Dornish Wine from Margaret’s Fine Imports

DornishWineTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black

Where to Buy:  Margaret’s Fine Imports 

Tea Description:

Ingredients: Luxury Black Tea, Dried Grapes, Blueberries, Currants, Apple,Hibiscus, Cornflowers, Rosehips, Pineapple, Papaya, Brambleberries, Strawberries, Black Berries, Raspberries, Natural Flavors

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

Tonight is the night! Game of Thrones finale! How exciting! This season has been an intense one.  We really haven’t had any filler episodes.  Each episode has been in your face with pure action and have been emotionally driven.  Love this show and I’m sad this season is about over.  It feels like it just began!

In honor of tonight’s episode, I am going to review Dornish Wine, a GoT inspired tea from Margaret’s Fine Imports.  I have tried almost all of the GoT inspired teas.  So far, the Wilding White has been my favorite.

Dornish Wine is an interesting blend. The dry leaves had a very berry smell to them.  There are several different kinds of berries in this blend.  I was excited when I saw the dried grapes in the lineup.  The blend itself was very pretty.  Lots of deep reds.  I wonder if this is how the wine tastes in King’s Landing.

I steeped this tea like a traditional black tea.  Brewed up this blend tasted more like a very dry red wine.  It did actually taste like wine.  I couldn’t believe it.  Somehow Margaret’s Fine Imports actually found a way to make their tea taste like wine.  How fun!

Unfortunately I am not a dry red wine fan, but I added in just a bit of honey from Bee Local and this tea was just a delight.  I couldn’t really taste each individual berry flavor, but this had that berry profile to it.

Fan or not of this show, this tea was a fun experience! Having a tea that actually tasted like wine was pretty impressive and the fact that they were able to capture the dry feature of the wine was even more impressive! This may not be my favorite of the GoT line up, but I”ll keep some on hand to experiment with and see what I can come up with maybe with cold brewing.

Regardless, Winter is Coming . . . . . .

Tequila Sunrise Black Tea from 52Teas

52teasTequila-SunriseTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black

Where to Buy:  52Teas

Tea Description:

A double dose of Tequila Sunrise this week. I couldn’t decide whether I liked it best as a black tea or a green tea, so I did both! Here’s our premium Pettaiagala Extra Long Leaf OP from Sri Lanka blended with freeze-dried oranges and cherries; and organic tequila-, orange- and cherry flavors.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

It’s been a mighty long time since I’ve had a Tequila Sunrise (longer than I care to admit to!) so I don’t have any recent memories to compare the flavoring of this black tea blend from 52Teas to.

And I have to say that this tastes a lot better than I remember a Tequila Sunrise tasting.  Hey, I liked them alright.  They just weren’t my favorite cocktail.  I preferred rum-based cocktails over tequila-based cocktails.

But this is really tasty!

I taste all the elements here:  I taste the orange, I taste the cherry and I even taste notes of tequila.  And, most importantly, I taste the black tea.  I really like the way the Pettaiagala tea goes with these flavors – it’s very smooth!  No bitterness and no astringency.

I’m not always really crazy about the cocktail inspired tea blends, but this one is really nice.  And the best part?  I can drink a couple cups of this without feeling hung over tomorrow.

PGB Black Tea from 52Teas

PGBTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black

Where to Buy:  52Teas

Tea Description:

As difficult as you might imagine it would be to replicate a Pan-galactic Gargle Blaster here on Earth, particularly since the only ingredient we could obtain here would be the olive, it is an even MORE difficult task to create a non-alcoholic tea inspired by the drink. BUT I think we have succeeded in creating something awesome. Here’s our awesome premium black tea base blended with organic lemon-, brandy-, bourbon-, sherry- and red hot cinnamon flavors, cinnamon chips, lemon balm, lemon myrtle, lemon verbena, lemongrass, some chili pepper flakes and a TEENY touch of cayenne pepper to give it that little extra bit of BITE. Instead of an olive we added a tiny touch of organic maraschino cherry flavor for sweetness. I’m sure my creation can’t hold a candle to the awesome concoction from the fertile imagination of Douglas Adams, but I’m pretty sure it will put a smile on your face anyway, and now you can offer your guests a cuppa PGB.

