Tea art and Lovejoy's Tea Room in San Francisco

Hi tea lovers!


This weekend my boyfriend and I went to Lovejoy's Tea Room in San Francisco for a rare treat. I discovered the tea room online by accident a few weeks ago  and wanted to go, but noticed there were no open reservations for 3 weeks. We put our names in and the day finally arrived, we drove up to the city from the peninsula and got really lucky with the parking and walked right into a tea wonderland. Every space in the building was decorated with tea related items. I must have seen 300 teacups in that room. The decor was amazing, but the best was yet to come!!

I ordered vanilla lavender black tea and oh my goodness it was amazing. In fact, I can't stop thinking about it. As well as the tea I had the "savory tea" which includes two finger sandwiches and a scone with cream and jam, the good ole English way. My boyfriend was not impressed when I put cream on both sides. Apparently, in England you only put cream on one side, then jam on the other and you put the two halves together like a sandwich.

The sandwiches I ordered were probably the best sandwiches I've ever had in my life. I'm not exaggerating, either. I had coronation chicken- which is also a common British sandwich made of chicken in mild curry mayo. If you're American and reading this you probably just thought "gross." That's what I thought too, until I tried it when I was living in Wales and I became slightly obsessed. The combination of that, lettuce and soft bread is absolutely delicious!

I also had a salmon, cream cheese and caper finger sandwich and those were really excellent as well. My boyfriend had horseradish and roast beef and turkey with English mustard. I didn't try the turkey, but the roast beef and horseradish was pretty good.

After we came home from the tea room I felt really inspired so I decided to paint a tea pot. It turned out so well that I think I'm going to put it on my etsy store. After I painted this I decided that I wanted to do more tea related art in the future. What is something you'd like to be painted? Let me know what you think of my painting!! PS if you like the painting below, you can buy it Here!!

Udyan Tea: Gomtee China Classic Black Tea

Iced Tea: Recipes for Spring!

Khongea Assam Gold- Canton Tea

I was contacted directly by Canton Tea to try and review their award winning Khongea Assam Gold. This was exciting because for me, Assam has some sentiment. This past summer when I was in Bristol, England with Ollie when he was finishing up his internship for a start up company in the space sector Assam was our go-to tea. He'd text me on his walk home from work and I'd time it perfectly so that when he walked in the door I'd have two mugs of Assam ready to drink and talk about his long day at work. Nostalgia is such a strong emotion, I have it for last summer despite it not even being a year old memory. I'd sit on the bed and he'd sit at the wooden table because the apartment he had for his internship was a studio with a shared bathroom. I only stayed with him a few weeks until we made the move to Wales, but he lived in that tiny, tiny apartment all summer while he worked.

Anyways, let's move on to this delicious tea. It's very smooth with lots of golden tips and a sweet, pleasant aroma. I steeped it for about 3.5 minutes, because leaving it in any longer would impact the strength of the tea. It produced a rich crimson colored brew which is very malty in taste. What is great is that this Assam is pleasantly strong without being overpowering, which is an issue with most Assam tea.  Here is a photo of the beautiful leaves:

Note: this image is from the Canton Tea Co website, I did not take the photo myself.


How beautiful are those leaves? If you like black tea, you should give this a try. I love Assam, especially with dessert. I love having a good sugary cake alongside a cup of Assam with a few drops of milk in it. When I take a bite of the cake and I get the sugary goodness in my mouth I wash it down with this Assam and it's the perfect combination. Yum.  I give this tea a 5/5 rating because there's not a thing I would change about it.


This tea is the second flush of Assam which is the best, and it's a great price at $7 for 50 grams or £5 for 50 grams. They ship worldwide and they have prices in American Dollars, Pounds and the Euro. Canton Tea Co has given my readers a 10% off discount off their entire order of tea, just use the discount code TRBL10 at checkout for the discount. (TRBL stands for Tea Reviews by Leah! How cool!)

