July’s Tea Box

‘Tis the month for icing teas! We hope everyone who joined us at the Iced Tea-Off had a blast. Two of this month’s teas, Ginger Peach from the Tea Spot and Strawberry Mint from Herbal Republic, were featured at the Iced Tea-Off were met with high scores and happy sippers. Try them hot (if you’re one of those hot tea fanatics who can handle hot tea in this weather, or perhaps live in the North Pole?) or iced! Check out our newsletter for an in-depth explanation on how to cold-brew tea. Silver Service’s Quince Green is the green tea this month, a surprisingly delicious and well-balanced combination that uses sencha and fruit pieces. The rooibos this month is Aromatica’s Vanilla Honeybush – we were actually shocked when we cold-brewed it at how tasty it is iced! However you enjoy your teas, we hope you do, and that you’re having a wonderful summer. Happy sipping!

Aromatica’s Vanilla Honeybush

Description: Smooth aromatic vanilla caramel flavour. Delicious hot or as an iced tea.

Ingredients: Honeybush, natural vanilla flavour, vanilla bits

Jenny, “Mellow. Sweet. Gold.”

Herbal Republic’s Strawberry Mint

Description: Winning the hearts of strawberry tea drinkers everywhere, this herbal infusion is the perfect balance between earthiness and berry fun. A beautiful, clean drinking experience!

Ingredients: Apple bits, haricot bean peels, stinging nettle leaves, blackberry leaves, black current leaves, nana mint, natural flavours, and strawberry bits.

Michael, “Amazing!! The first all natural strawberry tea that absolutely delivers the berry goodness.”

Tea Spot’s Iced Ginger Peach Tea

Description: Our rendition of America’s favorite flavored black tea is an elegant and authentic twist on the conventional. We handcraft this tea on a premium blend of two full leaf black teas, which provide the perfect balance to the real organic ginger root. Absolutely fabulous served over ice!

Ingredients: Black tea, organic ginger root, and peach flavoring.

Zeta, “The ginger is fresh and alive, dancing on my tongue.”

Silver Service’s Quince Green

Description: This is one of our top rated iced green teas. A whole leaf sencha green tea that’s decorated with cornflower and mallow flower, and is flavored with quince fruit. Wonderfully refreshing!

Ingredients: Sencha, cornflowers, mallow flower and quince fruit.

Zeta, “That was one of the best iced teas I have ever had.”

June’s Tea Box

This month’s box is dedicated to the dads. Mount Kenya Estate, our black tea from Justea, is an exquisite, creamy and rich single-estate, artisanal black tea grown and harvested by Kenyan farmers (and dads)! We were surprised to find that it also tastes incredible iced! This month’s green is Morning Spirit, a sencha blend from Tea Desire with rose and sunflower blossoms. This is only the second sencha blend we have approved this year, and we have tried many! It’s a clean, flavourful cup that has earned its place in our Father’s Day box. Rishi’s Ginger Lime Rooibos is flavourful, fun and packed with all kinds of nutritious ingredients. Dads, we are looking out for your health too! Drink this tea hot or iced to reap the benefits. Finally, another tea from Tea Desire: Maracuja Orange! This tea will make your whole kitchen smell amazing. While we love it hot, it is absolutely delectable iced! We encourage you to drink this tea on ice while barbecuing, doing the crossword, washing your Mustang or anything else you enjoy doing on Father’s Day! Happy Father’s Day and happy iced tea sipping!

Morning Spirit

Description: A wonderful and dry green tea with a gentle mango-bergamot flavour that complements the tea great.

Ingredients: Sencha green tea, rose flower, sunflower blossoms, and natural flavour.

Jenny, “It’s a summer blossom shower dancing on the tip of your tongue.”

Mount Kenya Estate

Description: A sip of our Kenya black tea transports you to the lush, rolling green hills of Mount Kenya. This tea is fresh, malty, and smooth, but packs a serious hit of flavor. Sweet and complex on its own but equally superb with a splash of milk and honey to start the day off right!

Ingredients: Mount Kenyan Black Tea.

Michael, “Bright, tart and rich. A perfect Kenyan black.”

Organic Ginger Lime Rooibos

Description: The dry and pleasantly flavored West Indian Lime variety gives our Organic Ginger Lime Rooibos a unique and zesty citrus flavor with notes of ginger and rare spices. The brilliant turmeric yellow and orange infusion glows in the cup and has wonderfully refreshing notes of tropical fruits and spices.

Ingredients: Organic Fair Trade Certified™ green rooibos, Organic ginger, Organic lemongrass, Organic lemon myrtle, Organic licorice root and natural essential oils of lime and tangerine.

Jane, “Smells excellent – the ginger notes balance well against the citrus aromas and the suggestions of the liquorice – wonderful, heady, and seductive.”

Maracuja Orange

Description: An alive taste of exotic passion fruit and tangy orange. Incredible served hot, but unbelievable served cold!

Ingredients: Apple pieces, pumpkin, carrot, raisins, orange pieces, beetroot, orange peel, and natural aroma.

Michael, “The perfect citrus iced tea. An outstanding 10/10!”

May’s Teas Have Been Delivered, Enjoy!

