Tin Roof Teas
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This was the first tea of tea party today and it was my guest’s favorite tea of the bunch! We served it with home made pound cake made from freshly ground soft white wheat and topped with sugared strawberries.
The aroma of this tea is lovely, and the neatest thing about it is how the yogurt aspect of it comes across. When you sniff the tea, there is a nice black tea base well-balanced with the raspberry flavor, and then the yogurt adds this creamy tang, even in the scent. It is smooth and good! Definitely a keeper.
I finally got to Raleigh today to go to my favorite local (well, a little over an hour but close enough!) tea shop. I was supposed to go in and just buy some Fuzzy Navel to compare to Madame Butterfly, but my bestie mentioned that she wanted some greens for her cupboard so I had to look for a green I thought she would like, and the owner is evil evil evil – no, wait, he was just trying to make me happy – and made me smell the Ti Kuan Yin and I had to buy that, and I finally caved and bought this one! I really HAD to because one of my daughters is named Anna.
They were gracious enough to sell me the tea split into two bags so I can send half of it to her boyfriend in N. Ireland. AND they offered to do a special blend for me to replicate a tea I can’t get anymore, so I am pretty excited about that!
Isn’t it great when you buy something for a silly reason and discover that you love it? I steeped this for 3 minutes, right in the middle of their recommended steep time, and it is delicious. It is not bitter at all, there is no astringency, you can taste the black tea base just fine, and the raspberries are so sweet and fruity, with the yogurt lending a creaminess so the raspberries are never tart. This is quite a winner!
Want to save a fortune on buying Marco Polo? Try this. It is smoother. It is less fussy to make. You won’t be missing a thing, and the price is great – about half the price of Marco. And it is absolutely perfect without sugar or milk. If you were inclined to add those, I think this could probably handle it just fine.
I am drinking this cold today. The heat index is supposed to hit 115F so staying hydrated and cool is the theme of the day!
This is quite nice as an iced tea. I steeped this yesterday, hot, and made a resteep right away. I put about 40 ounces in a glass pitcher and stirred in a little less than 2 Tablespoons of sugar while it was still piping hot and let it cool briefly on the counter. It has been refrigerated since then, and if my tea is already cold I do not add ice.
The tea is beautiful, not cloudy at all, and even though there is some black tea in this blend, the color is a medium orange – really lovely! The fruity part of this is subtle and just adds a really nice touch to the tea. It is great by itself, and would be good with a meal as well.
Nice blend, TIn Roof Teas!
My friend bought this today on our trip to Raleigh. She left enough for me to make a pot of tea, so I decided to make it several different ways.
First I tried it absolutely plain, and it tastes like a very nice, subtly orange flavored oolong. The orange tasted natural. I thought it was quite good. My friend was really wanting a total Creamsicle experience, so I played with it a little.
I added a little whipped cream and a tiny bit of sugar to one tiny cup of the tea. At this point, I would really have preferred it natural. I take almost all my tea with no additions so this didn’t do anything for me. Then we added a serious amount of sugar, and WOW did we have a sweet cup of tea, worthy of any Southern lady’s refrigerator. And that was really good.
The next stage of the experiment is underway. I resteeped the leaves and got a nicely colored liquor and pretty nice strength for a resteep. I combined the remainder of the first steep and the all of the second in a glass pitcher and put it in the refrigerator to cool and meld for another scorcher tomorrow. The heat index is supposed to be 115F here, so a cold, refreshing citrus-flavored tea will be very welcome.
This needs to be the next sipdown. Three years old is getting up there for a flavored green, but it was still pretty good today. It was the last tea of tea party and even my friend who prefers black tea liked it a lot. I consider pears to have a light flavor, and this tea does, too. They didn’t try to pump it up and make it artificial.
It was 65 degrees and completely overcast when I went out on the patio for breakfast. That really put me in the mood for a pot of tea but I know today is tea party day and we usually have lots of black or oolong tea. I went with a nice, soft green with refreshing taste. This is so smooth and mild. I am not sure what the base is, but they call for 194F temp and 2 minutes steep time if that helps. It is as if pear juice has been added to a cup of really mild and smooth green tea.
