Upton Tea Imports Uva Special BOP (Ceylon), continued: A Bit About Iced Tea, and What About This Cold Brew Fad?

I love iced tea. Always have. In fact, as I sit to write this, I am wondering to myself why I don't drink more of it? It makes a great afternoon drink, a minor caffeine bump to get through the rest of the day without resorting to coffee, which will mess up my sleep if I drink it after noon. I guess it's the activation barrier -- good iced tea requires multiple steps to make. and the pre-made stuff is usually way over-sweetened. There's a few brands out there that are reasonable with sugar adds, but I'd truly rather have none.

But what if? What if there were an easier way to make iced tea? What's the deal with all this cold brew stuff that's popping up like the latest fad and excuse for places with bad coffee to overcharge even more for it? And can it apply to tea? So, time for a bit of experimentation, I guess.

My personal experience with cold brew anything goes back to the summer of 2016. I'd seen the growing ads for "cold brew coffee!" starting to build, and there'd be pre-bottled stuff at the grocery store for way too much money (avoid it, it's universally bad!). But when we saw a "cold brew apparatus" (plastic brew pot with easy remove filter), we decided to give it a try. And man, I was shocked to find there's something behind the fad - it's really good. Cold brew coffee, made with the right ratios and steep time, is amazing. It gets as strong or stronger than traditional hot brew, but has this really smooth, rounded flavor profile, with less acid and bite. We spent most of that summer drinking it, then gradually fell out of the habit. Is it really less work? Well, yes and no. You have to prepare it ahead of time, so if you forget, there's no cold brew in the morning. And the apparatus requires just as much cleaning as the old drip pot. So, even though I love the stuff, I rarely think to make it, and typically brew hot coffee and chill it (I drink mostly iced coffee even through the winter).

But. What about tea? Well, at the same time, I experimented a bit with cold brew tea too. I found I genuinely liked cold brew green tea (enough that maybe it will get its own post), but black tea was trickier. It seems to need a longer steep time and closer balance with ratios of tea to water.

But, I have this great Ceylon, Upton Tea Imports Uva Special BOP, and planned to try it as an iced tea anyway. So why not get our science on and compare the two methods with the same tea - a horizontal tasting, as the whiskey bloggers used to say (still say? Haven't read a whiskey blog in years.) Should be perfect, I've always heard Ceylon makes great iced tea.

Uva BOP: Iced tea (traditional method)

So, up first, the tried and true stalwart method:  brew some tea and chill it with ice. Easy enough. I made a six ounce cup with a rounded teaspoon into boiling water and let steep for 3 minutes. Full disclosure, there was no "warming of the teapot" (mug) or anything fancy. I'm not convinced it makes that much of a difference. If any older British ladies read this, they may well be scandalized. But if things are close at the post, I'll get fancier, I guess.

First impression is that this is a great cup of iced tea. As I've mentioned in the past, most black tea needs adds for me -- milk and sugar to smooth out the rough edges of astringency. But as a plain black iced cup, this is smooth and an easy drinker. Still has an astringent bite, but wouldn't be tea without it. Some of the flavor notes that show up as hot tea are a bit more muted - the cedar chest note and wintergreen finish are present but not as strong. But it really tastes like a great example of how I think iced tea should. Interesting, and I will get some mileage out of this going forward. I'll maybe have to play with light touch sweeteners, too -- a splash of lemon and honey are a nice iced tea lift.

Uva BOP:  Cold Brewed Stuff

So, nothing fancy to the brew method. 1 rounded teaspoon plus a little extra per 6 ounces of water in a mason jar and left it overnight (about 12 hours). Strained and poured into a cup. There are pretty neat setups for this, with a brew pot and removable strainer, but I couldn't find ours, so went even more basic.

With coffee, I found the method really rounded out the flavor and texture. I always found it to taste stronger but smoother, with less acid. But it doesn't seem to work the same for black tea. The brew is a bit smoother in texture, but seems more bitter, with the bitter note overtaking and blocking much of what's nice about this tea (cedar and wintergreen). It's not bad, it's still a drinkable cup, but not nearly as good as the traditional method.

