A Little Southern Charm

I first experienced Revolution tea a few years ago and was very impressed; they make the best English Breakfast and Earl Grey (Lavender) I've had, and I feel as though the brand is obscure/high-end enough to satisfy many a tea snob. But I hadn't explored their other teas at all until January (yes, it's been ages...) when I visited my boyfriend and his family in Atlanta. The folks at Revolution make an excellent Sweet Ginger Peach (remember Peach Week 2011?), and when my boyfriend's parents were sweet enough to send me a bunch of boxes, I was further delighted to discover their cute sampler packs. Unlike the Republic of Tea's Ginger Peach, this one's title advertises it perfectly. It has a ginger flavor that holds its own, but the peach (obviously!) remains the star of the show. Think earthy ginger plus farmer's market-fresh peaches. A great balance of both eponymous flavors and enough body that you never forget it's a black tea--it's no wonder Revolution names this the most popular flavor. 

A sample Sampler Pack

It's the hardcore tea enthusiast (or diabetic) who refuses to put sugar in any tea because it could detract from the flavor. I normally don't adhere to that rule, and often I'll try a tea both sweetened and unsweetened because the taste evolves for each presentation. This morning I did one further--Sweet Ginger Peach with off-brand artificial sweetener (Splenda's half-brother you might say). I haven't tried it iced yet, but it's a peach tea, and you can hardly go wrong icing those. Also, for those frowning at the idea of tainting their tea with sugar-lookalikes, it's totally fine without.

What to pair with this? If served hot, go for eggs over-easy with sizzling bacon and butter-slathered toast. Or a similar triple-bypass breakfast. If served iced, sip slowly while sitting on your porch doing your mending and waiting for Ashley Wilkes to come home.

Picture from here. Get Revolution's Sweet Ginger Peach here or here. Oh, and that awesome sampler pack here.

News from the Republic (of Tea), Part II

Read the first installment of News from the Republic (of Tea)!

The second in the series from the Republic. This one's about the art of steeping. You're instructed to enjoy the nuances, the complexity, and the character of the tea, so take care not to leave one out!

If you prefer protocols with specifics, check out this steeping chart from the Republic. Every brand pretty much has their own.

Leaflets

Over the past couple of months I've tried out a ton of different teas--too many to document by individual post! So here's a few short reviews of some of them.

Ceylon Teas: Herbal Peppermint

Normally if you presented me with something as generically titled as "herbal peppermint," I wouldn't be so captivated. A little tea roulette with an enormous Ceylon variety pack has changed that for good. What's so great about it? It has a warm peppermint flavor. Where most minty teas sort of wake you up with the cool feeling they leave on your tongue, this one is quite a bit more calming. Bonus: it smells like candy canes. Drink this one with sugar.

Twinings: English Breakfast

Another gift from the holidays, this tea is like a solid, stout Englishman. Twinings of London is a fairly popular brand, but surprisingly not one I've tried. Normally people drink breakfast teas in the morning (spoiler alert!) but I'd recommend this EB for a good evening read. It has a full flavor with a little more sediment than other English Breakfasts, which tends to bother some people, but I don't mind it much.

Two Leaves and a Bud: Jasmine Pearl

Firstly, what a lovely name for a tea brand! Normally coffee shops approach tea by having a house brand whose teas they'll keep in stock--Republic of Tea, Stash, and Numi are fairly common ones--and I'm always delighted when a place has a new brand on tap. I tried this charmingly named tea at Saxby's (Virginia's version of Starbucks or Peet's) over the winter holidays when I was writing out my Christmas cards. The term "pearl" when applied to tea now invokes thoughts of bubble tea for me, but I have to agree that the soft flavor of this jasmine varietal is really well described by it. It practically smells like pearls! But, as with most jasmine teas, take care not to steep it too long.

Numi Organic Tea: Jasmine Green Monkey King

My friend Jossie treated me to a birthday cuppa of this tea. (Yes, it's been that long since I had it.) Numi is the house brand of Pura Vida, one of the on-campus cafés at Hopkins. It went pretty well alongside the giant cupcake she also presented me with! I'll have to try it again to be sure, but I remember it being a good bit more "green" than "jasmine," and therefore, a little leafier than I'd like.

Bentley's Finest Tea: Mango Green

This tea is where my memory fails me the most. I have some recollection of trying it at the Greenhouse Cafe at the Hopkins School of Medicine, but I could have also just made that up. I'll go back and investigate, but I think I liked it... Or maybe I didn't?

Going Green

Kelsey (the unofficial star contributor to Dynastea!) sent me this interesting article a while back, but I sort of forgot about it, and I'm only returning to it now as I'm gearing every possible effort toward procrastinating studying for finals.

In case you haven't the energy to read it, here's the two-sentence version: an entrepreneur by the name of An Yanshi has devised an interesting and expensive green tea--one fertilized by panda poo. In a way, he describes, it's a way of returning to the original meaning behind the Chinese character for tea, which combines "man," "grass," and "woods." Of course, this is particularly relevant for those of us who love both pandas and tea, and besides its appeal as a fun novelty drink item, there is a cool component of sustainability; if this isn't going green, I don't know what is.

