I picked this up at the Ten Tousand Villages craft fair last weekend. It’s a non profit organization that sells fair-trade products from all over the world. The things they sell are all handcrafted and there some absolutely gorgeous and unique things for sale – plus it all goes to a good cause, the money going directly to the artisans and helping to improve their lives. Here’s a link to their website (I hope this doesn’t count as spam):
http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/
Anyway, so I was attracted mainly by the fact that this tea is fairly-traded and organic (which is always a good thing as well) and not hideously expensive. It’s not a bad tea by any stretch of the imagination, but the spices are rather weak, almost an afterthought to the tea instead of the main event.
The black tea base itself is pleasently smooth and flavourful though, which is a nice change as I’m used to crap teas being used for chais.