Dr Stuarts, Higher Living & Kromland Farm
Pre-Release Goodie Box
I'm relatively new to the Dr Stuart & Higher Living brands and to be honest had not heard of Kromland Farm before opening this wonderful little box of tricks.
However upon tasting each of this amazing teas I am now a firm fan of all 3 brands!
In our box were the following teas:
Dr Stuarts - Puerh Blackberry
Dr Stuarts - White Tea Strawberry Chilli
Dr Stuarts - Yerba Mate Chipotle
Higher Living - Green Tea Coconut
Higher Living - Vanilla Chai
Kromland Farm - Organic Berry Rooibos Tea
Kromland Farm - Organic Chai Rooibos Tea
First I'm going to talk about the gorgeous Dr Stuarts selection, all loose leaf may I add!
At work I've bought a cheap teapot which we use every afternoon for afternoon tea as I am on a mission to get as many people as I can to appreciate the wonders of loose leaf tea, so this is how I have enjoyed each of these teas, in the company of the few I have converted.
First I opened the Puerh Blackberry, it smells so strong and fruity I just couldn't wait to drink it! When brewing it I had to resist continuously taking off the teapot lid to keep smelling it, once brewed the tea had a wonderfully deep colour taken from its fruity roots. When drinking it this tea manages to have 2 distinct flavours, first the blackberry wows your tastebuds then the gorgeously earthy taste of the Puerh comes through to tell you, yes this is a Puerh! This glorious combination of flavours continues throughout the whole cup and indeed the whole pot. The girls in my office who tried this with me are totally new to Pureh, I'd not bought one in to share before. One of them described it as the best tea I'd ever given them (and I've given them a lot of tea to try!). On the whole I think this blend has managed to ensure that at least one of the girls will be treating themselves to an infuser when this hits the shelf.
Next I had the White Tea Strawberry Chilli, this smells wonderful, there is no doubt however that there is chilli present as I could feel my nose tingling as I took a deep breath! Now I have found after living with my Mister for a year that I have little or no tolerance for chilli and he fills our food with it but this I love and the chilli is enough to notice but not enough for me to then down glasses of water! My tea girls and I found that you first taste the strawberry but just as the tea reaches the back of your mouth the chilli makes it presence known, this make my throat tingle after every mouthful. It is an unusual combination, not one you'd generally think go together but it really works.
Finally from this range I opened the Yerba Mate Chipotle, the tingle the last tea gave was nothing compared to this one! The tingle became a slight burning sensation which made me all the more curious to take my first sip. This blend put me in a mind of a type of chai, the presence of the cinnamon makes this blend slightly sweet at first, then I got the savoury from the mate and then the chipotle sneaks up and yells hello! This blend is as spicy as I can get without setting off my chilli alarm. This is most definitely one of those winter warming blends but I could quite happily drink it all year round, and will.
Next the wonderful Higher Living Pyramid Teapees.
First I opened the Green Tea Coconut, the smell of this tea took me back to my holiday in Barbados a few years back! I closed my eyes and I was on the beach sipping a cocktail! My first cup I accidentally over brewed after getting distracted by a colleague needing help, thankfully my second cup was perfectly brewed and totally gorgeous! As I collected my package before work it spent the day sitting on my desk with people picking up the boxes and smelling them whenever they walked past, this one had everyone coming back around a second time! This said second cup was truly wonderful! I can easily imagine icing this blend in the summer with an added splash of Malibu to really make this a treat to remember. Once brewed correctly I found I was hard pushed to not finish it in one large gulp, I have few friends who can't wait to get a box all of their own!
Then I opened the Vanilla Chai Black Tea, this smells wonderfully sweet and quite rich. The vanilla is really the first thing you smell once opening the box, then the chai seeps through to really set the scene. The Teapee has some quite large bits and bobs inside it so this is more like a loose leaf tea that has been placed in an infuser, this creates a gorgeous infusion that has quite a few different flavour layers. I drank this with milk but found it didn't need the usual sugar I add to my chai to truly bring out the flavours. I will always have a major love affair with chai, it's like a big hug in a mug! They say that a cup of tea makes everything better, for me chai is the next step up! This beauty may be my next go to cuppa after a hard day with added Baileys instead of milk.
And finally Kromland Farm, a brand I'm afraid to admit I hadn't heard of but have found a permanent spot in my ever growing stash after tasting these 2 beauties, they only sell organic rooibos and you can really taste the difference!
From this shiny new range first I tried their Organic Berry Rooibos Tea, this blend smells gorgeously fruity, the rooibos scent comes through too, it's so pure! After adding the water the smell got even stronger, even my cat was sniffing around it, I had to push her away before she tried to stick her paw in to taste it! Burned kitty paws are not a good outcome! Once fighting off Yasmine the first sip was just perfect, I seemed to get a different taste with every mouthful, the berries just burst through the rooibos compliments this excellently. There is none of the tartness some berry brews can bring, only wonderfully subtly sweet flavours. This another one that would be brilliant iced and mixed with an alcoholic beverage, probably Pimms! Honestly I don't spend all my time thinking of teas that will mix with alcohol! I just have to try new mixers as I try not to drink many fizzy drinks!
And last but by no means least I opened the Organic Chai Rooibos Tea, this one has a more subtle fragrance that the Higher Living Vanilla Chai but from scent alone this undoubtably chai, and the rooibos is hovering behind the various spices. Again with this chai I added milk but I also did add my usual sugar to just help bring out the more subtle notes in this blend. Upon tasting this for the first time the subtleness continues, that makes this brew all the more wonderful. My colleague and I dubbed this as beginners chai, I would serve this to a chai virgin as it would not be too overpowering for them but would have enough of a tease to get them to sample more and become as hooked as I am. This would be a perfect replacement for a morning coffee as the chai helps to awaken the senses but the rooibos means that there will be no caffeine crash later in the morning. What can go wrong? In my opinion nothing, no chai I've tasted has been bad and this is no exception, this too will have a spot firmly in my vast tea stash.
All in all I have loved every single one of these 7 fantastic blends and will be recommending them to anyone who will listen, I know my tea girls at work are looking to get their hands on a few of these as soon as they are readily available and I don't blame them! Every single one has been a big hit with with me, they went from strength to strength and managed to cover every period in the day between them! In short I managed to get an entire day of different cups in one fabulous box! Keep an eye out for these amazing blends for they will be hitting the shelves in the near future!
