Rating: 5/5 stars—a green tea I actually love, and who can resist curry?
Diggity Tea: Harney & Sons’ Paris
Maker: Harney & Sons
Type: flavored black tea
Brew: 1 tsp / cup, boiling, 5 min
Paris is the sublime vanilla tea I mentioned back in my review of another of Harney & Sons’ “Famous Cities” series of teas. While H&S does feature a pure black vanilla tea (creatively named “Vanilla”) as well as a welcome decaffeinated version (Vanilla Comoro), this vanilla tea is additionally adorned with floral and fruit flavorings.
I’m usually not a fan of floral tea blends, but the vanilla makes a charming host even to one of my more disliked tea ingredients. This is rather an impressive blend that way. That such a delicate-seeming blend can withstand a full 5 minutes brew is astounding in a tea world where lightly flavored black teas often need to be babied to 3 minutes. The longer brew time allows for the full high-quality black tea background taste to develop.
Of the cities line, Paris is the best black tea; and amongst blender-specific teas, Paris is one of the best flavored black tea blends period.
Next time we’ll look at another tea in the same line, a green tea named Bangkok.
Rating: 5/5—Harney & Sons’ unique masterpiece.
Diggity Tea: Things I Do Not Need
1. A hole in the head
2. PTSD or bipolar I (I’m flexible, please take at least one of them away)
3. More tea tins. Ever.
The little white labels are where I’ve updated the contents of the tin to something I like better. Also, about tea tins:
Kusmi: Your teas are awesome beyond belief, your big squat round tins look the sweetest around, but they suck at keeping tea fresh. Your boxes are even worse.
Harney & Sons presents respectable, easily stored and viewed rectangular tea tins in big and small sizes. They look nondescript but manage to keep my tea fresh, even the rooibos. If more of my teas arrived so well packed I would be happier.
Steven Smith teas can come in sachets in singly wrapped foil bags, so it doesn’t quite matter how well the box closes, but I will say that for the open sachets for Churchmouse Summer and Churchmouse Winter, the mini file boxes do surprisingly well.
Rishi and Tao of Tea have the best seal after the purple Japanese round tea boxen I have: both an inner and outer lid.
Mighty Leaf has the round purple Japanese tea boxen, but also has silver and black “Thou Shalt Have No Other Tea Before Me” gigantic tins.
Ah, Republic of Tea, your non-herbal teas often disappoint me. Your tins look pretty but they’re only slightly better than Kusmi tins at keeping things fresh; somehow that lid doesn’t seal as tightly as it should, even though the fit feels snug.
Diggity Tea: Sir Robert’s Island Blend
Maker: Sir Robert’s Tea
Type: flavored black tea
Brew: 1 tsp / cup, boiling, 3 min
Some tropical fruit tea blends are stronger than others; this one is much more moderate, partly because the fine black tea overlays the fruits. This blend actually contains a non-tropical fruit, apples, which means this tea doesn’t taste too exotic. This may be a bonus for some, and does lend an individual air to the taste so kudos to Sir Roberts.
Still, I prefer my tropical teas to be straight-up tropical fruits. My preference when it comes to tropical fruit teas still lies with Mighty Leaf’s Green Tea Tropical, even though it’s not a black tea.
Rating: 3/5—a unique blend of the exotic (to the northern hemisphere) with the familiar is still a bit too familiar for me.
