What’s in Banana Shake tea?

Banana Shake is an herbal tea blend from Twist Teas, a tea company that’s all about flavours, quality and personality. Twist Teas has a whole range of intriguing blends (see Beetroot Acai Matcha and Choffee Mint), and, also important, an exceptional customer support. Twist Teas blends are available as loose tea and in pyramid corn silk bags, each containing 2.5 grams of tea. Tea bags are big enough to allow tea to fully expand, so you can enjoy the same flavour as when brewing loose tea.  

Banana Shake, an award-winning herbal blend, contains only a few natural ingredients – red rooibos tea, freeze-dried banana, sunflower petals and natural flavouring. It has a deep intense banana scent with deep and sweet notes of red rooibos tea. It smells very inviting. This is undoubtedly a red rooibos blend but crafted in a way to respect both key ingredients, with a personality of a dessert tea.

How to make this tea?

What’s great about rooibos (and most rooibos blends) is that it’s very easy to brew. It’s one of the most forgiving teas out there. Even if you are new to tea brewing, with rooibos you’ll always get the best flavour no matter how you brew it. Bring fresh water to a boil and steep 1 tea bag in a cup of water for 5-10 minutes. Even if you steep it longer, it won’t become bitter.

Banana nots are light, but present in the scent, flavour and ever as an aftertaste. While this is predominantly a red rooibos tea, it’s definitely a banana tea, too. It feels very natural, very pleasant and easy to drink. Although you can drink it with no condiments, to get that proper banana shake experience, prepare it either as a latte, or add 10-20 ml of single cream or full cream milk.

Milk will mellow out the rooibos notes and bring out the milky banana shake flavour. This tea is light, and it doesn’t need any sweeteners as it’s naturally slightly sweet. However, if you do need a sweetener, light honey or regular white sugar are a good choice.

Banana Shake is great tea for afternoon me-time and soothing evening caffeine-free lattes. You’ll like it if you love red rooibos blends, even if you don’t like pure red rooibos tea. You’ll also enjoy it if you love bananas. It’s a light, but very tasty blend, and suitable for tea lovers that don’t like heavily flavoured teas.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water or milk

Day or night? Day or night

Hot or iced? Hot or cold

Sweetened or pure? Pure or sweetened.

Caffeine? No

What’s the price? From £5.00 (different options available)

Where to buy? Get it from Twist Teas website.

The post Banana Shake – Banana Flavoured Herbal Tea appeared first on All That Tea.

What is Brewdolph?

What makes Christmas tea a Christmas tea are spices, berries, nuts and citruses blended with a tea base. By looking at the ingredients, Brewdolph is not just a simple spiced black tea Christmas blend. First, it contains an interesting black tea pair, Ceylon and Yunnan black tea, and some quite uncommon ingredients (at least in tea blends) such as lime leaves and pomegranate flowers. And then, there are classic festive ingredients – cloves, cinnamon, red peppercorns and orange peel. In this blend, a lighter and brighter Ceylon black tea is blended with stronger and maltier chocolaty Yunnan tea. Pomegranate flowers can be used for making a pure herbal tea but are far less common than a pomegranate fruit tea. Lime leaves are common in savoury dishes and they add a refreshing citrusy flavour. If you’re looking for lightness, they are a great alternative to regular citruses.

With these ingredients, Brewdolph promises lightness, sweetness, freshness, zestiness, and spiciness – all important flavours (and more) a proper Christmas blend should have. This tea is available in different packagings and sizes, including loose leaves in pyramid tea bags and regular loose leaves in pouches or caddies.

How to brew Brewdolph tea?

Brewdolph tea has a deep, slightly spicy scent with hints of orange and cinnamon. It’s a very easy to brew tea – use one teaspoon of tea leaves or one tea bag per cup of boiling water and steep for 3-5 minutes. Pyramid tea bags are easy to brew and contain loose leaves of the same quality as loose tea in pouches. They are a perfect choice is you want a cheerful office blend to get you into the festive mood at work, too. This blend brews into a warming, sweet, just delicately spicy and very Christmas cuppa. The first thought? It’s a beautiful snowy afternoon blend for a cheerful Christmas afternoon tea party. It’s a lightly spicy tea, with no bitterness and a buttery mouthfeel. Brewdolph tea tastes great without milk and it feels like there’s an invisible milky ingredient already hiding in the blend. There are orange after notes too, and an incredible lightness and festiveness.