I am 100% sure I have reviewed this before! Yet it didn’t even show that it is in my cupboard.
Ah well. We begin again. I bought this at Tin Roof Teas in Raleigh, NC. They used to be a Teageschwender shop so I expect this is sourced from the very same place. I found it to be delightfully smooth, and the pear flavor is light, as if you are eating a pear and the juice is still on your mouth and you taste the sweetness on your tongue. This is a sweet and subtle cup with no green tea bitterness at all, no sour taste.
I had this iced and lightly sweetened last night. It is my favorite Moroccan Mint because I prefer spearmint to peppermint and this one is blended just perfectly for me. The funny thing is that when I finished my tea I refilled the glass with water, and it tasted like mint water! It was unbelievably refreshing! Now I want to make peppermint and spearmint simple syrup, and maybe some plain unsweetened cold mint water. It has been ridiculously hot with little breeze here, so I am in a mint mood.
On a happy note: one of my hens went broody last year and it took a while to break her of it. She went broody again this year, but we have no rooster so her eggs will never hatch. I let her sit three eggs for a week. Then last night, I slipped three babies in with her and took the eggs out. Hens are pretty dopey when asleep and can’t see a thing in the dark. This morning she is very, very happy to be a mommy at last! She is a French Black Copper Marans and the babies are Cuckoo Marans. One little girl is shy and hides under mama when I go out to look at them, which I have been doing all morning long!
Oh, that’s so sweet – but what happened to the hen who laid those chicks in the first place?
Not all hens go broody and they lay more eggs than they hatch. My other hens have no interest in sitting on their eggs, for instance. These chicks came from a feed store and they were hatched in a brooder. They were one day old.
We are having a very full weekend. My son is here to celebrate his birthday and he is a very active young man who eats clean and is training for Spartan races this year, having just completed his first Spartan sprint. I have to buy mega-fruits and veggies when he visits.
Today, he and his dad and sister played catch and Frisbee on a beautiful, eighty-something degree spring day, and I prepared a snack/light lunch. We had strawberries, cantaloupe, and kiwi, and an iced pitcher of this tea.
I put five teaspoons of the leaf in my Stump teapot which is about eighteen ounces. This was steeped at 194F for two minutes, then poured over ice in a Bodum Biasca pitcher which is forty ounces. I did not add any sweetener.
Only three of us drank this tea as my daughter had already made a pot of black tea for herself. The three of us finished all forty ounces in short order and it was so refreshing and good! And the tea is sunshine yellow, perfect!
This is hands down my favorite Moroccan Mint of the many I have tried. There is something about their spearmint and Egyptian mint that makes this so sweet and smooth. I foresee a lot of this tea over the next few months, especially served with fruit as we did today.
Sad sipdown. I made the very last of my Moroccan Mint today, and this is just the season when I NEED it! I tried a lot of Moroccan Mint teas last year and did side by side comparisons, and I came to the conclusion that I love spearmint much more than peppermint. I will definitely be buying more of this. It is great hot and iced, sweetened or unsweetened. The mint is so cooling, and where I live it is consistently in the 90 to 100F range and sticky icky humid. I do have some plain gunpowder green, and I just started growing mint last year. Until I can get an order placed for more of this, I shall have to make my own, even though I don’t have a whole lot of mint yet.
As for Egyptian mint, I don’t know what that is. Off to google!
This was the final tea of tea party. My guest lifted her cup, sniffed, and blurted, “Wrigley’s Gum!” I told her she had a great nose because both are spearmint. She liked it a lot, and of course it is my favorite Moroccan Mint so far. We drink it sans additions.
I was SO EXCITED! I got a phone call yesterday from someone wanting piano lessons for their child. I heard a beautiful accent, and was told she was referred to me by another student of mine, and right away I knew it was the Moroccan friend that I had been hearing about! As in, really, truly, Moroccan!
Naturally, I set out my Harney and Sons glasses and had a pot of tea ready! I told her that I didn’t know if this would be authentic to what she was used to, but I needn’t have worried. Ryan, you need to read this! :)
First she was ecstatic that we were going to have tea, second, she loved the glasses and said they made her feel like she was home again, and third, she said the tea was absolutely authentic to what she makes herself. She likes to add a tiny bit of honey to hers, and I gave her the White Gold honey that was recommended by my dear young friend who works at Teavana. She said it was the best honey she had ever had. Soon I will try some of the new honey from the newly added honey room at Tin Roof Teas! Yes, that’s right, they will have a HONEY ROOM!