Leah

Chai Tea Sugar Cookies: Guest Post by Sarah Elizabeth

Hi there tea community!

I think it's important that you guys know that this blog is about what you want to read about tea. I want to make content that you can all relate to. This website means nothing if it doesn't appeal to the tea community. Or should I say communiTEA. My post about my Matcha Chocolate Chip cookies inspired reader Sarah Elizabeth to make her own tea cookies. She tweeted me the idea and the results, so I asked if she wanted to guest post. She said yes! If anyone else has ideas they want to guest post about, don't be shy. Anyone can guest post! You just have to contact me and we will work out the details. Anyways, here is Sarah and her Chai Tea Sugar Cookies!
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Good day world of tea drinkers
Recently after reading about the Matcha Green Tea Chocolate Chip Cookies that Leah had made, it had me wanting to experiment baking with tea.  My go to cookie to bake are sugar cookies so I figured that would be where I would start, after looking at my tea shelf the best choice was using some Twinings Chai Tea hoping it would work out.  (Spoiler alert: It worked deliciously!)

Recipe:

1. I used a pre-packed sugar cookie mix where I only had to add 1 egg, a little bit of water, and room temperature softened butter

2. With the Twingins Tea, I cut open the tea bag and added a few pinches since I didn’t have any loose tea left

3. Mix all ingredients well

4. Place the cookie dough in little balls on the cookie sheet

5. Set the over for 350°F

6. Length of cooking time can vary from 10-13 minutes

It wasn’t a strong taste but you could taste the tea in the cookie.

The hardest part with these cookies was saving some for another day

This is what it looked like when it was done:

Hope you enjoy! 

-Sarah

Ahmad Tea's Fruit Selection Review (Fruit Infused Black Tea)

Black tea will always have a special place in my heart. It was the first tea I ever had and I always drink it once a day. I was really excited last week when I got a package from Ahmad Tea with a selection of fruit infused black tea.

Anyone who frequents my tea reviews knows that I'm a sucker for packaging. I love when companies take time to really think about the consumer and how the box of tea and the packaging of the wrapper need to look in order to appeal to the consumer. The packaging does effect our buying habits even if we don't realize it. Anyways, I love the box the tea came in. Here it is. It's a beauty!

Maybe it's because I'm a fan of minimalism, but I love how it's very concise. Here's our brand name, here's what you'll get inside. Of course there's directions on the box and ingredients, etc on the back, but I love how the front of the box is so simple. Anyways, this is a tea review site, not a packaging review site-so let's get to the good part!

As you can see, there are four varieties of flavored tea. My favorites are Strawberry Sensation and Apple Refresh, mainly because those are my favorite fruits. Ollie loves the Peach and Passionfruit because he loves anything peach related. We have yet to try the Lemon and Lime Twist, but I imagine it's good; a lot of folks put lemon in their black tea. The first time I tried this tea I was seriously intrigued by the apple because I'd never had any kind of apple tea. It was so good and I thought the strawberry wouldn't be able to compare, but I was wrong. Here's a photo of my Strawberry Sensation (it's a little bit edited to try and fix the lighting in my house) and then we'll get down to the review.

Check out that beautiful amber coloring. I added 2 sugars the first time and it was too sweet, so I suggest try it without any and if you want it sweeter than add a sugar or two, depending on how sweet you like your tea. I've had this tea with or without milk, honestly it doesn't *need* it, but if you want to add milk it won't take from the flavor. I give this tea 5/5 because there's nothing I can find wrong with the tea. It's delightful and I find myself craving it throughout the day. I've been using this tea as an alternative to eating sweets. I'll have a craving for sweets and then supplement this tea instead, it's amazing. Another good thing about this tea? It's super affordable at just under £2. Go to Ahmad Tea's website to check it out! 

Here's a bonus picture of the inside of the box

Happy sipping!

