Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Phoenix Herb Company
Tea Description:
In China, there are over 100 species of wild Honeysuckle. highly prized for its medicinal vale, Honeysuckle is used in China and Europe to cool the body, alleviate headaches, sooth sore throats and contains anti-inflammatory properties. This tea is lovingly made with “White Peony King” White tea and combined with wild honeysuckle blossoms for an enchanting cup of tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Honeysuckle White Tea from Phoenix Herb Company is sweet perfection. Sourced from Shang Tea, one of my favorite tea companies, Honeysuckle White is sweet, relaxing, lovely, scented, and buttery. There is almost this milky mouthfeel to it. Its an enchanting tea. The color is gorgeous! A very light vegetal flavor comes out in the after taste. It is also slightly nutty but each steep brings forth different notes. The vegetal flavor mixed with the buttery milky flavor remind me of buttered green beans. Yes I put butter on my green beans, don’t you? Honeysuckle White is pure ecstasy. That is if your idea of ecstasy is a creamy mouthfeel, sweet florals, buttery light vegetal flavors, and an undertone of nuttiness.
When I was a kid there were a lot of honeysuckle bushes around my neighborhood. You could pick the blooms of the honeysuckle bush and pull out the middle section, the stamen I believe, and there would be this shiny wet dew on the stem of the stamen. This was honeysuckle sap. It was sweet and delicious just like this tea but a natural sweetness of course, no where near as sweet or sappy as honey. This tea evokes those memories for me. A time very early in my youth that followed me into my own children’s youth as they too would learn the secret of the honeysuckle bush! I love a tea that can evoke a memory.
This tea is soothing, calming, almost meditative. The color is so beautiful – a bright sunny golden amber. The aroma makes the eyes open brightly with the lovely smell of honeysuckle blossoms, then the eyes shut with a soothing Ahhhhhh feeling of release. Since this tea is made with the White Peony King tea base you will pick up subtle nuisances of fruity undertones in later steepings.
This tea is a forgiving tea in the sense that you can play around with brew times if you wish to have your tea a bit stronger or a bit lighter. I steep mine for a good 3 to 4 minutes on the first steep and 5 or more on the following steeps, yet you can go as little as 1 to 2 minutes and still get a lovely flavor. Note the directions to bring water to a boil, then let rest one minute before immersing leaves to steep. You will find this tea can easily be steeped 3 to 4 times and still give a high quality enjoyable flavor palate for your palate!
This playful tea has the quality to be snobbish yet lets everyone enjoy its bounty, at 8.15 USD per ounce which I consider a fair price for such a lovely tea. Every time I enjoy this tea I will think of the years past, running around my neighborhood, picking honeysuckle and lapping up the sweet nectar of life and remembering times doing the same with my own little saplings!
Pomegranate Splash from Phoenix Herb Company
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Phoenix Herb Company
Tea Description:
This exotic , refreshing tea won second place in the 2009 World Tea Championship in Las Vegas. This medley of flavorful ingredients is excellent as a sun tea, iced tea, or served hot.
Contains: Black Tea, Oils of pomegranate, huckleberry, lemon
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Pomegranate Splash from Phoenix Herb Company is such a refreshing treat! It reminds me of everything about spring. It has this awakening, light, lovely flavor and aroma, that truly refreshes and makes you feel alive.
So the way I came across this tea and company is that a while back I purchased a Living Social deal. I try to grab up as many of those deals as I can as long as they are tea related. I had never heard of Phoenix Herb Company before but they have more than just tea! They have herbs, incense, essential oils, and so much more! This place is right up my alley! Unfortunately on my three attempts to visit the store itself I had problems. The store is a little over an hour from my home, one way. So I planned to go to the store when I had other events to attend in the area. Well lets just say that each time I missed the boat.
Frustrated and defeated I sat looking at my Living Social print out and decided to just see if Phoenix Herb Company would honor my deal online. So I looked over the site, choose the teas I would like to have, and sent them an email. Within a few hours I had an email from Sean of Phoenix Herb Gallery! He was more than happy to honor my deal online! I of course realized there would be some shipping cost so I only selected teas up to 27.50 dollars leaving a little room toward shipping cost from my 30.00 voucher. Now in retrospect I realize he could have said the voucher does not cover shipping, but he didn’t! For the record I do only live one state away but still – what customer service! Sean also threw in several samples of teas that I had not selected – this is one of those free samples!
I am so thrilled that Sean choose this one for me! I was very tempted to order a few of their flavored and belnded teas but opted for straight teas like Bancha, Sencha, Wu Yi Oolong, etc. When I opened this nice sized sample and sniffed it I said “Ahhhhh” out loud.
The first sip was like drinking in a ray of sunshine! Clean, crisp, refreshing, and fruity! The flavor of Pomegranate is spectacular! There is no artificial flavor here and I am choosey about that! I really was not anticipating having a flavored tea this morning but as I looked through my teas, I kept being drawn to this one and I am so glad I went for it. I have had three cups so far – two being re-steeps and I am finding that the tea is actually making me quite perky and cheerful! There is nothing like a really good cup of fruity flavored tea in the morning. Granted I generally trend more toward straight blacks, with the malty depth and complexity, but it is nice to wake up with a cheerful cleansing tea.
I want to add this is not really a very sweet tea, sure there is some fruity sweetness to it but its not cloying or sappy. It is really rather palate cleansing and the after taste is present but does not linger for too long.
Well I am impressed. Both with this tea and with Phoenix Herb Company! I have made it my personal mission to make it INTO their store one day soon, but until I can, and do, I have plenty of wonderful teas to sip on as their prices are excellent as well.