This is what tea drinking is all about. Over and over, she beamed and told me how happy she was, how she loved the tea, how good it felt to drink tea and talk with someone (she is a homeschooling mom who is with children most of the time and loves to have some adult conversation now and then, just like me!), and how much she felt at home because of the tea, because of the glasses. She told me how she wanted to bring glasses from Morocco but didn’t for fear they would break, but that she brought all the serving pieces. She talked about how the tea tray would be set before the oldest person at a gathering and they would make the tea. There would be three containers for gunpowder green, spearmint, and sugar, and each person would come to the elder to be served. We talked about tea rituals here, and in China, and in Morocco. She wants to come again, and drink more kinds of tea. I will be seeing her once a week now for her daughter’s lessons, but I have a feeling there are also some plain ole’ tea parties in our future! This was a truly great tea day and I am so happy I could burst!
How cool! A job, good conversation, and tea!
I do wish that the US had more of a cultural aspect to tea drinking. For some reasons Americans bond over alcohol, so many other nationalities bond over tea. Nice story to hear :)
How awesome is that?! :D
Very nice story…
So after all the brewhaha (LOL!) last night with the transcript, I got up at six a.m. to get started again. Two hours later, testing the automatic GPA figuring, I put in a fake course and then erased it. But it refused to erase completely and left a “grade not available at this time” and refused to compute her final GPA. I tried to refresh the page to take it out and….took…out…everything…I had done. All of it. And I was finished.
YOUNGEST! I NEED TEA! Seeing my state, she asked if I needed Catherine, but I told her I thought I wanted Moroccan Mint instead. I can drink it hot or cold, plain or super sweet, and it’s good every whichaway.
Several cups later, the transcript is complete and printed, the FAFSA is done (twice because I didn’t see that I had clicked on the top item which was an ad for a company that makes you fill everything out yourself then charges you to file it for you so yes, we had to go to the right site and do it all over again sob sob sob) and now we can have LUNCH! If I was going to take up drinking, this would be the day.
Now to get the registration for school done and haggle with the insurance company over my son’s wisdom tooth extraction. Sigh.
There is no paperwork in heaven, save for the Lamb’s Book of Life. I bet I know what happens in hell…
Preach on, friend! (But oh, to have a child that can gauge what tea to bring you based on your mood—makes up for the paperwork, eh?)
No paperwork…but I can’t wait for eternity to catch up on all the good books that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis have been cranking out for us all these decades ;)
I LOVE that she asked if you needed Catherine :) :) :)
Whew! What an ordeal! Glad its done and so sweet that she made you tea:)
Backlogging from yesterday: This is the tea that was the raison d’être for yesterday’s tea party.
My student mentioned during a lesson that she and her mother used to drink tea with a Moroccan lady who had moved back home, and said her mother really missed the fun they had. I invited them to come try some of my tea!
She said that the tea smelled identical to what her friend made, but her friend used fresh spearmint in hers so it may have been a little different. She seemed to really like it. I love it. I didn’t add anything at all to mine, but she and her daughter added White Gold honey and liked it.
I enjoy spearmint more than peppermint in my area and wanted to grow some, but by the time I got around to going to the nursery they we sold out. Maybe next year!
After reading Dylan’s paeans to Moroccan Mint, I broke down and bought some at Tin Roof Teas. He was right about how indispensible it is for summertime! After trying it, I began a quest to find the one I would love best.
Today I had a face off between four teas from four different companies. Tin Roof Teas won for me because the gunpowder green base is smooth, not smokey, and supports the fresh, tingling spearmint flavor so beautifully. Perhaps there is something about the addition of Egyptian Mint that makes it sing for me, too. I do not really enjoy peppermint in tea. Much as spearmint, so that is a big factor in my choosing this one. If you love peppermint more, you would want to go with the Market Spice version. Serendipitea was next, and very close, while Teavana lagged seriously far behind.
