Tea for the Soul

The eventual topic of this post: Elderberry Apricot Tea

Yesterday was a major coffee day. I go to coffee when I'm feeling frazzled. If I do drink coffee it has to be good coffee. Or full of sugary syrups. We have maybe 4 types of coffee in the cupboard at work but I had to go to the local coffee shop, The Big Bean, to get a pound of their Big Bean Blend. And actually, their coffee is quite tasty. (They also have some yummy teas!) But you know what happens when I drink coffee? I start feeling physically what I'm feeling mentally. Or maybe it makes my mental crap even more out there. Or maybe it's my imagination.

Anyway, by the time I got home I still felt out of sorts and I realized all of what I just said about coffee. Yes a nice cup of coffee now and then is great-- but personally I shouldn't be pounding it, especially when I already feel funky. Now let's get to the good part: soul rejuvenation via tea.

Over the weekend a friend and I went to Lancaster, PA for the American Quilt Society Quilt Show. I'd never been to Lancaster before but I definitely want to go back. It's so artsy! So much history! Midway through checking out all the booths and quilts on display we needed to recharge. My friend knows about all my food allergies/alternative eating style so she had done a bit of research beforehand and found the Lancaster Central Market. Apparently this market is the oldest continuously running farmers' market in the country. The building was old and gorgeous (and of course I didn't take pictures)-- all brick and super high ceilings. The stalls made each of their spaces feel like you were walking into a tiny shop not part of a large market. It felt intimate but also like a communal gathering place as well. There are these funky triangular tables and stools at the front for people to sit and eat the goods they just purchased. Side note: we sat with quilt world "royalty" in my friends words. My mom and grandma were equally excited.

There's a booth called PureBlend tea. They sell loose leaf tea and fancy tea beverages. Remember my rant about finding the perfect chai tea? Well, this chai tea came pretty close to perfection. It was a caramel chocolate chai I'm pretty sure, and she made it vegan for me. I have a feeling that it included their Dark Chocolate Chai. It was a bit spicy but rich, and not over the top. It was the craziest combo but it worked. So while she was making my amazing chai I looked at what other teas I could get loose leaf to try. I've been a big fan of elderberry for a few years, mostly thanks to St Germain liqueur. Then I started taking elderberry syrup for colds. It's the tastiest "medicine" ever. When I saw Elderberry Apricot Tea I had to get some. Then I saw Earl Grey Symphony (I must try every Earl Grey. It's my fave.). And then the girl told me I'd get a discount so... I also got Exotic Black tea.

Remember I said that it's been a hardcore coffee week? Well I've been trying to relax with a nice cup of herbal tea in the evening to wind down. Elderberry Apricot Tea is the perfect wind down tea. It smells floral and fruity. Just smelling it could calm me down. I've had some really fruity teas and they end up being overwhelmingly fruity. This tea is a nice balance of fruity and floral. It has a base of honeybush tea which is a relative of rooibos. It's still caffeine free and, to me, is slightly milder in flavor. Sometimes I think the taste of rooibos overpowers the other bits in a blended tea so the honeybush was a great choice. The fruitiness makes for a great wind down tea after a long day but I have a feeling it will make a delicious iced tea once it starts getting warmer. Another benefit of this tea is the healthy goodness coming from the elderberry. It's got loads of Vitamin C. I found an ultra researched write up on elderberry by USDA which talks about historic uses of the entire plant-- quite interesting. Also, if you're sick of this cold weather check out The Herb Companion's article on hot beverages to warm out inside and out.

I sent some to my mom-- we like to share tea-- and she also loved it. I'm running out of my little two ounce packet so I may have to buy more very soon!

Goldilocks and the Three... Elephants?

Oh, the elusive chai tea. Before I moved to Maryland I had not had real chai. My chai experience included Starbucks' Tazo Chai Tea Lattes. Did you know that a tall soy chai has 32 grams of sugar? (Thank you Starbucks for letting me cringe at the nutritional info while drinking my syrup laden lattes.) That's almost the same as a can of Coke. Anyway, they're tasty but sugary. And they're made with a chai concentrate.