Learn more about this blend here.

Taster’s Review:

OK, I can’t tell you how excited I was to learn that 52Teas’ tea of the week was this PGB which – for those of you unfamiliar with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – stands for Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.  It’s one of my favorite movies.

I still haven’t read the book.  I have the book, but I just haven’t taken the time to read it yet.  I plan to do that soon.  As in eventually.

At the same time, I was a little afraid of the tea.  I mean … I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to have my brains smashed in by a slice of lemon that’s been wrapped around a large gold brick.  As amazing as that sounds, I just thought that might be something that’s a little like skydiving:  it sounds fun.  But jumping out of an airplane doesn’t sound like something I should do.

But I decided to summon up the courage and brew some of this tea and try it.  Even if it meant that I would soon feel as though I had my brains smashed in a brick of gold that’s been wrapped in lemon.

At first the tea starts out rather mellow.  But after about three sips, I start to pick up on FLAVOR.  A lot of it!  I taste cinnamon and notes of citrus, a hint of chili pepper.  It’s sweet and spicy and fruity.  The description states that there are flavors of brandy, bourbon and sherry in this, and I’m having difficulty discerning specific alcohol flavors in this.  This could be that I’m either not very good at determining alcohol flavors because I’m a tea-totaler, or it could be that these alcohol notes meld into the background, behind the stronger flavors of black tea, cinnamon, citrus and zesty pepper.

I REALLY like this concoction.  It’s different from any tea that I’ve tried before but it’s also similar enough to things that I’ve tried in the past that it doesn’t taste weird to the point of being off-putting.  It’s a good weird.  Kind of like 52Teas.

As I continue to sip, I’m picking up on a delicate sweetness from maraschino cherry.  It’s a really nice contrast to the low and slow burn that I’m getting from the red hot cinnamon/natural cinnamon and cayenne and chili pepper.

The spice is the best part of this because it’s not TOO spicy.  This isn’t one of those hot-cha-cha kind of spicy teas that becomes too difficult to drink because the spice is overwhelming.  It isn’t sending me to the kitchen for a drink of ice water to cool the mouth.  I’m not in need of a bite of yogurt to tame the zesty flavors that are dancing around in my mouth right now.  It all works together very well.  It’s warm and it’s – as I said before – a low and slow kind of burn in the back of the mouth and toward the back of the throat.

This is the kind of drink that I’m going to want to turn to when autumn arrives and there’s a cool crispness to the air.  It’s just warm enough to give me that all-over sort of warm feeling that I would get if I just drank a shot of whiskey but without the flavor of whiskey in my mouth.  That’s a big bonus for this tea-totaler.

I really like this.  It’s definitely a suitable tribute to one of my all-time favorite movies.

Product Review: Tea Assortment of Hard Candy from Raley’s Confectionary

raleys-teaProduct Information:

Where to Buy:  Treatsie

Product Description:  

Tea-flavored hard candy.  Flavors include Lemongrass Green Tea, Chai Latte, Arnold Palmer and Mango Black Tea.

Learn more about Treatsie’s Subscription Box here.

Product Review:

I know I’ve confessed it before, but, I’ll confess it again:  I have a sweet tooth.  And I find myself particularly attracted to sweets that are tea inspired, like these yummy hard candies from Raley’s Confectionary.  While recently perusing the Treatsie website, I came across this tea flavored hard candy assortment, and you know I couldn’t resist!