Continuing my love affair with Moroccan Mint, I decided to share it with my bestie today after we had some Asian Pear from this same company. This is their own house blend of Moroccan Mint. Their gunpowder green base is smooth and not at all smokey. The spearmint is strong but not offensively so, indeed I love it!
Our experiment involved adding honey. I have had this plain and with sugar. When I was at Moo Mart (where we feel like cattle when we shop) I saw some raw mountain honey from the western part of our state. I wanted to try it in my MM.
We began with plain tea so my friend could get a clear taste of the tea. Then we added her Manuka honey from Bird Pick Tea and Herb. It was nice, but the honey flavor was definitely noticeable and different from adding sugar.
Next came the Moo Mart honey. When I opened it, I was really taken aback. It smelled like HORSE! Seriously, like horse!!! I thought mixing it with spearmint tea would dampen the horse completely down, but alas, when I lifted my cup it smelled like horse and the sip tasted a wee bit horsey. I love puerh, but come on. Horsey honey?
Next cup got raw sugar from Whole Foods, and that was the best of the sweetened cups. I think this is great plain, though, so I will probably only drink this when I want a cooling, sweet iced tea.
What was the flower involved in the honey? That’s really bizarre.
My favorite honey is dark amber buckwheat — but it is terrible for tea because it has a very strong flavor of its own that can overwhelm a lot of teas. Fantastic in steamed steel cut oats, or something, though.
Jim, I don’t know what flower. I looked the label over pretty carefully and see it. Maybe they are wild honeybees with really bad taste! LOL! I think they have been visiting Bradford pears, based on the smell! :)
It probably isn’t a single source, then. Usually those are a safe bet, especially for tea, because the blending of flavors tends to produce a fairly neutral sweetness.
Horsey smell? Maybe they were getting into the dingle berries. ;-)
Eeeewww!
I didn’t know horseflies could make honey.
I’ve always been partial to Orange Blossom honey. My sister is a honey enthusiast, and has roughly as many jars of honey on her desk as I do cans of tea. I’ll have to ask her about buckwheat honey.
Well, hello there, Sandy! Don’t be a stranger!
Dylan: I have a little organic, raw honey that a former student of mine sells from her farm. That is the one i should use until i get my own Manuka honey.I think you are right….I should stick with honey that has a provenance!
Beester?
Jim, I bet a ton of people would sign up! There are foodies for EVERYTHING! :)
I had about five ounces of this left yesterday after drinking it hot and sweetened, iced, sharing it with hubby, and then making (and eating) three Zoku Popsicles with it. I am in love with Moroccan Mint and now I want those little glasses from Harney and Sons and maybe a bunch of other Moroccan glasses, too, because THEY ARE SO PRETTY!!!!
Sigh. On a happy note, I did discover that if I buy 250 grams at a time I will save a dollar.
Are the glasses they use in Morocco the same as a traditional Russian tea service, or different?
Different. You can get a whole nice set for a good price on Amazon. I love the big exotic Middle Eastern metal teapot for serving. But thats for putting fresh mint in and sometimes some gunpowder and lots and lots of sugar! (I ‘m sure you’ve been served this at some occasion as a Chanter!) ….This is why I grow mint!
I’ve had traditional tea service in restaurants, but have not had the honor of receiving hospitality in anyone’s home.
Doesn’t the metal change the flavor of the tea?
Probably.
They are different, but a similar size and shape more or less. Russian tea glasses seem to be clear or clear with website or gold filigree work and are usually used with a holder. Moroccan glasses are usually colorful and have more filigree work, and seldom have a holder. I have seen two styles with a ring of thicker glass near the middle, presumably to prevent burned fingers. I read that the glasses are to be filled aout halfway so as not to burn the fingers, and glasses should be held with the thumb on bottom and a finger in top for further protection against burning. One site said that if the tea is too hot for your fingers, it is too hot for your mouth, so apparently a wee bit of patience is required, something that took me a while to acquire when it comes to a fresh cup of tea!
Ya know, if this is what is traditionally used, then I would use it figuring that the flavor would be most authentic! The pot I’ve been served from in homes and cafe’s have been brass. There is no acid if only mint is used and sugar. (Don’t know about gunpowder tea or how much would be used) The flavor has always been wonderful!
