One of the ever going battles with loose leaf tea drinkers is how to drink their tea on the go. There are so many options out there now that it is sometimes hard to pick just one. I have a few in my collection and I love them all for different reasons.
This particular tea steeper from Dave and Solomons Tea is unique. Here is why. Most of the steepers that are portable that I own are glass. This particular one is plastic. I’m not going to lie, I really like that. I know. I know. Glass is how tea should technically be drank but there is something comforting to the fact that one slight move won’t break my steeper and I’m left with a mess on my hands.
So this tea steeper works similar to a lot of the different options. Scoop your tea into the bottle, fill with water, screw on the lid and you are good to go. This steeper works great for both cold brewed and hot brewed tea. The bottle does get a bit hot so if you have a cozy for the bottle, I’d recommend it. I have a few I picked up on Etsy and I’ve even made myself a few (with my mom’s guidance of course!)
I have found that even though this tea steeper has a lovely fine mesh strainer at the top that you screw on, fine pieces of tea and inclusions do find there way out. Not a huge deal. Something that is totally normal for most steepers. I have yet to find one that strains every single stray tea out. Nothing that I would say would detour me from continuing to use this steeper at all.
All in all, a great alternative to the steepers out there. I do find that I love this one for cold brewing more than hot brewing but I’ve used the tea ware for both. Easy to clean, easy to use, just an all around easy option. I find myself reaching for this one and another steeper more than the others I’ve had in my collection for years. But really, you can never have too many pieces of tea ware in your collection!
Here’s the scoop!
Tea Ware: Tea Steeper
Where to Buy: Dave and Solomons Tea
Description:
100% BPA Free Tea Traveler 13 oz
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Dragon Well/Long Jing from Teabook
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teabook
Tea Description:
Our green tea comes from Hunan, Zhejiang and An Hui provinces in China. In China today, most green teas are still pan fired like originally done in the Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368); this helps to dry the leaf in a way to prevent much oxidation to preserve the green color. From a health perspective, green tea is increasingly popular for its content of EGCG (epigallocatechin), an antioxidant which studies show may have a number of health benefits. Green tea flavor and aroma are often referred to as vegetal, mild, cleansing, and sometimes savory or buttery. The tannins range from bitter to sweet depending on the variety.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Teabook is an tea company with a very interesting concept. They provide consumers with individually wrapped servings of loose leaf tea. The packaging looks very similar to that of a tea bag. Each month you’ll receive a box from Teabook with that month’s tea in it individually packaged for your convenience. A very cool idea. To have loose leaf tea packaged in a way that you don’t have to re package it to make it portable makes me want to instantly run out and sign up. Right now it looks like they mainly have straight teas on the site, but I can see this being just a fantastic new way for loose leaf tea drinkers to get their tea.
This tea that I am trying from Teabook is a Dragon Well. I have tried several different types of Dragon Wells from different tea companies and was excited to try out this offering. I brewed this tea up with the water temp at about 180 per the guidelines provided on the package. I poured the contents of the package into my steeper and watched the leaves dance as the water was poured in. I let the tea steep for about 4 minutes and took my first sip.
The major flavor note that you get from this tea is a nice pleasant vegetal note that is rich and satisfying. I took my cuppa into a meeting. As the meeting was progressing, I started to notice that the pleasant vegetal note started to turn more and more into a deeper richer and dare I say darker vegetal flavor.
As much as I love my green teas, I have to say this one may just not be for me. As the tea cools, that seaweed like flavor becomes more and more pronounced. It reminded me of a rich black tea that you allow to cool for way too long and it has become too astringent for you. Similar situation here.
I’m still not sure how I feel about this particular offering yet. I think this would be one to try again later on but I still love the idea of Teabook and plan on checking into it. Such a great concept!