I recently discovered Treatsie, and they’re a subscription box (similar to the box that I get every month from Simple Loose Leaf), so every month, I will get a box full of yummy treats.  (And chocolate.  Did I mention chocolate?)  You can also shop for the products individually and there are some really interesting curated boxes that you can buy at Treatsie too.  I bought these tea flavored hard candies separately, because as I said before, I couldn’t resist when I saw the words “Tea Flavored Hard Candy.”  Um … yes please!

My separately purchased products (not the Treatsie subscription box) arrived this afternoon, and I’m really pleased!  It was packaged beautifully, and I even got a “thank you” treat tucked inside – another package of Raley’s Confectionary’s hard candies – these little “thank you” candies actually say thank you right on them, and they’re pomegranate flavored!  Yum!

These tea flavored candies are really tasty.  The Mango Black Tea candy has a very distinct mango note and I can taste a softer black tea note in there too.  The Lemongrass Green Tea has a lemon-lime-ish sort of flavor to it, with a background of a sweet, grassy green tea note.  The Arnold Palmer tastes more of lemonade than it does of tea, but every once in a while I taste a slight tea-ish flavor.  I like the tangy note of the Arnold Palmer, though, it seems to balance out the other sweeter tasting flavors of the package.

And then there is my favorite of the four:  Chai Latte!  I think I’d be happy to have a whole package of just the chai latte.  They have a gentle spice to them (these aren’t strong in spice!  They’re more sweet than spicy!) and I can taste the black tea as well as a creamy note to them – they’re like a sweet little chai latte!

I love that the flavors that are promised are the flavors that are delivered.  Sure, they’re sweeter than what you’d experience if you were actually drinking a cup of chai latte or a mango flavored black tea – but they ARE candies, after all!  They’re supposed to be sweet.  What I love is that these are not just something that satisfies the sweet tooth in me, but also the tea lover in me too.

So, now I’ve found this sinful company that will send me sweet-tooth indulgences once a month … how do I say no to that?

Very Big Hill Dew Honeybush Tisane from 52Teas

VeryBigHillDewTisane Information:

Leaf Type:  Honeybush

Where to Buy:  52Teas

Tisane Description:

Several people from our Southern Boy Teas Kickstarter campaign requested that we make a Mountain Dew inspired iced tea. I was thinking about how I would do it, and I kept thinking how good this would be as a honeybush blend. So here we have caffeine-free African honeybush with lemon balm, lemon verbena, lemon myrtle and organic flavors. This is YUMMY. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Learn more about this tisane here.

Taster’s Review:

OK … I cracked up laughing when I read the name of this honeybush tisane from 52Teas:  Very Big Hill Dew.  Maybe I have a twisted, whacked sense of humor.  Because when I shared the name of the tisane with my husband, he didn’t think it was funny at all.  Maybe his sense of humor is whacked.

Regardless, this is a really tasty tisane.  I don’t drink a lot of soda, in fact, I can’t tell you when the last time was that I had a Mountain … err … soda by which this tisane was inspired.  It’s been a long time.  So, it would be difficult for me to say with confidence that this tastes like that soda.  I do know that when I opened the package, it smelled like the soda, and that I know because my husband does drink it (well, the diet version of it), so I’m familiar with the aroma.

And this does have a soda-like taste.  I can taste that bubbly, effervescent sort of taste.  It’s light and refreshing.  And there is a lot of lemon-y, lime-ish like flavors dancing on my palate.  It’s very tasty.

The honeybush adds a sort of sweet, honeyed flavor to the cup, as well as a slight earthiness.  Not exactly “nutty” the way I usually taste from a honeybush tisane.  It’s just more of a slight earthy flavor that complements the lemon-lime notes in a really pleasing way.

It is sweet, a little bit tart and tangy, and very enjoyable.  I drank a cup of it hot, and then I chilled the rest that I brewed and drank it iced.  It’s better iced (it is a soda-inspired tea, after all), but, it’s still tasty served hot too.  I found it to be a calming, relaxing cuppa – nice for the end of a busy day.