Giveaway: MarketSpice

For Today’s Tuesday Tea, I have a great giveaway, brought to you by the wonderful folks at MarketSpice in Washington state.

A little bit about MarketSpice:

The history of MarketSpice can be traced back to a small tea and spice shop established in Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market in 1911, where they are still located. (How did I miss them during my Seattle trip?)
They offer nearly 200 teas, continually developing new blends which are made daily in small batches.
MarketSpice Cinnamon Orange Tea is their “Signature” blend of black tea with spices and flavorings, though it also comes in different tea bases now.
In addition to teas, MarketSpice has a large assortment of spices as well as their own candle line, honeys, cookies, hot chocolate blends, chocolates, drink mixes, sauces, and mints.

I’ve also received some great looking teas from them to taste and share with you. Unfortunately I’ve only had the chance to try one so far (Knockout Tea), but it was quite delicious! I’ll be sure to report back with my thoughts on all of them, including: Winter Spice, Sunset in Seattle, White Chocolate Mocha, Market Chai, Knockout, Jamaican Fruit, Pike Place Market Anniversary, Egg Nog, Emerald Surprise, and Jingle Bell.

In order to enter to win this spice-tastic gift basket, please check out the widget below.

At the least, please visit MarketSpice and leave a comment here as to what you would pick up at their market if you were transported to Seattle.

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The Persimmon Tree® Tea Company: White Guava

Dry Leaves

Ready for Drinking

Brewing

Tasting Notes

The first smell I get when about to sip this tea reminds me of trail mix with dried, juicy fruit. The taste itself is more mild and clean. The taste opens with guava and then leads into the white peony. The aftertaste is a mix of strawberry and guava bouncing back and forth and finishing with strawberry.

Flavors: Guava, Strawberry

Description

White Guava tea brews a light infusion with a beautiful, rich scent and a delicate tropical flavor. It comprises an exotic blend of white peony loose-leaf tea leaves, strawberries, ginger, and natural flavors, and as with all of our white teas, White Guava tea prepares nicely both hot and iced.

Available through The Persimmon Tree Tea Company | Facebook

Disclaimer: I was given these teas by The Persimmon Tree to review. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

The Persimmon Tree® Tea Company: Wellness Blend & Green Caramel

Tins

Leaves for Wellness Blend & Green Caramel

Check out my other post about Lychee Burst & Jasmine Passion from The Persimmon Tree® Tea Company to learn more about the company and their teas.

You can head on over to their Facebook or website to learn more about them, or browse their teas.

Leaves

Wellness Blend Tea

Designed to do exactly what the title says, this blend of organic herbs, fruits, and spices works well as pick-me-up. Invigorating and life affirming, Wellness Blend combines the best flavors, herbs, textures, and tastes into an excellent elixir. Add flavor and wellness to your senses, your body, and your mind.

This tea has a nice balance of sweetness, acid, fruitiness, and spice. The tartness of the fruit and the spiciness of the herbs balance each other out, and the licorice keeps it bright and clean tasting. The combination of flavors is warming yet calming at the same time. The use of green roobois worried me since I don’t like red roobois, but this added to the fresh taste and to balance out the other flavoring a to keep it from being too potently spiced. The roobois is also more hearty and less vegetal than a green tea and can hold up to a longer brewing.

It is great to have a warm cup of this before bed time to unwind, especially since it has no caffeine.

Leaves

Green Caramel Tea

Our Green Caramel features roasted and steamed green loose-leaf tea leaves, rooibos and sweet caramel pieces. This low-caffeine treat combines just the right amount of body with the richness of the creamy caramel flavor. Enjoy on its own, or with a sprinkle of sugar as a low-calorie dessert.

For all of the ingredients in the description of this tea, I was expecting a sweet, burnt, and roasty cup. I got a clean grassy green tea with a subtle sweetness at the back. The second steeping of the leaves was a little more sweet. I did read on Steepster that others put more than the typical amount of leaves when brewing and preferred those results. Perhaps I will try over-leafing and see what that brew tastes like.