The Results!

Well, there you have it, folks. One man's opinion, but I think I'll definitely stick to drinking iced black tea the old fashioned way. However, it was nice to find that Ceylon does make some great iced tea, so maybe more to come of that in the future.

Coming up -- a really high quality green tea, again courtesy of the nice folks at Upton Tea. Hot, iced, and another go at cold brew with green.

Upton Tea Imports Uva Special BOP

Since revving up the engine on the old blog, I've been thinking about black tea, and why I haven't been drinking nearly as much as I used to. I think part of the problem is that of sugar. I truly like black tea "British style," with milk and sugar. I don't really enjoy black tea "black" like I do with coffee, since astringency comes out from tea a bit more. Unfortunately I also try very hard not to intake much sugar. So, rock and a hard place, and black tea becomes a more occasional drink for me.


So, for the purposes of writing up a decent review of a tea, I think I should try it several different ways - black, iced, and "British" at a minimum. If I wanted to get really fancy, I would even try different brew strengths and times, but I haven't found enough difference in the past to make that worthwhile.


So, on to the business of the day - Uva Special BOP. Uva is a pretty prominent Ceylon tea estate, and the Ceylon teas are probably the most productive area that I know the least about. Ceylon teas come from the island of Sri Lanka of the coast of India (Ceylon is an older British colonial place name that survives in the tea type). The central highlands of the country have the right mix of elevation, rainfall, and temperature bands to produce high quality tea, and there are a ton of estates scattered throughout. I enjoy that the names reflect modern day Sri Lankan and fanciful old-school British names.


BOP is of course broken orange pekoe, typically crushed tea leaves that may include some fannings. In my experience, the larger tea leaf surface area exposed to water means you get a stronger, maltier cup than with full leaf tea. I've found it interesting that the same tea at different grades can taste pretty different as different notes stand out -- BOP makes a good strong, pick-me-up tea with a bit more astringency.


Brewing recommendations are a teaspoon of tea to 6 ounces of water, brew at rolling boil for 3 - 5 minutes. As noted above, in the interests of a full review, I tried this tea black without sugar, and then with milk and sugar (iced will be it's own review, I think). As unsweetened black tea, the flavor notes are big, lots of cedar with a mild lingering wintergreen finish, but I find the astringency a little drying on the tongue.


So, another couple cups, this time with a teaspoon of sugar and about a tablespoon of whole milk. The adds really lift this tea up. Sugar balances out some of the astringency, and milk smooths out the body of the tea. The prominent notes are malt and cedar, and the milk and sugar do not diminish the mild mint or wintergreen in the finish. I've always thought of Ceylon as afternoon tea, and while I would happily have this as an afternoon cup, I think it's "big" enough for a morning cup too.


Available from Upton Teas here (shameless plug, I know, but well deserved!) Upcoming reviews will be iced and cold brew of this tea, and then a green, and maybe a couple more if I haven't fully lost steam. I'm trying very hard to stick to a once a week posting schedule (with limited success).

Culinary Teas Ginger Peach Black Tea

Summer time is fresh fruit time. Currently strawberries and blueberries, I'm eagerly awaiting the week or two until stone fruits are suddenly bursting into ripeness. All throughout the year, I eye the stone fruits in the store, and hell, I'll buy a few plums, nectarines, or apricots here or there, but I'm fascist about my peaches. Fresh and local, or none at all. A hard grocery store peach, picked before ripeness to survive a long shipping journey...blah. But a fresh peach, so soft and juicy that it bruises if you look too hard at it...man, there are just some things on this earth that you get all spiritual about.

I do love peach. It's a unique and versatile flavor, blending wonderfully with green tea, black tea, and more importantly, bourbon. I've even had peach wine, peach lambic, and heard tell of wondeful peach ciders out there. Ginger and peach are often paired together, probably since ginger's earthy spice complements peach's sweet fruit flavors so well. I've had ginger peach as a combo in white, green ,and black teas, but Culinary Tea's ginger peach black tea is easily the best of the lot.

