Tea Time: Full Moon by The Forest Witch

Today's Tea: Full Moon from The Forest Witch

What is it? From the Forest Witch website: "A lovely and light tea. Floral hints, with juicy plum and a sprinkling of fennel mingle together, bringing you a cup with gentle mugwort to help with your Full Moon endeavours."

Ingredients: organic green tea, plums, organic fennel, organic mugwort, organic jasmine

Recommendations: My sample pack didn't have brewing instructions, but generally green tea should be steeped for 1 to 3 minutes.

About the Tea: Full Moon tea is created by independent tea blender The Forest Witch Mia, located in Canada. All of her teas are inspired by Celtic deities or fantasy themes such as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones and Good Omens. Full Moon is from her spiritual collection.

The tea has a bright, straw-like flavour profile, with just a slight hint of sweetness, which comes from the fruit and jasmine flower. The version I have contains apple rather than plum, but I think it works just as well. Fennel and mugwort are classic ingredients in spiritual brews. Mugwort is the perfect herb for working with the full moon. It's other name Artemisia comes from the Greek goddess of the moon Artemis, and it's used for moon meditations and connecting with the feminine cycles that the moon also follows. Fennel adds strength and fertility, and is used for meditation and protection.

Available:
Full Moon is available online from The Forest Witch shop. I found the price (in Canadian dollars) very reasonable and the postage costs to Australia, too, especially compared with many U.S. sources. She also has an Etsy shop if you prefer. I loved dealing with Mia and look forward to making many more purchases with her. Her Instagram is here.

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Tea Time : The Norns by The Forest Witch             

Tea Time : The Norns by The Forest Witch

Note: I have already removed the tea from its original packaging and placed it in a tin for storage, but originally it came in a resealable stand-up pouch the same as the one pictured.

Today's Tea: The Norns from The Forest Witch
What is it? From the Forest Witch website: "A black tea swirling with deep forest fruits of elderberry, currant, and blueberry. Woody clove and sweet fennel round out the flavour, all creating a deep cup of tea, dive in if you've the heart for it."
Ingredients: organic black tea, organic blueberries, organic elderberries, organic currants, organic cloves, organic fennel, flavour
Recommendations: Steep 1 teaspoon for 3-5 minutes.

The Tea and Me:
The Norns is created by independent tea blender The Forest Witch Mia, located in Canada. All of her teas are inspired by Celtic deities or fantasy themes such as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones and most recently, Good Omens. The Norns are the little-known Goddesses of fate in the Norse pantheon, deep and mysterious.

The dry tea has a very strong, earthy spice scent. I steeped it for 4 minutes, hedging my bets with the instructions. I usually try black teas both with milk and without. My preference is to drink black tea with milk, but I like to try it both ways to find the best. The black tea has a very strong fennel flavour, though not as much like liquorice as the spice itself. This is possibly due to the influence of the cloves, which come through too in a moderate way. Strong tannins made my tongue wrinkle, made even more astringent by the fennel. I found that the fruits were barely noticeable.

Adding milk punches down the tannins and allows the fruit flavour to come out. Even still, I found the berry flavours too subtle to be satisfying. My personal taste in teas is to the sweet side, so perhaps my taste buds were searching in vain for something that was never meant to be there.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed The Norns and would purchase it again. It's the perfect tea to sip deep into the night, staring into the flame of a single candle, waiting for the witching hour to arrive.

Available:
The Norns is available online from The Forest Witch shop. I found the price (in Canadian dollars) very reasonable and the postage costs to Australia, too, especially compared with many U.S. sources. She also has an Etsy shop if you prefer. I loved dealing with Mia and look forward to making many more purchases with her. Her Instagram is here.

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Tea Time : Gewürzhaus Easter Bun Tea             

Tea Time : Gewürzhaus Easter Bun Tea

Today's Tea: Organic Easter Bun Tea from Gewürzhaus
What is it?: a black tea spiced with cinnamon and orange, blended to drink as an accompaniment to hot cross buns at Easter time.
Recommendations: 1.5 teaspoons per cup, brew for 4 minutes. Drink with or without milk.

The Tea and Me:
Gewürzhaus is a local Melbourne shop specialising in spice blends from around the world. I love to go there a couple of times a year to stock up on spices for Christmas and other festive times. I always make sure to get some of their Easter Bun tea as it's one of my favourites. This year however, the flavour is different! It's no longer a sweet, subtle floral tea, but a spicy orange blend. After some initial confusion, I decided to give it a try, and thought, why not use it as an opportunity to start a tea review series?

So here we go.

The dry tea has a very strong orange aroma, with a hint of cinnamon behind it. It was appealing enough to make me decide to purchase some, despite it being different from what I was familiar with in the past. The brewing recommendation of 1.5 teaspoons per cup seemed quite a lot for such a strong-smelling tea. As the instructions say Easter Bun Tea can be drunk with or without milk, I poured it both ways to compare.

After brewing, the orange scent draws back, leaving a spicy cinnamon scent with just a hint of fruit. This is reflected in the flavour, too. I have to admit, I was a little surprised when I read that cinnamon is the only spice in this tea. Gewürzhaus is known for its spice blends, so I would have expected a more sophisticated blend. There's a slight astringent note on the tongue along with the spice.

Once the spicy punch subsided, the tea was much sweeter than I expected. This balanced out the cinnamon quite well. Adding milk tones down the spice and compliments the sweetness nicely. I preferred the milk version. As to whether the tea goes well with Easter Buns? Unfortunately, I didn't have any buns to hand (hence the pumpkin for decoration instead!) but I think the tea would go well with them. A drink to accompany a spicy, fruity bun would need to be strong in flavour to work, and this tea fits the bill.

Ingredients: organic Ceylon and China black tea, cinnamon, orange peel, natural cinnamon flavouring, natural orange flavouring (from the Gewürzhaus website)
Available: Gewürzhaus shops in Melbourne and online, only during Easter time.

I hope you liked my first tea review! If there's anything I left out that I could include next time, please let me know. I was also trying out a new photography set-up. It isn't perfect yet (I need more lighting!) but it's something I want to work on this year.