Jay's mom has made homemade chai everyday for the past 40 years (give or take a few days). Sometimes a couple times in a day. She is an authentic chai expert. And guess what! I will share her secrets with you! But not yet. First we must discuss other chai. I've had a lot of different chai. One loose leaf chai that I actually liked, Yogic Chai Original Masala, just won Best Chai at the North American Tea Championship. It's got some spice. Chai tea must have spice. Not just cinnamon and cloves-- it has to have pepper. A lot of loose leaf and bagged chai teas have too much cinnamon and cloves or an over abundance of cardamom. Where's the black pepper!? The only chai concentrate I've tried that had more spice to it was the Tazo, which can be purchased at most grocery stores. I think that if any tea has cinnamon, cloves and maybe ginger or cardamom the powers that be automatically name it "chai." Wow, can you tell I've become a chai snob? And I said I wasn't going to be a pretentious tea drinker.

I was talking to a coworker today about my quest for the ultimate chai. I have likened it to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Instead I'm Goldilocks and the Three Elephants-- get it? There are native elephants in India. Or maybe Goldilocks and the Three Tigers? Either way... one is usually to sweet, one has too much cinnamon, and I've tasted and tasted and haven't really found the "just right" yet. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to try them all.

There's a chocolate company called Taza based in Massachusets that makes delicious authentic Mexican drinking chocolate. They are fair trade/living wage and work directly with the cacao growers. [CACAO!] They have partnered with a Massachusets based tea company called Mem Tea to create a cacao chai. I like the fancy name: Chai Spice Cascarilla. Cascarilla. Apparently that means husk, as in cocoa shells maybe? Cascarilla is more fun to say. Here's the ingredients list thanks to Taza: black tea, organic roasted cocoa shells, whole cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla. Sounds delicious, no?

I drank this tea straight up. Usually I like tea and sweetener in chai, but I wanted to see what it tasted like plain first. I let it steep a bit longer than I should have and it was still on the mellow side. The cinnamon wasn't too overpowering and all the other spices were pretty balanced. Not too spicy and not too bland. They have almost all the "right" chai ingredients in there, minus the black pepper. The addition of vanilla adds a little sweetness and the cocoa shells gives a unique kick. I think this tea is good for a "little more than black tea but not crazy tea" day. May try with a little hemp milk next time.

The MEM Tea website is pretty fantastic. Their main focus seems to be on wholesale to coffee and tea shops as well as cafes and restaurants. But you can see all of the teas available and buy in bulk directly from them. One in particular I am desperate to try is the Thai Tea. I love a good Thai iced tea! They have a great "Learn"page that has tea basics, tea and health, preparation and recipes. There are instructions on how to make concentrates for chai and Thai teas for commercial use as well as instructions on basic tea brewing. They call it "tea dosing"- I think I want to start saying "I'm preparing my dosage of tea" when I make a cuppa now. Pretty great site-- definitely check it out! I found a retailer that sells Mem Tea in ounces instead of pounds. May be putting in an order for Thai tea very soon.

Since I am just getting the feel for this blog think I epically failed this week with regular posting. I do have a long list of teas to blog about now though! Expect to see some interesting teas and even a few recipes down the road. AND hopefully some tea room reviews!

Campfire in a cup

From Peets.com

A dear friend gave me a tin of Peet's Scottish Breakfast. He said quite a few times as he handed it over that it is malted or has a malted quality to it. Being the gluten intolerant person I am I heard "malted" and thought, well so much for that tea. (Malt is usually referring to malted grains-- grains of the glutenous variety are briefly sprouted then heat dried. It's actually a pretty cool process. Then they're made into beer and Milk Duds.) The tea tin doesn't have an ingredients list per se but it does mention "Indian teas" and "Lapsang Souchong" and "smokey."

Today at lunch I decided I wanted to try it so I checked out the website to see if it listed ingredients there. Nope, but there is an Ask Peet's line where I can talk to a true Peet's Coffee and Tea expert. I called. The nice young man (I say young but I bet he was the same age as me) cheerfully asked what he could help me with. This is what I said, "Well, I have a question about this tea that I received as a gift. It's Scottish Breakfast. He kept going on about how it was malted and I wasn't sure if he really meant malted or if he was just saying that for the fun of it. And I know that people with gluten intolerance can't have things with malted anything in it and there aren't any ingredients listed on the tin so I wasn't sure if I could drink it. So what did he mean by malted?"

I think he kind of laughed and said, "Scottish Breakfast is really just a blend of Indian black teas. The malt is a tasting note. So there isn't actual malt anything in it." Without a pause. He knows his tea. To which I said, "Oh thanks! Sorry for the silly question!" "Not a silly question at all (laugh laugh), have a good day!" Thanks Peet's Coffee and Tea for answering my paranoia question.