From tea growers to blenders to world-leading sommeliers, our community includes people at every step of the process. We taste dozens of teas each month, with no affiliation to blenders, and chose the blends that inspire us most to share with you. We do this by having our team of tea connoisseurs and sommeliers sample and score the teas for look, region, aroma and of course, taste. We take pride in delivering a variety of world-class blends to your door every month – we feel we deserve it, and so do you!

Now taking orders on June’s teas shipping on the 17th.

Happy Mother’s Day month! As you may have already heard, we are proud new parents of a one-month old baby girl, so Mother’s Day this month was a pretty special event in our home. As a special treat for this month’s box, we’re featuring some teas that have gotten a lot of love over the past few years from our members for what will decidedly be their last time in a Tea Box. The Tea Spot’s Coconut Cabana (formerly known as Coconut Milky Oolong) is a blend of milk oolongs and shaved coconut – that’s all! It is a staple in our home and the tea that always sells out first at our shows. Trust us on this one. Our featured black is Rishi’s Lavender Earl Grey. Rishi prides themselves on the quality of their ingredients which are purely fair trade, organic and this tea beat out over 50 other earl greys we have sampled over the years. Only you know how you like your earl grey (and we’re hoping you do, or are at least willing to try!), but we love it with milk and honey. For this month’s herbal, Sonnentor’s Spring Kiss is a beautiful peppermint blend with all sorts of yummy ingredients and is incredible iced for this last month of spring. It’s also one of our all-time favourite herbals and always sells out at our events. Tiesta’s Red Rose Rooibos is fruity, floral and uniquely delicious. It’s a sort of tribute to our daughter Ettarose, so you best be liking it, or you’ll have one offended little baby at your door. Happy spring, happy Mother’s day, happy sunny iced tea days.

Enjoy!

April’s Teas

Fruit tea haters, listen up. This month’s line-up is a sort of challenge to the blanket refusal to enjoy any tea mixed with fruit. Although we ourselves tend to be more on the purist side of the tea palette, three out of this month’s four teas are what could be called ‘fruity,’ and we ourselves are shocked at how much we love them. First and foremost, we have to admit that before we tried Thay Tea’s Chocolate Blueberry Organic tea, this month’s black tea, we were skeptical. Who wouldn’t be?

Chocolate tea is not easy to pull off without creating something that just tastes like artificial flavour. But the cocoa nibs do just that, and this tea, we believe, will surprise and delight you too. Our herbal this month is Sonnentor’s Organic Cheery Fruit Tea. It is so unique and flavourful! We like it with a bit of honey. Our…umm…other…herbal is The Tea Spot’s Blood Orange Smoothie. This tea tastes like Orange Crush! If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where it actually feels like spring, try it iced while you’re enjoying the weather.

Our green tea this month is not actually fruity at all – it’s just awesome! Clouds and Mist from The Tea Spot (yes, they have a double feature this month; they’re that good) ‘has a compelling aroma or smoky, citrus and vegetal.’ Seriously, folks, we know this sounds a little weird. Maybe more than a little. But trust us! We are in love with this tea’s beautiful, nutty flavour profile.

Happy sipping!

Clouds and Mist

Description: Clouds and Mist organic green tea, also known as ‘yunwu’, has a compelling aroma of smoky, citrus and vegetal. Its earthy taste, reminiscent of sweet, roasted artichokes, is well-rounded, with a slight note of toasted pecans.

Ingredients: 100% Organic Green Tea: Yunwu

Health Benefits: By now, the health benefits of green tea have been well-established. Here are just a few of the reasons we love it so much: it’s been shown to fight cancer and heart disease, lower cholesterol, prevent diabetes and stroke and to fight infection. It’s tough to beat that!

Darcy, “Wonderful! Love the citrus earthy taste. I could drink this all day.”

Chocolate Blueberry Organic

Description: This blueberry chocolate tea combines the maltiness of Assam black tea, the sweet aroma of blueberries, and a creamy chocolate finish. Add a touch of honey and it makes a wonderful dessert!

Ingredients: Black tea*, cornflowers*, cacao nibs*, tea flowers*, and natural botanical extracts*. *Organic

Health Benefits: Most people don’t realize black tea comes with many of the similar health benefits as green tea, including reduced risk of stroke and heart disease, among many others. As well, black tea is said to increase energy, aid in digestive health and to promote healthy skin and hair. Black tea’s tannins are also great immunity-boosters.

Michael, “Wow, this is not at all what I expected. A beautiful black tea with a wonderful aftertaste of chocolate covered blueberries.”

Blood Orange Smoothie

Description: This creamy blend of naturally caffeine–free South African red rooibos, orange, and vanilla is herbal bliss!

Ingredients: Rooibos, orange peel, hibiscus, rosehips, apples, safflowers, rose petals, vanilla, and citrus flavors.

Health Benefits: This incredibly flavoured caffeine-free tea is growing quickly in popularity but did you know that it also contains high amounts of antioxidants? Although the antioxidants found in rooibos tea are different from those in green tea, they are still known to fight off free radicals in the body. Rooibos tea is also known to fight off cardiovascular disease, liver disease and lower blood pressure.