I think it would depend on the metal also. I understand the sterling is supposed to “sweeten” both water and tea. Harney and Sons has a glass Moroccan pot that is pretty, and a great deal cheaper than sterling!
I love Steepster and tea! How much we have learned that would never have come to us otherwise!
I’d look for a stainless pot myself in the old style!
I believe brass or nickel plated brass is most traditional for the pot.
PS: 250 grams is a LOT of tea. Do you have a good storage system for that much leaf?
I believe it is about 9 ounces of leaf. I have a tea shelf and lots of tins, as well as part of one cabinet and a box. The 100 grams I bought will just be kept in the foil bag it came in. With guests drinking it, I don’t expect it to last terribly long.
This was a fun tea tasting! Jim Marks suggested that I find out how traditional Moroccan Mint tea is made and served. I read a number of recipes and read how they pour from up high, filling a glass and pouring it back in to mix the sugar in well, and finally pouring from high up again to make a froth on the tea. I had the girls look on a map to see where Morocco is, look at the overall climate, and find movies that were shot in or set in Morocco. (Youngest is a huge Inception fan and was pretty excited about that one!) I described the tall, narrow tea glasses they use that are decorated in beautiful colors with gold filigree.
We poured our frothy tea and drank it. WOW! It has been a long time since I have had any tea with this much sugar in it, but it is DELICIOUS! I am amazed they drink this hot all year in Morocco, but it really is good and the mint is so cooling. They probably didn’t have refrigeration as a common option until recently! I think I like it even more hot than iced, too. (I had it iced at lunch with my banana sandwich.)
The article we read said that this is served to guests as a symbol of your hospitality and is served at least twice a day in most homes. A visitor in a gathering will be asked to judge who is the best tea maker among them. Now if that doesn’t sound like a bunch of Southern ladies gathered around serving their sweet tea to guests, I don’t know what does!
Thanks for the recommendation, Jim! This was fun, and I will definitely try serving it to guests this way in the future. I guess I have to go out and buy some of those gorgeous little glasses now! :)
I really love the spearmint and Egyptian mint in this, and I was disappointed to see that most companies use peppermint. I don’t know if I would like that as well, but I will certainly give it a try.
Yes, but sadly many of the moroccan tea glasses are made in China now. ://
Simpson and vail has a nice little set, theirs are from Morocco: http://www.svtea.com/Moroccan-Tea-Glasses-Set-of-6/productinfo/A1750/
They’re nice, and that’s rather reasonable for moroccan tea glasses.
These are just a tad more costly:
http://www.moroccan-furniture-decor.com/pd-venetian-multicolor-tea-glasses.cfm
All the sets are saweet…….
I looked at both links. Beautiful! I think I see these at Marshall’s and TJ Maxx a lot, so I may try there first. I have trouble trusting items made in China because of the potential lead content, but I guess glass would be safe since the painting is on the outside. Harney and Sons has some, but they cost even more and are solid red, but I consider the gold painting on them to be more traditional. I could be wrong.
Recommend your favorite brands of Moroccan Mint, please, everyone!
The only one I ever tried was Stash’s Iced Tea Bags. It was really good.
I really liked the Moroccan Mint from the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf – however they only sell it in teabag form. I will try Arbor Teas next, they have a spearmint one.
Even though I like Peppermint better than Spearmint, spearmint would be better in Moroccan Mint tea!
That’s fascinating! I had a vague recollection that it’s traditionally served hot and sweet, and I think I knew about the glasses, but I didn’t know about the frothing and the pouring. Now I want to know what’s different about Egyptian mint.
Scott: all the sets are sending a little ping along my acquisitiveness nerve. I think I want the Genoa Gold set. I had to go look at Amazon’s selection to get a grip. Lots more pretties, and some a bit lower in price.
Yeah, unless you don’t care if the glasses are Made in China. Amazon used to tell customers where their items were manufactured. Now, they rarely do. If they dont list where an item is manufactured, chances are it is made in China, FYI. :))
I had an Egyptian peppermint, that tasted like earthy mint; not as fresh and aromatic and tasty as the Organic peppermint harvested in the USA.
