Char Wallah tea- Blood Orange Tea

Char Wallah is a company I found whilst doing some google research into tea companies. They had some end of range bargains on their website, at £2:50 for 100g and free postage I really couldn't not order some.

The tea I chose is blood orange black tea. It isn't in the range anymore, so I'm afraid you can't try any.

The tea arrived nice and quickly, the transparent plastic bag was placed inside a large envelope, which doesn't seem to have done the tea any harm- it doesn't appear to have been crushed by the experience. In fact, you can see the chunks of orange are a good size. It's nice not to have to rearrange delivery or traipse to the post office.

On opening, I smelt the orange straight away, think Terry's Chocolate Orange and you are on the right track. One thing to bear in mind with citrus teas is that they don't tend to be sharp or sour, so it is not quite the same as having the fruit! Taste wise, I would describe this as a mellow Lady Grey, as Lady Grey also contains orange,but with the addition of bergamot. This is a good thing, in my opinion, as I had just run out of Lady Grey. The blood orange tea is light, refreshing and summary, and fills the gap left by Lady Grey very nicely.

Axxent: Cupcake Tea- Sweet Honey

On today's shopping trip, I saw an interesting tea selection on sale at TKMaxx. Called Cupcake tea, it had 4 small boxes of flavoured teas, each containing 10 envelopes.

I am trying Sweet Honey first- this is a blend of black tea, banana and honey. On opening the envelope, I could smell all three flavours, which was a good sign. I added boiling water, and left the tea bag in for 2 minutes.

While I was waiting for my drink to cool, I did a bit of research. The brand seems to be owned by a Dutch company called Axxent, but unfortunately their website isn't particularly informative.

As you may have realized, I prefer my tea with milk. It's just a matter of personal taste.

The tea itself has a honey-sweetness to it, the smell of honey is strong  but the taste is not too sweet. The banana is less easy to detect but is there in the aftertaste. I think this blend would have benefited from a little more banana. I like the concept and the taste is nice, it makes me think of childhood puddings!

Of course, with this being a TKMaxx find I am not going to say that I would buy it again, as TKMaxx have an ever changing selection and I doubt that I will see it in stock again.

Twinings- Salted Caramel Indulgence Green Tea

I have just realised that it has now been just over a week since my last tea review, so I think that it is about time I do another. The tea I have decided to review is Twining's Salted Caramel Indulgence Green Tea.

Image from the Twinings website

There are three teas in the Indulgence Green Tea range-  gingerbread, caramelized apple, and salted caramel. Salted caramel is my favourite of the three.
If you are not sure about green tea, this is a good tea to try as it lacks the "grassy" taste normally associated with green tea. As with all green teas, it's best to leave the kettle a few minutes after boiling in order to prevent the water from scalding the leaves.

The first time I brewed salted caramel, I had a real wow moment as the smell is divine! It reminds me of butterscotch angel delight- a childhood favourite. The taste is just the same- yummy!

I have had salted caramel green tea at work a number of times now, and every time I have had it my colleagues have commented on the smell- my boss reckons it smells like buttered toast!

*TeaShed- Mr. Grey's *Tea

As I have said in a previous post, the *TeaShed is a young, Newcastle based brand, with some cool packaging.

Earl Grey is one of my favourite blends, so I have been looking forward to trying the *TeaShed version- Mr Grey's *Tea. The Earl Gry was a local chap, and one of the best known Newcastle landmarks is a monument to Earl Grey, so it is a very apt blend. As well as their 20 packs of pyramids, they also sell teabag and biscuit combo packs. For £1, you get two biscuits and two teabags. They do a couple of different teas in these packs. I think they would make great stocking fillers or maybe even as wedding favours. Anyway, back to the tea tasting.

