When I was browsing the internet recently, on the hunt for small tea companies, I stumbled across the Colne Valley Tea Company. Looking at the companies profile page, I was staggered to see that they were based in Colchester, Essex. Coming from Dagenham, the company is based not a million miles away from where I grew up, so I browsed their website with interest.
The sheer amount of wonderful teas that the Colne Valley Tea Company have to offer is amazing. They stock tea's that range from black tea's to herbal tea's. White tea's to oolong tea's. It's pretty awesome!
The first tea I've decided to try is Spring Fragrance. It's a wonderful looking blend as you can see, and it immediately caught my interest.
Spring Fragrance is a black tea that is flavoured with various fruits and spices.
The ingredients of this tea include:
Lemongrass, candied pineapple bits (pineapple, sugar), apple bits, orange peels, ginger bits, cardamom, coconut rasps, flavouring, red currants, sunflower blossoms.
What a fantastic mix of flavours there!
The tea is very interesting to look at and to smell. Below is a picture of the tea all ready to go in it's infuser.
Within the tea there are pieces of pineapple, lemongrass and beautiful red currants. (The picture was taken in a bad light so doesn't really show the beauty of this tea).
As this blend has a black tea base, you don't have to be overly specific with how long you brew it for. The instructions on the packet said to brew for three minutes, but as I got caught up in a job it was brewed for a little over four minutes. When it was fully brewed, it had a wonderful coppery colour.
This tea has so many wonderful flavours that it's really hard to know where to start. On tasting my first sip the strongest flavour was the gorgeously sweet pineapple. It was the one taste that I could single out and it tasted as good as the fresh pineapple that you'd buy at the grocers.
But, beneath the sweetness was the very spicy taste of cardamon, a spice that I've tasted in tea's quite a lot recently. This is a very unique, perfectly blended tea, that will have you hooked from your first sip.
As well as the sweet pineapple and spicy cardamon, you have the ever so slightly tangy taste of fresh, crisp apple. Together, all of the flavours work well, they compliment each other, are the tea is very evenly balanced. Although the pineapple was the flavour I found most easy to detect, no one flavour out does any of the others.
The tea retains it's sweetness till the last sip you take and doesn't go bitter as it cools. It's really fantastic.
As I'm sitting here writing this review it's turned cold, the sky is grey and heavy and it's raining. But Spring Fragrance just seems to brighten everything up. From it's name, to it's fruity taste, you feel as though your experiencing just a little bit of the joys of spring.
This is a delicious, tasty tea, that is lovely to look at, has a heady aroma and a richly smooth taste. I'm so glad I managed to try Spring Fragrance. It will certainly brighten up your day.
For more information on Spring Fragrance then please go to the black tea section . But, aside from Spring Fragrance, I would highly recommend you to have a good look around the site. I'm positive you'll find a dozen teas (a least) that will tickle your fancy!
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