Tin Roof Teas used mostly spearmint, though it lists Egyptian mint as well. I haven’t had it before so I am not sure what it is imparting. I can only tell you that this is exquisite lay sweet and good, with or without sugar! I suppose I should try it with peppermint, too, though.
Hmm, I have some Corsican mint that I just started growing. Maybe someday I can make my own Moroccan Mint! I have Chocolate Mint and used to have peppermint, so I guess it is time to plant spearmint!
Autocorrect is playing havoc with me today! I think I may run over to the health food store and see if they have Stash tea and try theirs, too. Harney and Sons have a great price on the loose pound in a bag, but two of the five reviews are pretty dismal.
I thought I didn’t care much for the Harney and Sons Moroccan glass at first, but a student who just left told me they used to drink tea with a Moroccan friend and they burned their fingers all the time on the glasses. That rib in the middle might be there as a cooler handhold! One set on Scott’s link has the rib as well. Hmmmm….I know they also make metal holders for the glass cups that have a handle, too.
Stash’s is a personal favorite of mine, because it has mainly spearmint (plus peppermint, lemongrass). Adagio’s Casablanca Twist is a good peppermint version, as is Upton’s Moroccan (they used to use spearmint, but have switched to peppermint). I have Adagio plain spearmint and peppermint that I can add to any tea though too (greens/whites), when the mood strikes (it’s a way to use up less than favorite teas too) lol
Oh, and a disclaimer: am not personally a fan of gunpowder green, so that’s why my faves might be different than others. Gunpowder is traditional. (now runs from Amy Oh ….)
I might have to look into making some Moroccan mint like this. I might like it better. Of course, I might actually like loose leaf mint tea better than the bagged mint tea.
TeaGeschwendner used to sell a very good Moroccan style, I don’t know if they still do.
I don’t know what your articles did or didn’t talk about, but traditionally, the tea leaves and mint leaves are left on a low boil in the tea pot for extremely long periods of time. The result would be horribly bitter if drunk straight and this is why they add so much sugar. If you prepare an orthodox steeping, you probably don’t need very much sugar.
Many hot parts of the world drink hot tea year round — especially desert places where sweating actually cools you (unlike Houston where it just gives you swamp butt). And yes, the mint is, I think, specifically added for the cooling effect as well.
And yes, you could just buy good gun powder green tea (Morocco is actually the largest importer of this tea in the world) and fresh mint leaves and make your own.
Tin Roof Teas used to be a Teageschwender tea shop but decided to source from several distributors. This is their own house blend, but I betcha it is based on the one from Teageschwender! I will have to look at their site. I bet going with them won’t save any bucks, though.
Wow! I am so excited about this one! I have been reading about Moroccan Mint on Steepster for so long and I finally got some today! I never remember to look for it, but as I was buying my Fig Formosa today I saw the big tin and bought 100 grams. I already have plans for getting more….soon.
I made the first steep and hubby and I drank a bit of it hot and plain. We both liked it. The gunpowder green is smooth and the mint is so well blended, it doesn’t overpower the green tea but it isn’t shy, either! This really is about the mint, but it is playing so nicely and sharing the spotlight!
I wanted to ice some of it, and since the young lady who sold it to me told me it is drunk heavily sweetened and hot all year in Morocco, I decided to taste it hot and sweetened, so I made a second steep, planning to then put it in the refrigerator to try as a sweet, iced tea tomorrow. We drank some of the hot, sweetened second steep. It was fantastic! I combined the remaining parts of steeps one and two in a pitcher and put it in the fridge.
I can see this being a summertime staple. I can see not letting myself run out of it this. I want more NOW! Good thing my son lives near Tin Roof Teas and can more for me very easily! I am really excited about how beautifully it resteeped. That really makes it affordable, and I plan to drink a lot of it. This is going to be so refreshing here in our hot, muggy summer.
Like the widow’s cruet of oil (for all you Sunday school go-ers) this tea never runs out. I am on my original bag. It calls for double the usual amount of leaf because of all the flower petals. It is dearly loved by the writers’ group folks who meet at my house, and we drink at least one and sometimes two or three large tetsubins of it. It is so floral and sweet. Honestly the color of the tea in the cup is not appealing. It looks a bit like dirty, slightly purple water. But the aroma and taste are lovely like the dry leaf.
