05 October 2015
STEENBERGS TEA TASTER PANEL Morning Brew herbal tea & organic Fairtrade Earl Grey Tea
Our tea taster panel had a delicious choice of teas this time, with a delicate organic Fairtrade Earl Grey and one of our new herbal tea blends, Morning Brew. We had some great comments on both teas, although 63% of you did prefer the Earl Grey. Read on to find out more…
STEENBERGS MORNING BREW HERBAL TEA
About Morning Brew:
Steenbergs Organic Morning Brew Herbal tea is an organic caffeine-free herbal blend created for Sophie as a decaff morning herbal brew. It is hand crafted and packed by us to Axel's special recipe from organic redbush, organic oatstraw, organic ginger, organic cardamom, organic cinnamon and organic orange peel. The redbush provides the body, the oatstraw is uplifting and the spices add a zing and a spring to your step.
“I start every day with a mug of this tasty morning brew without milk - it starts my day perfectly,” says Sophie.
Since we sent out the samples to our lovely tea taste panel, we have made a couple of changes to our Morning Brew. Firstly we have managed to find organic oatstraw so we can make Morning Brew completely organic – hooray! Secondly, we have relaunched our herbal teas in brand new practical packaging to make it easier to see the delicious blends. We’d love to know what you think…
What did you think of Morning Brew?
Given the name ‘Morning’ Brew and the blend of uplifting herbs, it was interesting to see that only 29% would drink it just in the morning, with the majority happy to drink it at any time of the day (56%) and 9% in the evening. Only a tiny minority didn’t like the blend.
The vast majority of our tea tasters enjoy herbal tea on a regular basis (88%), with 77% rating it excellent or good. When asked to describe how it made you feel we were delighted to find that ‘refreshed’, ‘invigorating’ and ‘energised’ were frequent words, as though was ‘relaxed’ – how good to feel both at the same time!
Although very positive about the tea, it wouldn’t be the majority of our panel’s first drink of the day, many of you preferring a caffeinated drink such as coffee or black tea to give you that much-needed kick start. Maybe it doesn’t go well with toast which it what the majority of our panel have for breakfast. We particularly liked the sound of ‘toast with a savoury topping - goats cheese & honey or peanut butter & black pepper’ – delicious!
STEENBERGS ORGANIC FAIRTRADE EARL GREY
About Steenbergs Earl Grey:
Steenbergs Organic Fairtrade Earl Grey Tea is a deliciously light and fragrant classically scented organic black tea. It comes from the Greenfield organic Tea Estate which lies between 5000ft and 6000ft above sea level in the Uva Highlands in central Sri Lanka. We pay a premium for the social welfare of the 770 people on this Greenfield Tea Estate. Visit our About FAIRTRADE page for more information.
Sri Lanka is a jewel of a tropical island, located just above the equator with perfect growing conditions for organic Fairtrade tea, the climate is temperate, but rainy. Uva tea is regarded by the Japanese as the best of all Ceylon teas and we tend to agree. It produces a pale liquor with a slightly astringent taste that works very well with the flowery Bergamot flavour.
We use Greenfield organic Fairtrade Orange Pekoe grade tea leaves as its base, which compliments the sweet, citrus flavour of bergamot oil. We only use 100% organic bergamot oil for flavouring. The story is that in 1830 the second Earl Grey was presented with the recipe for this tea during a diplomatic mission to China.
What did you think of our Earl Grey?
With 78% of our panel rating the tea either Excellent or Good, here were some of the lovely comments you gave us on our Earl Grey:
“Wonderful!”
“Earl grey is a winner in my books, again down to the taste but I loved it!
“Even the last cup from the pot is lovely.” “It hits the spot.”
“Rarely drink Earl Grey - but this is amazing! Love the large tea leaves.”
However some of you were less enamoured and felt that the tea was not as intense or flavoursome as you would have liked.
Here are some of the flavour and aroma descriptions that you came up with. It’s interesting to see that both ‘strong’ and ‘mild’ featured heavily, although ‘delicate’, ‘light’ and ‘citrus’ were definitely the main adjectives used.
Of our taster panel, 59% were already regular Earl Grey drinkers, enjoying Steenbergs but also several other brands. Over half of our panel drank the Earl Grey without milk and of those, 26% drank their black tea with lemon, with a small handful added sugar or honey to their tea. If milk was added is was most likely to be cows milk (76%) although a variety of other milks were drunk including soya, almond & goat’s; although of those who drank both, several preferred cow’s milk in their tea but non dairy on cereal.
It was interesting to see that the vast majority of our panel enjoy their tea from a tea pot, with 72% feeling it is a ‘must’ for an enjoyable tea experience. A tea bag versus loose leaf tea was another interesting debate and really boiled down to time. 54% definitely prefer loose leaf, with 20% preferring bags and 26% using either depending no how much time they had.
58% of our panel also enjoyed tea as their evening drink of choice, although 76% of those chose a decaffeinated herbal tea to wind down. 14% though felt that a glass of wine or a G&T was a much better way to spend an evening and 12% chose a soothing milky drink.
In conclusion, loose leaf tea in a lovely tea pot at the weekend with friends, or whilst reading or watching TV, was agreed to be a very relaxing way to enjoy a cuppa!