The base is the familiar Metropolitan Tea Ceylon blend, generic black tea flavor, but clean, sturdy, and smooth. The flavor additions are perfectly balanced, a pleasant ginger burn at the back of the throat, mild peach fruitiness, black tea astringency. Nothing stands out, but this is just a perfectly balanced cup, a good cup of hot tea, and a sublime glass of summertime iced tea. In today's food and drink world, so much seems to be about extremes, but this cuppa is so great because it effortlessly finds a balance without being boring. Score:  92 (A-)

Peaches and Cream black tea

I've been less than enthusiastic about fruit flavored teas in the past.  I haven't always had the best experiences with them, ranging from obvious artificial flavors to weak, bland, and overdried actual fruit.  Special Teas, an otherwise great tea company was especially guilty of this, but then they got bought out by Teavana, and I've never had anything from Teavana, since they're pretty expensive.

My wife, however, is quite fond of fruit flavored teas.  Her favorite is Culinary Teas' Strawberry Shortcake, which I've been meaning to review here for a long time, but a close second from Culinary Teas is their Peaches and Cream.  Some of Culinary Teas' flavored offerings come from Metropolitan Teas, and use a common base blend of Ceylon teas.  The reasoning, of course, is that this offers a solid, unremarkable base for the added flavors to shine through, and for the most part, I think this a great strategy.

So, Peaches and Cream is the Ceylon base with peach flavoring and cream added.  Culinary Teas really does the cream flavors well...they don't get that specific on their website, but I believe it's actual freeze dried cream, which lends a really smooth, mildly sweet note to the cup, and of course, is a natural addition to peaches.  We brew in the regular way, rolling boil, steep for four minutes, you know the drill.  The resulting cup is great...I may not have been the biggest fan of fruit teas in the past, but this is done right.  The tea is a strong, broad base, never obtrusive, and the peach is sweet but never overpowering, while the cream brings a velvety texture and a mild hint of vanilla.

Peaches and Cream also makes a great cup of iced tea.  For most iced teas, I'll brew double strength tea and dilute with ice, though for this batch, my wife made a huge batch in the dutch oven, strained the tea out, and we chilled it in a pitcher in the fridge.  It came out a hair strong, so we added plenty of sugar, and unusually for iced tea, cream.  I've only really come across cream or milk in iced tea in Thai tea, but in the right cup, it's a great addition, and of course, cream goes great with, well, cream.  Score:  90 (A-)

Vanilla Almond Ceylon

The teabag is a modern invention, dating back to the turn of the 20th century.  The first commercial use of the teabag was in 1904, by tea merchant Thomas Sullivan.  The bag was hand sewn silk, and intended simply as a way of packaging small amounts of tea, but consumers began steeping the tea still in the package, and fell in love with the convenience.  Thus, the questionable modern advancement of the teabag was born.  At its inception, the teabag was simply a neat, handy way of steeping tea, but fairly quickly, tea companies realized the teabag made a great way to get rid of tea dust and fannings that were left over from sorting higher quality loose tea.  So, the modern teabag was born and, generations of people grew to believe the chalky, astringent texture of low quality tea was true of all tea.  Thousands of people learned to dislike tea, yet have never had a proper cup of the stuff.

I don't mean to come down too hard on teabags.  Loose tea vs. bag tea is really a question of quality vs. convenience.  Loose tea has a far cleaner texture and more developed flavors, but of course takes more time and effort to make.  Teabags typically brew up with a dirtier texture and less flavor due to the lower grade tea, but are so quick and easy  At home, I almost always go with loose tea, but at work I usually just settle for the quick option of teabags.  A nice compromise between both worlds is the tea sachet, or "pyramid" bag.  The larger volume inside the bag allows for true leaf tea, and gives the leaves a small amount of room to bloom, so to speak.  It's still not full leaf tea blooming inside an entire teapot, but it does make for a better cup of tea than an old fashioned bag.