Disclaimer: I was given these teas by The Persimmon Tree to review. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

Black Tea Banana Bread

For this month’s Secret Recipe Club, I had the pleasure of being assigned Ros’ blog, The More Than Occasional Baker. Now, this is my kind of blog! I have a major sweet tooth and prefer baking over cooking. Unfortunately, this made it extremely difficult to choose which recipe I wanted to make since everything looked good to me.

I was choosing between Pineapple Tarts, Earl Grey Tea Cookies, Bananas Foster Crepe Cake, Ginger & Chocolate Oat Cookies, Pistachio, Yogurt, and Elderflower Cake, No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites, Homemade Vanilla Marshmallows, Madelines, White Chocolate & Macadamia Cookies, and Earl Grey Tea Banana Bread.

In the end, I went with whatever recipe I had the most ingredients for. I didn’t have any more Earl Grey tea on hand since we used it all up making Lavender Earl Grey Truffles for Christmas a while ago, but thankfully my friend Stephanie had just gifted me with a whole box of Thai Black Tea that I swapped in.

To continue the Thai-tea theme, I drizzled some thinned out condensed milk on top. The cake was quite dense, which I think was a result of the containers I baked them in (I had this issue with some zucchini bread I baked in these containers) as well as the fact that I just mashed the bananas instead of mushing them to a pulp and substituted yogurt for the sour cream. I also used some of the wet tea leaves to use in the bread itself since I liked the color and texture contrast.

Check out the other Secret Recipe Clubbers below, or head on over to The More Than Occasional Baker to see what she’s whipped up recently!

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NYC Coffee & Tea Festival 2014

This past weekend I went to the New York City Coffee & Tea Festival with my friend Stephanie. We were given press passes from Starfish Junction Productions and booked our transportation.

Fellow tea-lover Stephanie was travelling over 8 hours from Pittsburgh (and I was 5 hours from DC), so I was worried that the festival would be a waste of time or lame. We weren’t able to make the VIP session on Saturday (due to travelling), but we got there around noon Sunday and we were so happy with the festival!

I think it would have been even better if we made the VIP session since my only complaints were: too crowded at times and more food needed.

Tea tasting at Yezi Tea

One of my favorite things about the festival was learning about new teas, tea companies, and meeting the people behind the teas. A great example of this was Yezi Tea. After walking through aisles for a while and snacking on a crepe, we happily plopped down on two stools in front of this booth and watched them prepare their teas in traditional Chinese style. We paged through their impressive booklet of what teas they have and sampled around 10 different teas and learned about their company and different teas.

Yezi Tea - Long Jing, Da Yu Ling, Jin Xuan

Unfortunately, we fell in love with almost all of their teas. Stephanie & I have a soft spot for Taiwanese tea and I especially love oolongs because they’re so nostalgic for me.

Together we got: Da Yu Ling Oolong, Jin Xuan Oolong (Milk Oolong), Tie Guan Yin High Grade (Goddess of Mercy) Oolong, Wen Shan Pouchong Oolong, Gao Shan (High Mountain) Black, Long Jing High Grade (Dragonwell) Green, and Mo Li Hua (Jasmine Pearl) Green.

Another company that really connected with us was Ajiri Tea. It was one of the first companies we visited and we were drawn in by the packaging.

Ajiri Coffee & Tea

Ajiri Black Tea with Ginger

Here is some more information:

Women in the Kisii region of Kenya design and handcraft each label using dried bark from banana trees. […] Each label is unique, and often features a scene from day-to-day life. Inside of each box of tea is a twine made from banana tree bark and decorated with bright paper beads. The women hand cut, roll, and lacquer long, triangular strips of colored magazine paper to make the beads, and twist dried banana bark to make the twine.

