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-)

Pumpkin Cream black tea

This, the last for a bit of fruit and cream flavored black teas from Culinary Teas, is absolutely perfect for this time of the year.  Fall in New England means brightly colored foliage (well, at least most years...) and tons of squash and pumpkin.  Now, I have to admit, pumpkin flavored tea sounded odd when I first saw it on the website.  In my experience, mixing pumpkin with other stuff doesn't always work out so well.  Pumpkin coffee is pretty wrong, and pumpkin beers tend to run the range from "Ok, I guess" to "Wow, that's nasty!"  So it's a refreshing surprise that pumpkin and cream flavored tea is actually pretty good.

The tea is the usual Ceylon blend for many of the fruit flavored teas, and while it continues to work quite well, I'm starting to wish for a bit more variety in tea bases.  I know that the tea is meant to play second fiddle to the flavors, but I think a bit more creativity in matching tea bases to added flavors would be more interesting.  Perhaps that's just because I've had so many "x and cream" teas lately.  At any rate, the Ceylon is a good base, and the earthy pumpkin and sweet cream really blend well with the tea.  Although it sounded weird at first glance, after thinking about it, the flavor of pumpkin is probably a more natural fit than sweeter fruits.  The vegetal flavor and mild natural sweetness pair up so well with the similar characteristics in the tea, and as always, the cream provides a touch of vanilla and that amazing velvet texture.  As with all the cream teas, pumpkin cream plays wonderfully with milk and sugar.  One oddity I found with pumpkin cream is that the loose tea itself is a smaller leaf size, which means a slightly faster brew, with stronger flavors from the tea.  I don't know if this was incidental, or if some aspect of the flavoring demanded a faster steep time, but I shaved a minute off the steep time and still got a full bodied, well developed cup.  Score:  90 (A-) All right, it's time for a break from the "whatnot and cream" teas, as excellent as they are!

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake from Culinary Teas is a review that's been waiting to happen for a long time.  It's my wife's favorite tea, and is tied up with our discovery of Culinary Teas, thus having a huge impact on much of this blog.  So, for as long as Erin has been going to Mrs. Bridge's, our local teahouse, she's been getting Strawberry Shortcake, a black tea flavored with strawberries and cream.  Almost every time, she would look through the menu, deliberate, then order "the usual."  Then one day a year or so ago, they were out of Strawberry Shortcake.  And then the next time we went, they were still out.  Did they plan to re-order?  No, not enough demand.  Can we order through them?  No dice.  Thus an internet search ensued, finally leading us to Metropolitan Teas, the producers of Strawberry Shortcake.  We sent them an email, asking if we could order through them, but alas, they only sell in bulk to restaurants or teashops.  However, they kindly appended a list of retailers who sold their flavored teas.  First on the list was Culinary Teas, and the rest is history.

Strawberry Shortcake is a staple in our house, and pretty much every order from Culinary Teas includes at least some amount.  The tea is the same Ceylon blend as Peaches and Cream, flavored with strawberries (oils and actual dried fruit) as well as a good bit of cream flavoring.  The Ceylon blends perfectly with the strawberries and sweet velvety cream, especially with the addition of sugar and milk, or even half and half or actual cream.  For the most part, I agree with the traditional line that you add milk, not cream, to black tea, but the addition of cream flavoring sort of calls off all bets.  It's as if the texture was made for thick, heavy cream.

So, the usual drill for preparing black tea, full rolling boil, heaping teaspoon of tea per mug, steep for about four minutes and strain, sweeten and and add milk to taste.  The resulting mug is pretty amazing.  As I've mentioned in the past, fruit flavored teas often leave me disappointed, but this is a whole different story.  The best way I can describe the flavor is as if I had taken a quality cup of blended black tea, then dissolved homemade strawberry jam and a huge spoonful of sweet cream into it, which in all actuality, is not that far off from reality.  It's a great comfort cup and a solid go to tea.  Shockingly, we've yet to try it as an iced tea, though our recent experience with iced Peaches and Cream suggests it would be a huge success.  Score:  95 (A)

St. Paul's London Breakfast tea

St. Paul's London Breakfast is a unique and interesting black tea blend from Culinary Teas.   It was created to honor St. Paul's Cathedral, an iconic London landmark, and by extension, the city of London itself.  It's blended from three different teas to reflect three different important growing areas; there is an Assam from India, a Ceylon, and a Chinese tea from Anhui province in China, an area most notable for Keemun, which I suspect is the constituent in St. Paul's.  In addition to the somewhat unorthodox mix of tea regions, the master tea blender felt that some Earl Grey should be included, as it is both a very iconic British tea and the favorite of the Queen of England (apparently...I didn't fact check that).