Jenny, “Steamy creamsicle perfume with a vibrant tart taste that is bettered with honey. Delicious!”

Organic Cheery Fruit Tea

Description: Honey brings out the flavours of this original blend. Lovely natural sweetness with a hint of orange.

Ingredients: Rose hips, orange peels, rooibos, pears, quince fruit, fennel bitter dark, organic vanilla bourbon flavour.

Health Benefits: The phrase “herbal tea” or “tisanes” usually refers to infusions of fruit or herbs made without the tea plant. Regarding their benefits, apart from being the perfect refreshment on hot summer days, they are also packed with vitamin C. So it’s a great way to get your vitamin C without having to eat all the sugars that come with whole fruits.

Michael, “Spicy orange, liquorish cherry taste. Original energetic blend, love it.”

March’s Teas

Some of our members on the west coast may already be feeling like spring is near – it’s lighter in the mornings, birds are chirping, the sun is out! Some other members…not so much. Our hearts go out to you and we feel confident that whether you are rejoicing the weather or trying to shovel your way out the door, this month’s Tea Box will make your life a little sweeter. Our featured black tea this month is Tiesta’s Passion Berry Jolt. This fruity black is sweet and strong, one of our top-rated black teas from the Tea-Off, and incredible hot or iced (again, our apologies, east-coasters).

Our green tea is Tea Desire’s Strawberry Champagne. Doesn’t that sound delish? Open your bag and give it a whiff as soon as it arrives. You will understand how difficult it was here at Tea Sparrow Headquarters for us to smell this tea as it was being packed without drinking it! (Well, ok, maybe we had a few cups. ☺) This month’s herbal is Herbal Republic’s Camillo Organic, a bright and hearty floral chamomile blend that will surprise you. Finally, some of you may already know Aromatica’s Freedom Tea, one of our members’ absolute favourite rooibos blends with multiple renditions of lemon and some vanilla. Yum! This tea was rated as our number one rooibos tea at our Tea-Off festival!

Herbal Republic’s Camillo Organic

Description: Winning the hearts of chamomile and non-chamomile drinkers a-like. This herbal infusion is the perfect balance between earthiness and citrus zest.

Ingredients: Citrus Peels*, rosehip*, chamomile flowers*, blossoms*, lemongrass*, nana-mint*, & hibiscus*. *Organic

Health Benefits: Chamomile throughout the ages has been regarded as a medicinal cure-all. It was considered a universal remedy by the ancient Egyptians, and the Romans and Greeks used chamomile flowers as a compress to apply to wounds to speed healing. It’s no wonder that modern medicine has been able to find so many additional health benefits to this flower as a tea. Here are but a few: chamomile tea boosts the immune system and fight infections associated with colds. It also helps relieve muscle spasms and menstrual cramps, relaxes the nerves, soothes the stomach, reduces inflammation, improves liver function, helps relieve back pain and rheumatism and is most well-known as a sleep aid.

Darcy, “Sweet, tart, earthy delicious. Definitely a regular for my tea cupboard!”

Tea Desire’s Strawberry-Champagne

Description: Sweet and seductive aromatic fruit flavour with a breeze of champagne!

Ingredients: Sencha green tea, carrot pieces, pineapple pieces (pineapple, sugar), strawberries, cornflowers, sunflowers, natural flavour.

Health Benefits: By now, the health benefits of green tea have been well-established. Here are just a few of the reasons we love it so much: it’s been shown to fight cancer and heart disease, lower cholesterol, prevent diabetes and stroke and to fight infection. It’s tough to beat that!

Zeta, “The Strawberry tropical smell while brewing is great, but the taste is so sophisticated.”

Aromatica’s Freedom Tea

Description: Intense lemon taste in a caffeine free, high antioxidant base. What could be better? Only one thing: proceeds from this tea are donated to International Justice Mission Canada to fight human trafficking internationally.

Ingredients: Green rooibos, red rooibos, lemon myrtle, lemon verbena, and lemongrass, with just a hint of vanilla.

Health Benefits: This incredibly flavoured caffeine-free tea is growing quickly in popularity but did you know that it also contains high amounts of antioxidants? Although the antioxidants found in rooibos tea are different from those in green tea, they are still known to fight off free radicals in the body. Rooibos tea is also known to fight off cardiovascular disease, liver disease and lower blood pressure.

Michael, “Nice variety of lemon used. Very relaxing yet invigorating blend. Make a great ice tea as well.”

Tiesta Tea’s Passion Berry Jolt

Description: It may look hefty, but this tea is light on its feet and has grabbed raspberry for a dance partner. If you need the energy of a black tea but want that fruity flavour, cut in and give this a whirl.

Ingredients: Black tea, marigolds, cornflowers, raspberry and passion fruit flavouring.

Health Benefits: Most people don’t realize black tea comes with many of the similar health benefits as green tea, including reduced risk of stroke and heart disease, among many others. As well, black tea is said to increase energy, aid in digestive health and to promote healthy skin and hair. Black tea’s tannins are also great immunity-boosters.

Michael, “Light and refreshing, but still packs a punch. Awesome!”