This is a classic Earl Grey blend with a black tea base and bergamot orange flavouring.  The base tea is very smooth  and this makes for an easy drinking blend.  There is no bitterness or astringency. The bergamot flavour is not to overpowering. The taste isn't as strong as the Twining's equivalent, but Earl Grey is sometimes a bit of a niche tea and I think it would be a good introductory blend. It's got a nice flavour of it's own, mildly citrusy and very calming!

The biscuit, by the way, was also very yummy, a oaty coconut biscuit that just hit the spot.

Clearspring- Organic Japanese Genmaicha

Last Christmas I got my Dad a teapig's selection pack, and one of the teas he raved about was the popcorn tea. So when I was in Waitrose and saw this brand, I decided to try it.

I had not heard of Clearspring tea before, but the back of the pack tells me that the tea was grown and packaged in Japan at the Nagata Tea Gardens, Kyoto.

Genmaicha is japanese green tea with toasted rice. The tea was about £1 cheaper than teapigs, and when I opened up the packet, I discovered standard teabags, rather than the pyramid style tea pigs do. I could smell the popcorn aroma, but also the grassy smell of green tea

I boiled the kettle and waited the requisite minute in order to prevent scalding the tea. Upon addition of water to the mug, a green colour developed straight away. After a minute and a half, the green colour was quite vivid, and their was a strong popcorn smell.

On first tasting I detected the nutty popcorn flavour, but the grassy green tea flavour was a little overpowering for me. However I let it cool and as it cooled the grass flavour faded and  the popcorn flavour began to come through stronger.

I don't think this is going to become a favourite, I think I'd rather have a cup of earl grey and a bag of popcorn! But, variety is the spice of life so I will keep hold of the rest of the box. I also need to continue to develop my green tea taste buds a little more as I did enjoy the popcorn flavour to the tea.

The *TeaShed- Guana Bana *Tea

Having read Laura from LoveteaLoveblogging's post on *TeaShed Mr Grey's Tea a few months ago, I had a browse of their website and decided to put an order in. They are a young, Newcastle based company and as I am living in Northumbria I thought that this would be a good way to support a local company- plus they have a great range of reasonably priced tea pyramids in cute packaging. Each set comes in a disposable hot drink cup, I haven't seen any other company doing this and I think it's an original idea.

I ordered 4 teas- Mr Grey's tea, Out of milk tea (white tea- I am going to give this to my Dad for fathers day), caramel loose leaf black, and Guana Bana. The parcel arrived very quickly, and also contained some free envelopes of "emergency tea"- these are definitely going to be used to cheer people up.

Guana Bana is the first tea I have tried. The intriguing name is the reason I decided to order it, it is very unusual! Guana Bana is a blended tea- black and green teas with jasmine, marigold, saf flower and soursop. Cue wikipedia search. Soursop is also known as Guana Bana and custard apple. It is a weird looking green spiky  fruit with a white pulpy inside.

This is an interesting drink, it is definitely tea, it's creamy (no milk in this- I can't even imagine putting it in), fruity, floral and citrusy. It's a bit of a sweet and sour experience. It's not an everyday sort of drink, buit it does make a refreshing change.

I can't find Guana Bana on The *TeaShed website anymore, which I suspect means that no-one else will be able to try it. It's a shame, because this is a really unique and original flavour.

Better Beverage

I'm currently visiting a friend in Edinburgh, so I have taken the opportunity to visit Better Beverage. It's a tiny shop near Haymarket and sells tea and coffee.

The outside isn't much to look out and the inside isn't very glamorous either. Still, the selection is large, the prices reasonable and the man behind the counter is lovely.

This is a place without a proper website, where tea is sold in 4oz bags. A very old fashioned experience!

I chose 4 teas, got 4oz of each and only paid £8.15 total. That's good value. I have chosen:
- Arctic Fire. Not sure what's in it, but I've had it before and it's lovely
- Black tea with ginger
- Black tea with melon
- English Breakfast. I wanted my friend to have some proper tea so I got them a classic.

I have a "one out, one in" policy in my tea cupboard at the moment , so it may be a while before they all get sampled. Too little time, too much tea!