News / herbal

This famous Chinese Tea is from the province of Anhui. Wonderful large wiry leaves produce an aromatic tea with a full sweet taste. It is these needle shaped green and silver leaves that are used in the making of the wonderful ‘Peony’ or ‘Urchin’ arrangements, the leaves tied together with silk in the form of a rosette, which slowly opens up in warm water. Traditionally Lu Mu Dan Tea is picked under strict harvesting conditions that help retain its rarity and value for tea connoisseurs and collectors. I made this at 75°c and 2 minutes.

Sencha Spring Melody seemed an appropriate choice today.(First day of Spring an' all that) It was particularly nice to sit and sip it in the blazing sunshine this afternoon. Wild strawberry pieces and orange peel blended with a really good Japanese sencha gives a light, bright and refreshing cup. It also contains Cat's Foot (the herb not like..y'know the thing) I'm not sure whether it adds anything to the flavour or not but according to herbalists it has a really wide range of medicinal uses. Happy Vernal Equinox! It's not just me that liked it either - Russteas gave it a lovely review.which you can read here.

Day 81 of ‪#‎yearoftea is an  oriental spice black tea. A really good blend flavoured with cinnamon, ginger, clove, vanilla and orange. It's a little bit of an acquired taste, mainly due to the cloves. In fact I wasn't best pleased with the first cup, but the second (and third) really hit the spot. I think now I'm a bit obsessed with tea latte, it's simply a matter of time before I try it with this one.

Really enjoyed this Vietnam OP black tea.
Nothing special, just a good, stout and reliable brew. Plenty of tannin and plenty of character. This tea comes from the far north of the country close to Yunnan in China, so has a good heritage. Not bad. Not bad at all.

An Indian tea today: Nilgiri Thiashola Estate SFTGFOP 1. These beautiful leaves of varying colour make a surprisingly strong brew. I only steeped it for 3 minutes and to be honest I think I would've preferred it at 2 and a half. Very rich, very malty, and quite fruity. This is one of the highest grade Indian teas you can get and if you like a tea with some welly, you should give it a go.

An unfermented herbal tisane with well-documented health benefits is Day 84 in my ‪#‎yearoftea.  Green Rooibos (so surely that's Greenbush?) has even more anti-oxidants and super-duper stuff than it's better known Red counterpart. Taste-wise it's totally different - where Redbush tastes rich and almost syrupy, the green version is much lighter. It's still has that lovely woody taste but is much less challenging if you're new to herbal tea. As with traditional Rooibos, it's apparently impossible to spoil it by overbrewing.

Considering I hate the smell of bonfires and tarmac, this Lapsang Souchong tea was never going to be a winner with me. The leaves are withered over fires of pine needles which is what gives it that distinctive smoky aroma. I decided to use it for washing down a particularly good Stilton. It worked so well with the cheese that I found myself enjoying it (sort of) it has a much more subtle taste than smell. I still had to pinch my nose in order to drink it...

No 65 takes me to one of my favourite tea-growers: the Rukeri Cooperative in Rwanda produce this lovely organic and fairly traded F.O.P. The long leaves produce a dark russet brew which is strong, but not so much that it feels like a battle (more a good-natured tussle?) Like all Rwandan tea it's rich, nutty and a little biscuity. It works equally well both with and without milk (although it really benefits from a much shorter steep time if you're taking it black) I used 100°c and steeped for 2.5 and 3.5 minutes respectively. 

 This is another of those instances where I wish I could make this post 'Scratch & Sniff'. You're just going to have to take my word for how gloriously scented no. 66 in my ‪#‎yearoftea is. It's Sweet Cherry Rooibos and it tastes as good as it smells. Not only that, it's super-healthy and choc full of anti-oxidants; I started out this morning with a mini-lurgy and after drinking this all day I genuinely feel loads better (and my throat isn't sore anymore.)

 Think I may've spoken too soon on the lurgy-busting front...so decided on the 'big guns' of Kombucha Sencha. To be fair there is little scientific evidence to support any health claims so it's a good job it tastes nice innit? Kombucha is also known as a SCOBY (a Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) That sounds quite ropey whereas it's actually really tasty - sweet and fruity mixed with the fresh grassy taste of the sencha.

#‎teaoftheday 68 is Chrysanthemum Tea . It's widely used in Chinese Medicine for it's health benefits such as alleviating cold symptoms. It tastes very similar to Chamomile - unfortunately... Maybe if I added a shedload of sugar it might be a little more palatable but that kind of defeats the object of a healthy tea. I may be in a minority as here at Gently Towers it's quite a popular tisane. It's a bit like me: quite fragrant and a little bitter.

I don't know why but I expected this Georgian tea to be proper hefty. It's actually remarkably delicate with a lovely aromatic woody aftertaste. Brewed at 100°c it needed a good 5.5 minutes mashing so if you like tea you can stand your spoon up in, this one's not for you. 
You don't need to be particularly eagle-eyed to spot that I took this with milk; I think next time I'll do it without.

90°c and 5 minutes steeping was the method for ‪#‎teaoftheday 70 'Red Rosepetal' Absolutely gorgeous IF you like Turkish Delight (which I do because I'm normal...) It's obviously a perfumed tea but doesn't taste 'soapy'. It has the added advantage of being super high in both Vitamin C and anti-oxidants. Apparently it does something with free radicals too but in truth I stopped reading as I got distracted (really?) If you have a yearning to know, Google is your friend. I was just concentrating on how delicious it was and how I'm looking forward to using it for an iced latte. (ooh yes it's also really economical too )

Oh my, this is a bit spesh. Day 71 comes from Jeju Island a self-governing province of South Korea. A green tea 'Seogwang Woojeon 1st Flush FOP',the 'sparrow tongue' leaves only needed a steep-time of a minute and a half at 60°c to produce five infusions of an aromatic greeny-yellow brew. No astringency but a slightly grassy, and pronounced umami flavour. The particular production methods are specific to Jeju and the Japanese island of Kyushu.