So I decided it was safe to try Scottish Breakfast. I pried open the lid and bang! Campfire! I made everyone on lunch break with me smell it. We agreed that the description of "warm hearths in the rugged Scottish countryside" and "smokey" were pretty accurate. After the covering and steeping for 4-5 minutes I tasted it and man, is it a unique taste. Have you ever tried Lapsang Souchong before? Well this is tea that is smoked over pinewood. I think it's a little more detailed than that, like a specific type of tea from a specific area, but generally speaking it's a smoked tea.

Scottish Breakfast tastes like a campfire in a cup. Really. My first thought was that it tasted like vegan hot dogs cooked over a barbeque. I can't remember what actual hot dogs taste like so someone will have to tell me if they thing lapsang souchong tastes like hot dogs. It's a weird taste but surprisingly good. I also can't remember what malted anything tastes like so I'm going with smokey. It's totally like a campfire in a cup. I suggest trying a cup of lapsang souchong at some point. Whenever I feel like I want a trip to the "rugged Scottish countryside" or just want to pretend I'm camping, I will certainly make a cuppa Scottish Breakfast. Maybe I'll even make a sheet tent and put on a fireplace DVD. A girl's got to make do when her husband loathes camping.

Let me know if you try some! I want to know what you think of any lapsang souchong!

Because I don't have any good pictures of the Scottish countryside, here's a picture of me in Scotland. I left the tea at work, so picture of the actual tea tomorrow.

Me living the dream, circa 1998

Today's tea tasting soundtrack: Hornpipes from Hell - Albannach

Pinterest

I'm on Pinterest! Follow me! I'm curating tea boards-- teas, tea essentials, tea themed goods, teacups... You can also find my other boards there too. I'd love to follow you on Pinterest. So many wonderful ideas out there!

Click the link above, or hit the button over to the right.

Hooray, tea!

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I love tea. I enjoy coffee too but there is usually a lot of sugar involved. Tea is wonderful all on it's own. Or, if you're feeling feisty, it's great with a dash of cream and sugar. In my case it's usually hemp milk and honey. For a person with food allergies and such tea is generally a one size fits all deal. There are a few exceptions but from what I've learned tea rarely has gluten involved and if the label says "cream flavoring" it's not coming from any animal. And most tea merchants proudly display whether their teas are gluten free, vegan, nut free, etc. But we'll get to that later. What I want to talk about is how great tea is.

Mint Chocolate Rooibos - David's Tea

Tea is great when you come home from work and it's been a particularly busy day. Like a non-stop "why-don't-you-have-tax-forms-I-need-this-book-for-a-school-project-due-tomorrow" kind of day. (What up, librarians!)

It's chilly out side and yet you feel a bit guilty for turning up the thermostat, so you don't. So instead you turn on the kettle and fill a tea strainer with your favorite guilty pleasure tea. Mine is Mint Chocolate Rooibos from David's Tea. You have all the fabulous antioxidants plus yummy chocolate plus refreshing mint.

Tea magic begins as soon as you put the spoonful in your strainer and pour the hot water over. Finally, after the requisite 4-7 minutes of steeping, you sit in the most comfy worn in part of the couch, mug in hand, and take a sip. Even if the first sip scalds your tongue and throat on the way down it's so worth it. All that matters is that Andes mint hot goodness-- and the dog nudging you to go out. Really, you should have taken him out first but oh well.

For five minutes you sit there sipping, and eventually you stop internally nagging the high school kid that waited until the day before to get To Kill a Mockingbird.

Tea can have a calming, restorative affect when taken at the end of a busy day. And that's one of the reasons I love tea.

Mint Chocolate Rooibos is a naturally caffeine-free tea with the added bonus of mini chocolate chips, peppermint, vanilla and chocolate mint flavoring. Rooibos (say it with me, ROY-boss) comes from the Aspalathus Linearis shrub that grows in South Africa. It's got more antioxidants than green tea, high in Vitamin C and low in tannins which apparently are the little buggers that can upset a person's stomach. Ultimately, it's a super tea. I just had a vision of a canister of tea with a big red "R" on it, wearing a red cape. Yes.

Thanks for hanging out with me in this first post. I hope you'll come back because I have loads more tea goodness in store-- recipes, tea reviews, window shopping tea related stuff, and random geekery that may or may not have to do with tea. If you can do it while drinking a cuppa it's probably fair game.

I leave you with today's tea drinking soundtrack: Pitch Perfect. The movie, the soundtrack, or both. Nothing like collegiate style a cappella.