Hello!

Hi Tea Lovers!!




How have you been? It's been awhile since I've updated you all. I currently live in California, however I'm moving to my home state of Michigan at the end of the month. If only I could have moved in the Spring- moving in the wintertime is very unpleasant. Here in San Francisco it's been very rainy lately. Nobody likes moving heavy items in the rain. No offense to Californians, but they really are not good drivers - add rain and it's a disaster!!




I still drink tea. There's a place in Burlingame, California that my boyfriend and I go to a lot and it's a beautiful tea house that does afternoon tea with traditional tea sandwiches, scones, and lovely Madelines. I usually get Black vanilla bean tea with milk and sugar with cucumber sandwiches.


Oh, before I forget to tell you. I have a new promo code for Canton Tea Co. You can use my promo code as many times as you want for 10% off your entire order. Don't worry- if the products you want from Canton are on sale, the promo code for 10% off still works!!!

Leah2017 is the new 10% off promo code for my Tea blog readers!!!!!!  Get some amazing tea from Canton Tea Co today. PS- I love their Matcha- I had a matcha latte today.


What is your favorite go to winter tea? Do you ever have tea lattes? I love a good tea latte in the winter time.


Have you seen what I'm doing with my life recently? I made a business out of my artwork. I'm having a blast. If you like art, please visit my page. Here's the link. Below is a painting I did called "Viva"

Thanks for stopping by!

Leah

Tea Review: Canton Tea's Green Dragon + Discount

Hello tea friends!

If you haven't already noticed, during the month of May I've been absent. My graduate degree is almost coming to an end and I had 3 papers to write, totaling at 12,000 words. You can bet that I devoted all my time to my studies. Although my blog had to suffer, it's for a good cause. In the next couple months I'll be writing my dissertation, but since I'll be managing my time well, my blog will still be updated like it used to be. How about we review this amazing green tea blend from Canton Tea now.

I was really excited when I opened the bag, because so many amazing scents overwhelmed my senses. What really stood out to me was the citrus and I love citrusy tea. Now, this tea is sencha from Hunan, China and once I opened it I was really excited to see the giant pieces of lemongrass and lemon peels. Lemon + Green tea = love.

As you can see, all the individual ingredients in the blend are really big, generous helpings. You can clearly see the tea leaves, the lemongrass, licorice root, lemon peel and little bits of ginger. I was hesitant because I despise ginger, but I honestly was willing to give it a try. If it was just ginger and green tea I would have had serious reservations about it.

As you can see, in the photos above you can see the tea steeping and then the tea steeped and ready to drink. It's important not to use just boiled water, because with green tea it's really delicate and if you use water that's too hot, it will compromise the taste. I usually boil my kettle and let the water sit for a few minutes so it can cool. It only needs 2-3 minutes of steeping time. This was a 2 minute steep.

Like I said, I was nervous about the ginger in the tea, but it was extremely complementary to the other ingredients in the tea. It worked in harmony with the licorice root, (another thing I don't care for, but it worked well) lemongrass, lemon peel and lemon oil. Basically, a lemony goodness drink that is perfect for summer. It's a very light tea, which I appreciate because I love a light green tea, typically. I do like Matcha, but I struggled with the Matcha challenge because it's quite strong. This Sencha is very light and the citrus ingredients make the taste really lovely. It's also noteworthy that this tea is not astringent at all. It kind of reminds me of an oolong, which is great because oolong is my favorite. I rate this tea 5/5 stars because there's not a thing I would change. It's just so refreshing and well-made. 

If you remember, I do have a partnership with Canton Tea. If you use the 10% off discount: Leah2016 at checkout, I get 10% commission of your order and you get 10% off your order, which is win win. It's not much, but it helps. I'm happy I partnered with them because their tea has an ethnical certification and they get their tea straight from the source, making it socially and environmentally friendly. 

Thanks for reading. 

Leah

Udyan Tea: Gomtee China Classic Black Tea

Tg Tea- a review of green tea

Hello fellow tea lovers! I recently met Hua and Sophia of Tg on Twitter and they offered to send some of their new products from their startup business. I was excited, because a lot of tea that I'm typically sent is black tea and a green tea company is a nice change of pace. That's exactly  why Hua and Sophia created their business, one day they went to a grocery store because they were thirsty, but didn't see anything that was refreshing as well as low calorie in the way of soft drinks. In the hot tea aisle of the food store, they were not impressed with the selection of green tea, either. None of it comes from the source. So Sophia and Hua teamed up with a great idea; to make low calorie iced tea as well as hot tea to the streets of Great Britain. If you look at the photo below, the packaging is quite artsy. The packaging of the tea is influenced by London street art.