Leah

10 % off tea, worldwide shipping

Hi readers! I've teamed up with Canton Tea Company, which is a lovely tea company that uses sustainable tea only and they ship worldwide! All of their tea is ethical and purchased directly from family run farms.

I'm really excited to announce that on my behalf if you buy tea with them, just because you're a reader of Tea Reviews by Leah, you'll get a 10% discount if you enter the code TRBL10 into the discount code box upon checking out. If you want to take advantage of this discount, it will be active for you, your friends and family for the next year.


My favorite part about Canton is their owner's love for tea and of course, their products. Their teaware and looseleaf tea is amazing, or if you prefer their teabags those are great too-they're silky tea bags!


Just go to http://www.cantonteaco.com/  and upon check out enter my discount code:

TRBL10 

(it stands for Tea Reviews by Leah!!)

Oxalis Tea: A guest post review of Out of Africa

Hi readers! My partner, Ollie will be guest posting today. Take it away, Ollie!


It's great to be guest posting here today. I'm going to be reviewing a flavoured black tea from an up-and-coming tea company based out of the Czech Republic, Oxalis (http://www.oxalis.eu). Leah encountered them on Twitter a while back and they very generously offered to send her (and, by proxy - me!) a haul of delicious tea samples, and even some coffee.

We received the parcel this morning and it was jam-packed with a multitude of tea, some we'd explicitly asked for (I asked for the Out of Africa tea and an aged Puerh) and some that was a complete (and very well received) surprise. We'd both like to thank Oxalis for their *ahem* generosi-tea. I'm aware that's a poor joke, that's why I don't have my own blog. But I digress...

The tea I'm reviewing for you today is called 'Out of Africa' (above), an apt name given that there's one very unusual ingredient in this blend. The packaging was nicely designed; including a picture of the beautifully blended tea on the front and the standard list of ingredients and steeping information on the back. This is definitely one of the more interesting teas I've tasted as I tend to stick to breakfast teas, Darjeeling and vanilla black tea. This tea is a blend of Ceylon, cocoa husks, mallow flowers (which add a pleasant burst of purple to this visually stunning tea), and here's the interesting part... Coffee beans!

That's right, this blend is a combination of tea (and, in smaller quantities) coffee beans and cocoa husks. It's effectively the whole enchilada of hot drinks in one cup, without being cloying or overwhelming. How does the flavour of the tea stand up to these unusual ingredients? Very well actually. There are pleasant notes of dark chocolate and a light earthy aftertaste from the coffee without overpowering the delicate flavour of the Ceylon, this is still tea as we know it. The steeping time recommended was two minutes, I think this is about right as I could properly taste the complex flavours without any astringency from the tea. The aroma was very wholesome with notes of malt and barley as well as sweet chocolate. I decided to add a small amount of sugar to bring out the flavour, and it did. The tea is soft and pleasant, surprisingly light on the palette with some depth from the coffee beans. I can already tell this would be a perfect dessert tea.

'Out of Africa' is a high quality and quirky tea that is similar enough to unflavoured blends to taste familiar, whilst exploring new flavours that complement and enhance the tea. Personally I'm very happy with this tea and will be having another cup soon! To close, I'd like to thank Oxalis again for their fantastic service, diverse range of tea and minimalistic, no-nonsense packaging. I give this tea a 4/5 rating. The combination of flavours may not be for everyone but this tea is light and delicious and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. Here's the tea while it was steeping:

Leah here again, I hope you enjoyed Ollie's guest post! Here's a bonus photo of the two of us in Bristol, England this summer:

Leah

Guest Post: Jilly of Blackboard Reviews

Hi there tea drinkers! Today my friend and blogger Jilly is here guest posting. She, too loves tea and isn't afraid to pair her love of gaming with her love of tea. I thought it might be nice to tie in the love of games to this blog, as many people love both. Enjoy! -Leah  PS, I added a photo of the Earl Grey box because I love the design. :)



Tea, the Perfect Companion for any Hobby by Jilly at Blackboard Reviews:


First and foremost, I am a gamer. For me, there is nothing better than coming home from university with a free evening to sit and relax with my favourite game. However, it is the companion of tea that makes the experience all the more relaxing.

