Summer is the ideal season for gracefully scented teas and fresh floral teas. Below is a list of what loose leaf teas we consider to be the best teas for summer. Many of these are also our favorite teas on ice!
Organic Blue Mountain Nilgiri (Organic Black Tea): These rich burgundy leaves from India’s Nilgiri Mountains steep into a bright amber liquor, with a well-rounded body that floats on your palate with hints of ripe summer blackberries. What makes it an extraordinary iced tea is that it doesn’t cloud when chilled, as most freshly steeped black teas will.
Vintage Oolong (Oolong Tea): Hints of ripe apricots and lilacs combine to produce a tender, timeless green oolong. This one’s the best value of any tea you’re making large volumes of, since two teaspoons make a 64-oz pitcher. Oolongs are the midway between black and green teas. Delicate, refined, and understated – they are considered the true connoisseur’s tea.
Mango Tango (Black tea): Mango Tango is a fresh take on the classic tradition of flavored black teas. This blend of crisp Ceylon and fresh passion fruit and mango creates a light and fruity combination. It has a sweet aroma of ripe mango, with an uplifting, exotic taste, and makes a most delicious gourmet back iced tea.
New Moon Darjeeling (Organic black tea): Full-bodied flavor and bouquet, with a muscatel flavor, dark amber color and exceptionally smooth. The perfect afternoon teatime tea for summer!
Boulder Blues (Green tea): Our best-selling green tea. Wild strawberries and rhubarb grace Japanese Sencha and Chinese Dragonwell teas. The ideal accompaniment to dark chocolate. Delicious iced.
Dragonwell(Green tea): Considered to be one of the world’s finest green teas, from the Dragonwell region of China. It is truly a marvelous tea. Its narrow and flat leaves produce a soothing aroma when brewed. Tastes delicate and rich, and has a slight hint of chestnut flavor. The leaves are picked and hand processed in early spring. They have a thin, delicate appearance with a golden sheen and give a pale green infusion that’s lightly sweet and tremendously fragrant.
Jasmine Pearls (Green tea): This is a very high grade green tea from the Fujian Province in China. Spring picked green tea is lightly scented when hand-rolled with fresh jasmine and expertly shaped into ‘pearls’. It brews into a heavenly tea with a gorgeous aroma. The leaves may be reinfused multiple times. When steeped, the “pearls” slowly unfurl into long needle shaped leaves releasing its light and wonderful aroma.
Meditative Mind (White -Green – Herbal tea): This blend of pure Chinese white tea, rosebuds and jasmine pearls creates an experience of aromatherapy that sharpens the mind and arouses the senses. The floral, exotic scent of night–blooming Jasmine is uplifting and soothing, and is used as an anti-depressant in herbal medicine. Rosebuds are used to ease nervous tension and stress, and have a calming effect on the mind. This combination works together to enhance the light, subtle flavor of the white tea leaves. This tea brews into a golden liquor with a very soothing fragrance, and will turn any day into a spa day.
Blood Orange Smoothie (Caffeine-free herbal tea): A creamy blend of naturally caffeine–free South African red tea, orange, and vanilla, this herbal tea combines rooibos, orange peel, hibiscus, rosehips, apples, safflowers, rose petals, vanilla, and citrus flavors. It brews into a dark red liquor with a naturally sweet, creamy taste and aroma, reminiscent of orange creamsicles and Orange Julius smoothies. Kids and adults both love this herbal tea, making it a great substitute for sugary juices and sodas, with no lack of flavor or thirst-quenching satisfaction. It is fantastic by itself, or with cream and a bit of sweetener. You cannot over–steep this tea (the longer the better). The health benefits of rooibos are numerous; it is full of antioxidants and healthy minerals such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, and fluoride.