I will probably have to repurchase when it does run out or there may be a well-written insurrection.
Tonight was writers’ group night at my house and that means tea. One member was turning 22 and we had cake that was VERY sweet. This tea went amazingly well with it. I think I made 3 steeps of 22 ounces each, and only four of us were drinking tea.
This is a fluffy tea with lots of flowers, so they recommend using extra leaf. It has a great resteep so that stretches it a bit, and that doesn’t always happen with flavored teas. I believe this is sourced from TeaGeschwendner. It is always well received so I need to make sure I keep it on hand.
and onto my wishlist it goes. :)
I’m going to have to figure out where to find fresh figs locally. (Had hubby’s birthday dinner at a Carrabba’s in NW Arkansas and fell in love with their tenderloin in port wine fig sauce.)
My grandpa has fig trees on his farm. There are a couple of chefs out of New Orleans that drive out to get figs from him and they often bring him some delicious dish as an added thank you. I always thought that was cool of them.
I really wish I could find fresh figs here at a reasonable price,but I don’t see that ever happening.
I think figs are so delicate for shipping and such that it drives the price up. I wish I had planted an offshoot of my MIL’s fig bush years ago. Then I would have plenty now!
Writers’ Group night at my house should mean lots of sip downs. It should be a warning sign to me that with as much tea as we drink at group every two weeks and at tea party every Wednesday I still have too much tea!
Tonight we drank three large tetsubins of this. Everyone loved it. One guest remarked that he liked it because it didn’t dry his throat. I was making 18 ounces, resteeping, and pouring it all into the pot so each pot was a mix of two steeps. I still smell grape candy instead of fig, but it didn’t seem to matter. They loved it, and that was my goal.
Personally, I think it tastes really nice, but I really don’t taste tea. If you are a tea purist looking for a nice oolong with its characteristic flavor, this isn’t for you. If you like a flavored tea, this one is pretty darned good, and it is one of the most beautiful to look at, dry leaves and liquor. It looks almost purple in the cup as the cornflowers and poppies donate all their color!
The aroma of the dry leaf is….candy. Grape candy. Almost grape Dimetapp. This is one of the most beautiful teas I have ever seen. This is SO fluffy that my 100 grams went into a bag that would usually be used for seven or eight ounces of tea, and that bag is STUFFED! This is so full of flower petals that you can hardly find the actual tea! Thus the recommendation to use two teaspoons, heaping, so that you get one actual teaspoon tea.
The liquor is purple. Yes, I mean really purple. And it still smells like grape Dimetapp. It is a good thing grape Dimetapp is a medicine or I would drink it by the gallon and be really huge.
I wasn’t sure I wanted my tea to taste like grape candy, though, and I am glad to say it doesn’t. The aroma is still quite strong but the flavor of the tea is much milder than you would expect from the color and the smell. This is a really smooth Formosa oolong base and I am not picking up any roast-y notes. The grape and fig flavor comes on the end of the sip, riding that aroma up into your sinuses. Then the flavor lingers on your tongue.
We made two steeps so far and the second was as richly colored and flavorful as the first. Those bright blue flower petals are now fully relieved of their color when I look at them in the pot, so I guess I know where this gets its purple hue.This will be fun to serve next Tuesday for tea party day. I think I want to try this iced as well. I think it would be delicious!
OK, where is Tin Roof Teas? You’ve mentioned so many fun places lately, I’m thinking I need to plan a southeastern tea tour!
Tin Roof Teas is in Cameron Village in Raleigh. They have almost three hundred teas and are tea and chocolate pairing specialists. O.O That’s right, I just said that.
The shopping area is so wonderful. Many stores, including TRT, say Dogs Welcome. Most eateries have sidewalk tables and one even provides dog bowls and a hose so your furry friend can have water or share your lunch. Let me know when you make that tour and we will get together for lunch! :)
My current recreational travel budget can foot the gas to the end of my driveway. I may have to walk, so schedule that lunch thing for late in the year ;)