So, hefty price tag aside, would you drink it? I mean, Camellia sinensis has to be fertilized somehow, right? My normal answer to almost anything with a picture of a cute panda on it would be yes, but I'm not entirely convinced of the return-to-the-natural-way argument for this drink. It's supposed to be a tea for the refined palate of a tea connoisseur, but despite Mr. An's words against the tea's classification as a novelty item, it still seems to be one. Note the number of zeros in that price and the claim that it'd be the world's most expensive kind of tea. There is the tremendous amount of nutrients that are supposedly present in the fertilizer and the fact that pandas are pretty darn endangered, but if the pandas chosen are only too happy to put up their end of the bargain on the order of kilos daily, it's difficult to say what's really driving up the price.

Picture from here.

News from the Republic (of Tea)

So last week I signed up for an email newsletter from my new friends at the Republic of Tea, and it feels a bit like following a band you like to see when their upcoming concerts are. Anyway, the first few posts are background info on tea, so I thought I'd share. Here's the first: a decent primer on tea types and "flavor notes"!  Enjoy :)

[Interestingly, red tea isn't one of the "varietals."]

(Apologies for the odd picture quality; pixels have minds of their own.)

The Madhatter Manhattan

A few Wednesdays ago, I celebrated my twenty-first birthday. Now, I'm one of the last of my friends to turn twenty-one, and that hasn't bothered me much (why spend your time on other "dranks" when there's tea to be had?), but I was still a bit excited to try something new.

Homemade wine!

My first drinks were relatively ordinary--some very strong homemade wine that I'd made with my dad a few years ago, a fruity sangria, and a good red table wine at Thanksgiving dinner. When I was back at Hopkins a few days after, I had another birthday celebration at Golden West Cafe. There are so many reasons to love Golden West. First, it's easily the most hipster place I've ever seen in  Baltimore. If the giant moose head or the chandelier made of tree branches and twinkle lights don't do it for you, the plaid-clad wait staff surely will. The menus are repurposed covers of vinyl records, and behind the bar we found a pinball machine, a jukebox, and a game of Apples-to-Apples. Another somewhat related reason to love the place is that it's often a venue for concerts (the obscure kind of course). And oh yeah, the food is really, really good.

The Madhatter Manhattan. Totally sounds like a book.

Banana Nut Cupcakes.
Enough said.

I always get the same dish when I go there (apple-brie-pesto sandwich w/ sweet potato fries), but this time I had to consider an interesting drink to get with it. Naturally, I settled on the Madhatter Manhattan--a strong cocktail with Earl Grey-infused sweet vermouth, whiskey, bitters, and a cherry on top-- to see if I could taste the tea flavor in all that alcohol. (Full disclosure: I know so little about alcohol, I asked my friend Henry if vermouth was vodka. Apparently it's not.) This one's a sipping drink folks. Unfortunately, it was so strong I couldn't taste much of anything, including the Earl Grey, which I've always considered to be a pretty noticeable flavor. But the banana nut cupcakes made up for it.

Now I'm interested in seeing how other tea flavors can be incorporated into cocktails--or maybe into my own homemade wine! Must look into this.

 Another tea related occurrence was an awesome birthday gift from Kelsey and Henry, all done up in brown paper and string. From our China adventures, Kelsey's had inside knowledge of my intrigue with flower teas--the kind that actually open up into flowers in hot water--and so she presented me with a glass teapot and strainer with twelve flowering teas! This is a tea party waiting to happen. Thanks Kelsey and Henry!

Drowning your sorrows

Got the blues? Drown your sorrows in a steaming cup of peach tea! My current choice: Republic of Tea's Ginger Peach. The Republic promises "the sweet lushness of a fancy peach seasoned with the tingle of spicy ginger," but I find it more peachy than gingery. Though, not so much so that you forget you're drinking tea. (Goes well with a cheese danish.)

Regarding the Republic of Tea, I'm ashamed to say that I haven't explored this brand very much at all. I think this is the only tea of theirs that I've tried, and only because of Peach Tea Craze 2011--a period of a few weeks this past spring when the only thing I would drink was peach tea. But I enjoyed the flavor even before that fateful fortnight. Like any respectable black tea, it's good hot or iced, which weirds some people out, but I think it makes for a perfect gloomy day tea because you can be revived no matter which season your gloom occurs in. My gloom came by way of a too-many-meetings-and-too-much-work-and-oh-yeah-it's-pouring-outside kind of day yesterday. I finished my tea so fast I forgot to take a picture, so I went hunting around Republic of Tea's site, and to my delight, found not only Ginger Peach Black Tea, but also Ginger Peach Oolong, Red, Green, and White Tea. And they come in full leaves and bags. So, not only can you suit your mood by serving the tea hot or iced, you can also suit the occasion by picking a particular level of oxidation. I think it's safe to say my allegiance is with the Republic.

At the risk of making this post all too commercial, I found one other really cool thing Ginger Peach-related: Brewed Iced Tea on Tap! Think of boxed wine only like, way, way better. (Has anyone tried this? Is it actually any good?)

Pictures from here and here.