So, then, today's review is a vanilla almond Ceylon from Tea Nation.  I've tried a vanilla flavored tea from Special Teas once before, and was underwhelmed.  The vanilla was from real Madagascar beans, and smelled absolutely amazing, but dominated the tea completely.  As much as I loved Special Teas for their great blended black teas, they didn't always do so well with flavored teas; it seemed they coulnd't find the right balance between tea and flavoring.  Tea Nation seems a pretty good company, and they got that balance spot on with this tea.  Hints of sweet vanilla and almond complement the tea, yet never overpower it.  The tea is Ceylon, with which I've had mixed results, but I really like this blend.  It's strong and flavorful without becoming overly astringent, and the sweetness from the vanilla and almond is perfect.  I'll add a splash of milk and sugar to most black teas, but this one doesn't need either; the sugar only gets in the way of the more subtle almond and vanilla notes, and milk just dilutes the flavor and weakens the rather delicate body.  For me, a tea that can stand solely on its own merits, not even needing milk or sweetener, is a quality cup of tea.  Score:  85 (B)

Maple Tea (from Metropolitan Teas)

I'm a little behind on tea reviews.  It's been a busy month for whisky.  At last weekend's wonderful yearly event, Whisk(e)y-a-Go-Go, I met up with my good friend Jacob, who was the inspiration for last month's experiment in sweetening  a Canadian breakfast tea with maple syrup.  He noted in a comment that the maple themed gift shop near his new house also sold maple tea, and in fact came down to the whisky tasting with a generous surprise gift of a box of maple tea and a bottle of maple syrup.  The timing is perfect.  Here in New England, it's officially maple season...the temperature is starting to go up, and the sap is running.

The base of the maple tea is Ceylon.  Ceylon is an archaic name for Sri Lanka,an island nation off the coast of India.  Like so many tea producing areas, Sri Lanka is a former British colony, gaining independence shortly after World War II, and officially changing its name to Sri Lanka in 1972.  Though the nation changed its name, the tea kept the old appellation, and is still known throughout the world as Ceylon.  Ceylon tea, like Darjeeling and Earl Grey, is commonly labeled an "afternoon tea," which usually means a milder tea than the bolder, maltier British breakfast teas.  Indeed, Ceylon often has hints of fruit or floral overtones, but I find it is not nearly as delicate as Darjeeling.

Ceylon is an interesting choice for a maple tea.  At first thought, I would have expected a pairing with a heartier, maltier blend featuring a lot of Assam.  After all, I associate the flavor of maple with hearty, warming winter breakfasts that fight off the chill and clog our arteries.  However, the Ceylon works well, even if it is an afternoon tea with some delicate notes.  It doesn't fall apart at the mere hint of other flavors, and I suspect Assam or something equally as malty might distract from the real star in this tea, the maple syrup.  I often forget that the target audience for a flavored tea probably cares mostly about the added flavor, and less about how it blends with the tea base, though I must say, this tea works far better than all those fruit flavored teas I've had.

So, we brew in the usual way, water at a rolling boil, two teabags for my overly large mug (covered with mathematical and scientific equations...I will have to post a picture sometime), brew for about four minutes, add milk and sweetener.  So far, I've tried sugar, and my usual sweetener of choice, agave nectar.  I haven't dared add actual maple syrup to maple tea yet...I'll post a comment when I feel ready to tackle that much maple at once.  The resulting cup is quite pleasant.  The Ceylon provides a solid but unobtrusive base.  Any actual fruit or floral hints are lost behind the maple, but the maple flavor really shines, and blends quite nicely.  I get a slightly thin body and some minor astringency, but that's likely from the fannings.  I've spoiled myself a bit with loose tea over the last few months, and milk thickens up the mouthfeel pretty well.  All in all, a good cup, perfect for a New England winter morning or afternoon.  85 points (a solid B)