This is a bright and merry blend, rather than a heavily spiced tea. It’s very easy to drink, that would make a perfect festive daily tea too. What would be a great condiment for this tea? A slice of fresh orange would blend really well with all other flavour notes.

The post Here Comes Brewdolph appeared first on All That Tea.

What is Choffee Mint tea?

Choffee Mint tea is a beautiful blend crafted with Sri Lankan black tea, whole coffee beans, cocoa husks, cocoa nibs, roasted dandelion root, peppermint and flavouring. It smells delicious – deep and chocolaty, with minty note and hints of coffee. Think of dark mint chocolate but without sugary sweetness, and that’s exactly what this tea smells like.

Mint and black tea are a less common pair than mint and green tea, but they complement each other really well. The ingredients in Choffee Mint tea make it a brilliant afternoon (or after lunch) tea. Mint may help aid digestion and promote relaxation (Source: ScienceDirect) and both tea and coffee contain caffeine and may help boost energy. This makes it a perfect blend for afternoons when all you want to do is take a nap but you can’t affor it. What’s great about this tea is that it’s blended exceptionally well – all ingredients have their purpose and contribute to the flavour without being overpowering. Roasted dandelion root is often used as a coffee alternative because of its toasty and deep flavour. And then, there are also cocoa husks and cocoa nibs that give a delicate chocolate note, without extreme sweetness. Choffee Mint doesn’t contain added sugar and is suitable for vegetarians.

How to brew Choffee Mint tea?

This tea is available as loose tea in pyramid tea bags, refill pouches and caddies. Steep one teaspoon of one pyramid tea bag in a cup of water (150-200 ml) for 3-5 minutes with boiling water. Choffee Mint has an incredibly deep flavour, with only a slight astringency, dominant dark chocolate note and minty aftertaste. Coffee adds depth, but even if you are not a coffee drinker, this tea will win you over. What’s surprising is that all the ingredients in this Choffee Mint tea have a natural light bitterness, but brewed tea is not bitter at all. It tastes great with no condiments, but you can drink it with some milk and brown sugar, too. Depending on how long you steep it for, you can re-use the same tea leaves one more time. Choffee Mint is both an office blend and a dessert blend for an afternoon tea. It offers refreshment, an energy boost, a very delicious flavour, and it’s easy to brew.

The post Choffee Mint tea by Twist Teas appeared first on All That Tea.

What is matcha?

Matcha is a powdered Japanese green tea with a unique flavour and intensely green colour. It’s a shaded tea that was, until recently, mostly used during the Japanese tea ceremony. Matcha is now super popular, and for a good reason. Not only does it taste like no other green tea, but it may also provide many health benefits. Plus, it’s great for cooking and making lattes.

What is Beetroot Acai Matcha?

This powdered tea blend is not green. In fact, the colour is not even purple. It’s greyish-purple, and that’s because it’s blended with both beetroot powder and matcha tea. The real magic happens once you prepare it.

Beetroot Acai Matcha powder contains beetroot powder, Japanese matcha powder, flavouring granules, and acai berry powder. Both acai berries and beetroot are purple, and purple will change the green colour of matcha. Matcha makes 1/3 of this blend, so one serving will be much lower in caffeine than one serving of regular matcha tea. This powder smells delicious – sweet and earthy with deep beetroot and berry notes. Read more:

• Steeping tea with 5 different vegetables

How to make Beetroot Acai Matcha tea?

While preparing the authentic pure matcha requires some skills and utensils, making a cup of flavoured matcha is usually easier. That’s because you won’t need to froth it and, in fact, it may not foam like pure matcha would. Use can use a teaspoon and create a thick paste using a bit of hot water first, or you can add more water and use an electric hand frother. It may not always be possible to sift flavoured matcha teas because many will contain flavour granules too.

To make any tea powdered blend that contains matcha, use cooler water. Water temperature should be around 80°C or 176°F. Beetroot Acai Matcha is great with ice or with milk. Use 1-2 grams of tea powder per 100-150 ml of water and serve it over ice or add 50ml of steamed milk. You could also use milk only or even use more powder and more water because it has less caffeine than pure matcha. Prepared with hot water, this tea earthy and rich, with a creamy mouthfeel, deep beetroot and light berry notes. It’s only lightly sweet and has a very light astringency. It’s great for making an iced tea and it would be great for making iced treats. If you like beetroot juice and fruity flavours you will really enjoy this tea.

The post Beetroot Acai Matcha by Twist Teas appeared first on All That Tea.