Queen Bee Farms

I popped over to Vancouver Island a week back to attend the Victoria Tea Festival, and while getting off the bus, I noticed a chocolate shop. I decided to pop in, because I still had about ten minutes before the doors opened, and… ended up pre-gaming the festival by buying this tea (plus some rosemary dark chocolate, which was really nice).

I brought the little travel-tin, and I find myself continuously reaching for it. This is a sweet, subtle earl grey cream, and it has a different kind of vanilla note that I don’t often encounter, but is very nostalgic of… Something. I don’t quite know what. The closest is that it’s orange creamsicle-like tea from DavidsTea?

The base is light, not too bitter, perhaps a little flavourless, but the vanilla/cream lingers pleasantly, and the “bergamot orange” listed on the ingredients is definitely “orange”, and not so much “bergamot”, weirdly.

I was at back-to-back festivals, and forgot to review some of the teas I sipped throughout them, so we’ll see if I ever catch up on that backlog. Enjoying this pre-festival tea.

Sipdown! I thoroughly enjoyed this version of vanilla cream earl grey. Nothing came across as heather to me, despite the ingredients, but I did feel like it had a bit of a sarsaparilla note? It’s good but not so unique I feel I need to go out of my way to get some more — and since it’s a Canadian tea, I would have to go quite a bit out of the way.

Sometimes earl grey cremes have this note that reminds me strongly of root beer, and this is one of them. I think it has something to do with the vanilla flavoring. I am a root beer fan though, so always happy to encounter this. There are also heather flowers in here but I’m not clear on how they’re contributing to the flavor, mainly because I’m not exactly sure what heather tastes like.

We had some visitors come up from the states Friday and Saturday, and we did a lot of the traditional tourist things with them, per their request…high tea at The Emptess, Butchart Gardens, and Craigdarroch Castle. We spotted a few teas in the gift shop at the castle at the end of the tour. There were only a few options, but my friend and I both liked two of them each. We decided that we’d go halvesies, with each of us getting a bag, and splitting it up into some small ziplock bags rather than two bags each. So I got his one, and she got Dark Knight…a chocolate mint black. I’d never heard of this company before, and they had a few other honey based or related products like soap and lip balm. Turns out that it’s an island based company, too.

Anyway, I’ve just steeped a cup of this because 1) it smells so good 2) it’s caffeine free, so good for the evening, and 3) and it’s feeling a little bit like fall out there today, and I felt like a hot cup of this would be like a warm hug… and I was right! It’s really good! For those who are keeping score, I’m not a huge fan of rooibos, but green rooibos is better, and beyond that, I prefer honeybush over rooibos…and this is a honeybush. The aspects of most rooibos that I don’t like as less pronounced in honeybush. The flavour that dominates this tea is definitely the mango. The citrus is more of a subtle taste that is more of a bright note in the tea. My mouth is watering and it feels juicy. The tea is straight, without sugar or milk, but at some point it might be something I try if I want an indulgence. A little sweetener and some milk as a latter is probably in my future. I feel like while I have some organic cane sugar, a nice orange blossom honey would wa nice touch. A nice local honey for local tea…

I definitely like this tea and will probably get more in the future, if I can get it from the gift shop without the tour. I could also order it online too…it’s good for supporting local businesses, especially ones that promote bees the way this one does