In Kenya, it is especially difficult for women to find employment. […] Currently, five different women’s groups, totaling over 60 women, are creating artwork for the Ajiri Tea Company.

After hand-picking our favorite labels for coffee, I also picked up some Kenyan Black Tea with Ginger. Once I found out the profits went to educating orphans in Kenya, I felt even better about my purchases.

Jeni’s Tea – Buddha’s Palm

Before we went to Yezi, we stopped by Jeni’s Tea. They had put their loose leaf tea into wine glasses for smelling purposes, which I thought was a great idea. They also had a lil’ old Taiwanese Grandpa in the corner measuring out teas with a scale, which was endearing (and cute!). We tasted some of their teas (Stephanie got some Gao Shan Mountain Tea and Bao Zhong I believe), and I zeroed in on a nice, red oolong named “Buddha’s Palm”. Their packaging was very beautiful, though the tea was a bit expensive. I also thought it was a bit odd that their logo didn’t match the aesthetic of their packaging or the elegance of their tea, and since they don’t have a website, it is nearly impossible to find out more about their teas.

Chai Diaries – Kashmiri Green Chai & Chocolate Kisses

Chai Diaries – Press Package

Though we met with them at the tail end of the festival, I really enjoyed learning about Chai Diaries. I talked with the owner about their teas, Ami, and loved the flavorful and strongly scented teas. I picked up some Passionfruit Oolong, Kashmiri Green Chai, and Chocolate Kisses. I was given some teas to sample, including Blood Orange, Assam, Darjeeling Second Flush, Dragonwell, Jasmine Green, and Masala Chai. I was drawn by the youthful, colorful packaging, as well as the owner/founder’s passion for her tea.

Joseph Wesley – Press Package

I was instantly drawn to Joseph Wesley’s tea. We swarmed to the booth like moths to a flame. The packaging is simple, colorful, elegant, and modern. We both enjoyed meeting and talking to Joseph and learning about his teas. Stephanie picked up some Lapsang Souchong and I received a few samples, including: Dian Hong Congfu, Bai Lin Congfu, and Lapsang Souchong. I tried a little bit of the Bai Lin Congfu (#6) today and it was a very pleasant cup of tea!

A&D Damn Fine Tea – Chinese New Year & Caravan Blends

What really surprised me is that so many of the teas were close to me! Damn Fine Tea (pictured above) was a pleasure to talk to and they’re actually located in Maryland. Stephanie & I both were drawn to their friendliness as well as their great artistic packaging. I had to grab the limited edition Chinese New Year Yunnan Gold Tips tin, as well as the smoky smooth Caravan smoked tea. Stephanie nabbed the Mount Gray which I fully intend on pilfering from. The whole vibe of their stand reminded me of a Wes Anderson film in a quirky and artistic way.

In addition to Damn Fine Tea, Capital Teas (Maryland/DC/Virginia), and Sahpat Teas (Maryland) were also representing the Washington DC Metropolitan area.

Fashionista Tea Tasting

Fashionista Tea – Press Package

Sahpat Teas – Toasted Almond & Fruity Sangria

Zenzeu – Pina Colada Green, Champagne Blanc, Chai Wedding

RUNA Guayasa

Samples

Chai Mookie Chai Blends

Moon River Baked Goods

Hernan Mexican Hot Chocolate

I met some great companies and tasted some amazing teas and coffees while I was at the festival. I do wish there were some more food options (other than a $10 crepe), since tasting all the teas and coffees can lead to some caffeine jitters. While it was a bit over-crowded at some points, I really enjoyed myself in the afternoon once the crowd had cleared.

Gift Bag

If we would have got there earlier or went both days, we might have been able to attend some of the informative seminars or workshops. But, maybe it’s for the best because then we would have spent more money and not been able to explore New York on the other days.

Regardless, Stephanie & I both enjoyed dumping our loot out onto the floor and seeing each other’s piles. We then, in a post-trick-or-treating Halloween-style, proceeded to swap and barter with each other.