My favourite tea is Twinings Earl Grey, this has been my choice since a child as my English teacher always brought it into class and it smelt amazing! Being British, I always have been a run-of-the mill tea drinker, PG tips, Yorkshire Tea, Tetley, and thats why I like Earl Grey: the additional citrus flavour is mild in taste, therefore it doesn't stray to far from my traditional tea drinking habits.

Interestingly, I always found Lady Grey a bit too much, Twinings Lady Grey is stronger than Earl and every time I have tried it I find myself reverting all the way back to plain off-the-supermarket-shelf tea bags. I think I still have a nearly full box of Lady Grey at the back of my cupboard!
Whatever your hobby/job, tea is a suitable companion. Us Brits will use any excuse to essentially procrastinate and make a cup of tea before starting any task, whether enjoyable or not.
Also, don't forget the mug, everyone has their favourite cup to make their regular cuppa in. I personally have a collection of chocolate themed mugs from Mars bar to Cadbury Buttons, I am not ashamed in any way! Here's my collection:

Thanks for reading my guest post, if you want to know anymore about gaming, then take a took at my blog Blackboard Reviews

Jilly

Guest Post: Çay Çek

Today, Sevnur of Çay Çek is guest posting on my blog and will be talking all about Turkish tea customs. I was thrilled when she contacted me, because my brother in law was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. Please enjoy learning about Turkish tea! Below is a photo Sevnur provided.

Turkey is the biggest tea consumer country in the world and the 5th biggest

tea producer. The most interesting thing is the only tea that covered by

snow is Turkish tea. That makes the tea the healthiest and organic at the

same time. No chemicals are used while growing the tea. Tea in Turkey is

mainly the black tea, very dominant all over the country and grown in the

Black Sea region.

Above is Sevnur drinking her tea in Istanbul, Turkey


Tea is the most popular beverage in the country, our informal tea ceremony

starts with the breakfast and does not end till we go to bed. We drink tea

before meals, during meals and after meals, black tea is served free after meals

in most of the restaurants. Turkish black tea has a brisk tea, and is very strong

so some people prefer to drink it with sugar, sometimes with lemon, but

never with milk.



We use a special two chamber teapot called samovar which keeps tea hot

throughout the day. Tea is always ready at houses, offices and restaurants

thanks to samovar. Another unique equipment we use while drinking tea is

the tea glass. It has a very special shape, they call it as thin belly glass or

tulip-shaped glass. It is the perfect glass to drink tea because keeps tea at the

bottom hot while cooling at the top.

See below, a close up of the black tea:

About caycek.com: Çay Çek means "drink tea." It is a Turkish tea website

includes anything and everything about tea.

Breakfast Tea

Typically in the morning is when you want your stronger, more robust tea. My first cup of tea for the day is always black tea, mainly because it has a lot of caffeine and it wakes me up a bit like coffee would do. When I was younger I would always go for English Breakfast in the morning. English Breakfast tea is also found in most of the lower-end teabag market in stores. For example Tetley, or Lipton are variants of English Breakfast, but it is important to note that these are lower quality and are much weaker teas.

What exactly is English Breakfast tea anyways? I would describe it as a full bodied, rich tea that is typically a blend of several different teas. These teas are usually from India and Africa. Most English Breakfast tea, including the kind found in teabags, is usually a blend of Assam, Ceylon and Kenyan tea. As seen above in the photo, if you're looking for a good blend of English Breakfast, I would suggest Twinings. It's a good price for great tea. Buy in the US or the UK. The only issue with the Twinings tea is that it has small leaves, so if you're a teabag user it isn't a problem, however if you drink loose tea then you will need a relatively fine strainer.