Since Tg (pronounced Tea-G) is a start up business, I told Sophia and Hua that in my post about their tea, I'd try and get the word out in addition to the tea review. They're simply two tea lovers that took their passion for tea and put it into a bottle. Quite literally! When they got their packaging art and bottle art printed, they took to the streets to take some photographs. Here's one of my favorites:

Okay, let's get to the review. So the Tg I will be reviewing first is the Green Tea with Jujube and Osmanthus. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd never heard of Osmanthus the flower until I was sent some of this tea. I looked it up and it's a flower that's native to Asia and has a ton of health benefits. Most notably is: it relieves stomach pain, promotes lung health, moisturizes your skin, helps keep you hydrated as well as removes toxins from your body. In China, many people will put a handful of these beautiful leaves into a pot of boiling water to infuse with their tea. Here's what they look like in the wild:

I've heard of Jujube before, but I couldn't really figure out where from. It's a red date that adds sweetness to the green tea and it has many antioxidants. You can see the tea leaves, Osmanthus and Jujube in the actual teabags:

There's a healthy amount of tea in the pyramid tea bag. I'd say about 4 grams of tea. It's really important not to pour just boiled water over green tea, you need to wait a few minutes for the water to cool down. I'd suggest 2-3 minutes, or it can ruin the taste of the tea. Then, pour the hot water over the teabag and steep for about 3 minutes. Look how beautiful this is-mid steep:

Fully steeped it's even better/ The colors of the Osmanthus, green tea leaves and Jujube make a pretty sight:

I tried this tea with and without sugar. It tastes refreshing, earthy and crisp, but if you add sugar it really brings the flavor of the Jujube out as well as the tea. If I'm in a refreshing hot tea kind of mood, something that just truly goes down smooth and simple, I won't add any sugar. However if I'm in a mood where I want something sweet, I'll add sugar and it tastes really good.

Let's move onto the Iced Tea! So they sent me three of them, one with Ginseng, one with Ginseng and Jujube and finally one with Ginseng and Mandarin. Of the three, the iced tea with Mandarin was my favorite. There's something so refreshing about iced tea with a citrus fruit added to it. They only have 30 calories a bottle, so it's sweet, but not overly sweet like how Lipton Iced Tea is. The benefit of green iced tea is that it not only hydrates you, but is proven to be better for you than black iced tea, because of all the antioxidants in green tea. Here's a photo of the tea I drank today on my dining room table:

If you like green tea, you'll love their hot tea and their iced tea. If you've never had green tea, I'd suggest giving Tg a try. It's good to support local businesses. Great job, Sophia and Hua, I'd give your tea 5/5, it's the best green tea I've ever had. Get yours here!

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

Tetley Dunk & Crunch Oat (Crunch) Biscuits!

I was at Poundland today (it's like the dollar store in the US, but with pounds instead!) and Ollie came across Tetley biscuits. At first I only saw the ginger flavored ones and I really don't like ginger, so I didn't really pay attention. Then at the back we found some Oat Crunch flavored ones and so we purchased them. I'm not really in the market for getting myself hooked to biscuits because they're typically high in calories and aren't exactly healthy. I mean, there are some fibrous biscuits, but overall they're just carbs.  I do indulge once in a while, but when we sat down for our second cup of tea tonight we decided to try them. See below for the packaging and then I'll get to the good stuff!

I don't typically drink Tetley tea, but I do have to say their mascot is really cute. It's typically just the man on the outside, but if you look on the side of the box it's the Tetley guy and I'm assuming his friends. Don't quote me on this, I'm an American who didn't grow up with Tetley, although I've seen boxes of Tetley in my hometown.  I didn't think I would find this biscuit much different to the bog standard biscuits you find in this country, but I was wrong. The texture of the biscuit is hard, so if you want to eat it without dunking it, you're going to have a bad time. This biscuit was made for dunking...and that's just what I'll do!

Ollie and I are both drinking Twinings vanilla black tea and it made it the perfect beverage for dunking. This biscuit is no fool either, you can dunk it 4 times and it still won't crumble into your tea. In fact, there were no crumbs in my tea at the bottom. I was amazed! The taste of the biscuit was delightful, too. It was sweet and oaty and had a light honey finish. In the land of biscuits made for tea, I'd say it was perfect. 5/5