This is a pretty interesting and novel mix of flavors, and I have to admit, I knew none of this when I ordered it.  I only saw that it was a previously unknown breakfast tea, and as I've mentioned before, I particularly love the concept and style of British breakfast teas.  I did sort of a double take when I opened the package for the first time and smelled the unmistakable bergamot aroma of Earl Grey, but some quick online research filled me in on what was actually going on.  An eyebrow raise and four or five minutes later, I had a steaming cup of tea, ready to see if such an unusual blend would work.  I added milk and sweetener right from the word go; in many cases, I like to try the tea on its own first, but as this is a breakfast tea, albeit an unusual one, I think milk and sugar add to the experience.

The first notes are all Assam, lots of malt and oak, which is quickly followed by the tang of bergamot.  The mix of flavors work quite well, far beyond my expectations.  The Keemun (again, a guess, but it seems likely) contributes to the broad base of the tea, adding roasted cocoa and earth notes to the Assam, while the Ceylon...well, that may just be a delivery vehicle for the Earl Grey-ness, as I don't truly detect any notes in the cup.  I have noted in the past, however, that I am nowhere near as good as I would like to be at picking out teas in a blend.  The surprising use of bergamot in a breakfast tea is restrained, a strong hint of flavor without overpowering the profile, and without the cloying aftertaste it sometimes leaves.  The Assam brings a nice strong body that mixes quite well with milk, giving the tea a good thick mouthfeel.

The malty Assam, earthy Chinese black, and bergamot flavors are beautifully balanced.  Having made a few mediocre attempts of my own at blending a couple of very basic teas, I am very impressed by the skill that went into this blend.  I wouldn't go so far as to make it my daily cup, but I applaud the novelty and the effort at blending, and it is one I will get again.  Though it has a fair bit of Assam and calls itself a breakfast tea, I think this one is good any time of day, but then, I've always been rather partial to bold, strong teas all day.  Score:  95 (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-)

Matcha Green Tea

The folks over at Culinary Teas, whom I may have mentioned a time or two, have a nice blog, where one of the owners of the company writes about teas she is enjoying and current specials.  They also sometimes do a sort of hat raffle give-away, where if you're interested, you post on the blog entry, then she puts all the names in a hat and picks a winner.  Some months back, the give-away was Matcha green tea, something I've always wanted to try, and to my surprise, I won!

So, then Matcha is a finely milled green tea.  The leaves are essentially ground into a fine powder, which is then whisked into hot water to create a unique cup of tea.  The fact that you're consuming the tea leaf itself puts Matcha pretty high up there in the good-for-you scale, but sadly makes it pretty difficult to make.  I don't own a "tea whisk" and don't have current plans to shell out money for an apparatus that's really only useful for a small bag of one type of tea.  My attempts at Matcha without a whisk were...well, hot water with clumps of tea in it.  Not exactly appetizing.  So the tea sat in the cupboard for a few months, while I wondered what, exactly, I would do with it.

As one of my other selves, when I'm not being a highly renowned tea expert and writer*, I spend a good chunk of time running.  I run more days than not, and sometimes for very long distances.  I find running enjoyable for a lot of reasons, but a downside is that it can leave your legs pretty sore, especially if you've spent two or three hours pounding away at rocky trails.  A while back, I read a suggestion that protein, consumed as quickly as possible after exercise, can ease some of the muscle aches, since the muscles repair themselves more quickly with ample protein.  So, like a ridiculous body builder, I buy and consume whey protein.  And it works...really well.  Unless I actually damage myself, I'm rarely sore, even the day after a rather punishing run.

I write this not to brag about my running "prowess" **, but because one morning, looking for my big canister of powder, I noticed the Matcha sitting in the cupboard, looking all lonely and forlorn.  I then looked at my vanilla flavored whey protein and the milk, and thought, hmm, why not?  Vanilla green tea protein smoothie is pretty good, it turns out.***  I'm sure it's kind of a waste of quality green tea, but it was just sitting on my shelf otherwise, and Matcha is used to flavor ice cream and other foods.  The tea itself has what I consider a typical Japanese green flavor profile, mild natural sweetness, and a fair bit of vegetal plant flavor, but not nearly as much as some teas I've had.  The vegetal notes are pretty washed out when mixed with vanilla protein powder and milk or water, leaving a more run-of-the-mill green tea flavor.  Overall, though, a great use of an otherwise wasted tea.  I don't think I'll grade the tea, this seems a bit outside the box for a tea review.


*In my own special fantasy world, I get paid to write about tea.  And Scotch.

**I may not be fast, but I usually have a smile on my face.

***The protein powder mixes very well with black coffee, too.  I usually get the standard whatever you can find at Walmart, but Trader Joe's makes a protein powder as well, with fewer weird chemicals in it, that we get from time to time.