There are also variants of English Breakfast teas, such as Irish Breakfast and Scottish breakfast. Since trying Irish Breakfast recently last year, it has been my go to cup of morning tea. It is stronger than English Breakfast because it has more Assam in it and can be described as malty. With any breakfast tea you have to be careful, because if you brew it for longer than 5 minutes, it can be too strong to drink and neither milk nor sugar can save it. As seen above, Adagio make my favorite kind of Irish Breakfast tea. It's delicious. You can find it here for the UK or here for the US. 

Also a choice to bear in mind is Scottish Breakfast, although I've never had it myself. It's the strongest of the three breakfast teas, because it was made back when Scotland's water was soft, which means the water lacks the natural elements typically found in water after it goes through the ground, such as magnesium and calcium. In some Scottish Breakfast teas, you can detect a hint of smokiness. I have yet to find any true reason as to why the Scottish Breakfast tastes stronger, but if I had to guess I would say more Assam and less Ceylon, since Assam tea is very strong and caffeinated and Ceylon is a very weak black tea.

My boyfriend got me this for Valentine's Day. Thought you might enjoy it too!

Leah

Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company: Red Jade (Black Tea)

Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company: Red Jade 

Black Tea

Rating 5/5

Order: on their website here or help them kickstart their company

Today I was excited when I heard a knock on the door and it was the postman with a package from Beautiful Taiwan. I was told I was going to be mailed free samples after I had crossed paths with the founder of the company on reddit. I opened the package and I was presented with beautiful gold packets of loose leaf tea:

Gorgeous presentation of the little packages of tea, the gold adds a nice touch. When I opened the Red Jade bag, I was seriously impressed. The leaves were HUGE. The bigger the leaves, the longer you can steep them and also they are indicative of a better quality tea. Have a look:

Now do you see what I mean? These are hands down the biggest tea leaves I've ever encountered. I put them in my tea pot and brewed it for 5 minutes. It came out looking beautiful with a golden syrup colored finish:

Okay, let's get down to business. I gave this cuppa a solid 5/5 rating because of many factors. First off, the leaves are giant which means high quality. For example, if you were looking for basil leaves at the store and you saw tiny ones in a spice mill or full bodied basil leaves in a pouch, which one would you rather use to cook? Why drink tea with tiny ground tea leaves when you can drink it with giant, flavor bursting tea leaves. Second, the taste. It is light, with a creamy finish. The aroma has notes of caramel and it has very low astringency (very smooth). To finish it off, the tea's packaging was lovely and really minimalist. I'm a sucker for minimalism. There are 4 other teas I was given by Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company, and I will be reviewing them slowly but surely as the year goes on. Want me to review your tea? Contact: leahknadeau@gmail.com

Twinings Vanilla Tea

Twinings Vanilla Tea

Black Tea

Rating: 5/5

Allergens: none

Order: Twinings or Twinings USA (Amazon)

This is probably my favorite bagged tea, ever. You can get this from UK Twinings or on Amazon if you're in the US. Both links are above. I like this tea because it steeps quickly and it's not too strong for a black tea. In fact, I would call this a dessert tea. It's a lovely treat if you're seeking something sweet.  It has a lovely smell to it, in the box and as well, steeped. If you're a green tea drinker looking for a tea with a little caffeine, this would be perfect for you. I suggest you steep this delicate tea for 3 minutes-if you let it sit any longer it will be stronger. If you like it quite strong, by all means. After steeping, it's a lovely red color. 

Gorgeous! Now I do insist on adding some milk and sugar. Or, if you prefer sweetener that works too. Note: I've found that 2 packets of sweetener will be quite sweet, so try adding one packet and if you think one more is needed, then add the second. For those of you that use sugar, two teaspoons is ideal. Here's what the tea's coloring will look like with the perfect amount of milk:

Time to sit down and enjoy my tea! But first, let me tell you why I decided on a 5/5. For bagged tea, it was above and beyond my expectations. Secondly, I love sweet things and the vanilla with the black tea is the perfect balance of strong yet sweet. Honestly, I could have a cup of this every day before bed, unlike the Bollywood Chai I reviewed recently. For £3.00, almost an entire month of tea is not bad at all. It steeps quickly, making it an effortless task to make. I just really like it!

If you have a look at my previous post, there's a free tea giveaway. So have a look!

Leah

Twinings Bollywood Chai Latté

Twinings Bollywood Chai Latté
Black Tea

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Allergens: Almonds

As soon as I poured the boiling water on top of my teabag, the spicy aroma of the tea filled the air. I had a feeling that this tea would be good. Plus, despite it being bagged tea, it was in silky teabags, which is fancy because it's typically big leaves inside the bag. This, however wasn't the case with this Bollywood Chai. The tea looks almost ground up. I took a photo of the teabag for you to examine for yourself:

I was one bummed gal when I realized this tea would be so fine despite it having a silky pyramid tea bag. Usually if you're paying for the fancy type of tea bag, you expect the tea inside to be full leaves of tea, but Twinings presented me with this. This is where this tea lost a star in its rating. After steeping the tea, it had a beautiful amber coloring. I took a photo of that for you, of course. :)

What exactly is in this tea? I noted above that this tea has almonds in it. If you suffer from an almond allergy, please stay away. I was very displeased that I had to read the fine print on this to find there was a nut ingredient, despite nuts being a large allergy people typically have. The title of the tea, Bollywood Chai Latté, has zero mention of almonds so I thought it was Twinings' duty to label the packaging with the appropriate allergy warning. It did not. I was shocked. As a nut allergy sufferer I wasn't happy, although I'm lucky I'm not allergic to almonds! Anyways the ingredients are: black tea, almonds, spice flavoring and honey flavoring. 

My biggest issue with this tea is that it's quite strong. Like, really strong. I suggest adding more milk than usual to truly make this a latté-maybe even heat some up in a sauce pan and add it to the mix. Also, I suggest if you're going to add sugar, add brown sugar because it's a little more sweet and goes perfectly with the honey and almond taste in this tea. This kind of tea isn't something you would want to drink daily. It's more of a special treat kind of tea, because if you drank it often you would get sick of it. I'd suggest it once in a while if it's cold out and you want to cozy up with a spicy, warm tea. 

The 3.5/5 star rating was given to this tea due to it being very strong, as well as the very, very small, ground up tea leaves in the "premium" tea bag. 

Leah

Blueberry Jam: organic black tea

What I love about this tea is that it's a black tea that tastes like an herbal one. Don't like black tea, but love fruit and want some caffeine? This tea is perfect for you. When I first opened the pouch that this loose leaf tea came in, I was amazed. It smelled so fresh and fruity. This is what the tea looks like before I steep it for 5 minutes. If you like weaker tea I'd suggest 3 minutes, but no less. Remember, this is still a black tea and black tea needs to be steeped for a minimum of 3 minutes, from my experience.

What you see above in my spoon is: stevia leaves, organic black tea, elderberries, cornflower pedals and finally, of course-blueberries! What's great about this tea is that it has stevia leaves in it, which is a natural sweetener. As a reader requested yesterday, I'd like to point out that this is perfectly safe for Diabetics. Just don't add your own sugar and you're fine!

This is the tea after it has been brewed. Notice the lovely amber shade, which is from the black tea in this blend. There's a sweet taste to it which completely overpowers the bitterness of the black tea. I didn't feel the need to add any milk, despite the fact that I always add sugar to any black tea. However the added blueberries make this tea blend sweet, not needing the milk to even out the bitterness of the black tea, which I usually rely on. What I love about this tea is that it's very easy to drink. Sometimes I find regular herbal blueberry tea a little bit too sweet. This is the perfect blend of sweet and bitter, a very neutral, non-offensive hot beverage. I give this 5 stars out of 5 because there isn't a thing I'd change about this tea! I love this tea from the one and only David's Tea!