Charleston Tea Plantation

My sister brought some of this back for me while she was in Charleston! Woot! I have a nice bit of it in my stash now! I had at least 10 cups last week! BACK LOG! Sorry for the dashboard flood! Sorry I was ‘missing’ last week! I should be ‘back’ most days now :) Miss everyone!

Cuppa the afternoon…..

I received this tea as a gift for being a good dog sitter last week. I have to say, I was pretty excited, even though this is bagged tea. I am thinking some loose leaf from Charleston is on my wish list. I do find it very good and satisfying. I would not call it a tea for my tea snob days, but it is a very basic black. I am thinking it would also make a stellar iced tea. It is so cool to have tea grown within driving distance of my house, even if it is a 10 hour drive!

Mug method using only 8 oz of water and one tea bag.

thanks so much Erin, for sending a couple of these Bigelow Charleston Tea Plantation teabags to try a while back. Bigelow is one of the teabag brands I like, so I expected to like these! This pyramid bag seems to have more leaves than their other teabags. Sadly, I think I overbrewed it by a couple minutes. The taste was still fine, but I think it might have been better and with more raspberry flavor if I didn’t have it brewing for so long. There is a nice sweet raspberry scent and slight flavor, but not much. The black tea is definitely a step up from Bigelow’s usual bags, but I don’t think they are usually anything to complain about. I’ve been trying to write tasting notes for teas people have been kind enough to send me… I’m slowly making my way! I really just have a list of teas I haven’t written tasting notes for though.

I’m having a cup of this with my breakfast this morning, since I’ve had such good experiences with my other Charleston Tea Plantation teas the past two days. This one is probably my least favorite out of all of them. That’s not because this isn’t a great tea, but I just prefer raspberry and mint flavors more than peach. The peach flavor in this tea is similar to the Rockville Raspberry flavor in that it reminds me almost of a jelly or jam like peach taste. And you can taste the black tea too, which always makes me happy. This really is a good cup of tea!

-Dry blend has small pieces of black tea leaves and twigs.
-Dry leaves smell lightly of black tea and peaches. Tea liquor aroma is of sweet peaches.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium golden brown color.
-Malty flavor with a juicy peach finish.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Very good tea. Nice black tea base with a ripe peach flavor.

A refreshing minty aroma wafts out of this tea tin as you open it. It reminds me of the way that a fresh mint plant smells. The flavor is perfect – simple, fresh, sweet mint. I had a cup of this iced at the Charleston Tea Plantation and it was heavenly on a hot and humid day. There is nothing artificial in the mint flavor of this tea. Although I like strong black teas best, this is my favorite green tea by far!

-Dry blend has small pieces of greenish brown tea leaves.
-Dry leaves smell strongly of spearmint. Tea liquor aroma is of green tea and sweet mint.
-Tea liquor aroma is a clear dark yellow color.
-Fresh mint flavor with a sweet and cooling finish.
-Best with sweetener.
-Excellent tea. A refreshing cup of natural sweet mint.

Yesterday I started my spring break off right. . . by having allergy testing done. It was not much fun and I took Benadryl and slept pretty much the rest of the day. So this morning I needed an extra special tea to get me back into my routine.

We visited the Charleston Tea Plantation last April and it was wonderful! Everything is so beautiful there, and we loved seeing all of the tea plants and then watching how they are made into tea. Of course we picked up a few tins of tea while we were there, and this was one of the flavors. The smell of it isn’t overwhelmingly of raspberry, just a nice light black tea with a little berry aroma. The black tea is definitely still noticeable in the flavor as well, with a deep, sweet raspberry finish. It’s not the truest of raspberry flavors, but it doesn’t have any artificial fake notes to it. It’s more like a raspberry jelly or candy taste, I think. Kind of like the raspberry filling in a piece of chocolate. Overall a wonderful cup of tea and just what I needed to start the day.

-Dry blend has small pieces of black tea leaves and twigs.
-Dry leaves smell lightly of black tea and raspberry. Tea liquor aroma is of sweet raspberries.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium golden brown color.
-Malty flavor with a deep raspberry finish.
-Best with sweetener. Milk optional.
-Very good tea. Nice black tea base with a raspberry candy flavor.

I got a teabag of this one from Erin also. Thank you very much. Backlogging. I smell mostly the black tea with a little peach when this is dry. Steeped I smell a natural peach smell and the black tea. This tastes like a natural medium peach taste and a medium strength black tea. I added some sugar. This tastes pretty good. And I really like the peach in this. And the black tea is nice to.

Backlogging.I got this from Erin thank you very much. This was really good. A good medium strength black tea and smelled really good and tasted good. And I added some sugar.

I was a bit worried at first as this tea smelled STRONGLY of seaweed while in the bag, but it is quite nice brewed! Nothing too special, but I am enjoying my cup. Vegetal, smooth- maybe just a hint of the seaweed in the background… maybe that’s why they call it island green ;)

Its been ages since I brewed this one, so this afternoon I had multiple cups. I love this one because while there is definitely a great black base, the peach flavour is there and strong. Peach is one of my favourite fruit flavours and I find it really hard to find done well in a tea, so this tea has a special place in my heart. It’s actually the only bagged tea I keep in stock here on a consistent basis, I love it that much!

Hmmmm mixed feelings about this tea. First off, the leaves are that awkward size where they would be fairly large for a tea bag, but not really significant enough to be loose leaf. The smell is beautiful and fresh, nothing really specific about the smell, just wonderfully fresh smelling tea.

I seeped the first brew about 1.5 minutes, it was a bright amber color, not as dark as I was expecting. The smell after brewing is….odd. Kind of a dull sourness, there is no bite to the sourness, just unpleasant. Luckily that smell didn’t correspond to the taste. It’s a very light tasting black, not really what I would expect from a ‘breakfast’ tea. Not much astringency at all, though I noticed a tiny bit of dryness. Pretty basic tea for me, but I also like basic teas. I think I would probably spend the money to get a bunch of Lipton or red rose bags rather than this next time though.

Not bad, just nothing extraordinary enough to invest in more of. I hear that their flavored teas are yummier, i should try those

I’m not a big fan for Charleston Plantations tea when it’s hot,but this raspberry tea… When you ice it,my god is it good! For a specific workout tonic; I brewed this hot,then added it to a gallon of cold water along with 2 scoops of iced tea mix and a scoop of sugar. If the initial taste of iced tea isn’t enough,take a moment to ponder a raspberry aftertaste that lingers to the last sip (in a good way)!

Backlogging from yesterday: I made a pitcher of this tea Saturday so it would have time to chill and the flavors meld before the Labor Day cook out. It was lightly sweetened. One young guest, who is accustomed to the syrupy sweet southern iced tea that is predominant here, said she loved the peach but it wasn’t sweet enough for her. I have grown accustomed to tea that is lightly sweetened or u sweetened, so the level of sugar was fine.

Surprisingly, I think I like this better than Midsummer’s Peach, probably because of the additional heft of the base. It is pretty close!

Charleston Tea Plantation has been consistently good. I think I have had about four of their teas now.

No notes yet.

THis was part of the sampler given to me as a gift from the south. It has a really odd taste,as if I were to eat the plant straight out of the dirt. It feels more like a tea I would have to be in the mood for,so i’ll keep it tucked away for a good breakfast, Who knows? It might be really good then!

I found this in the cabinet from who knows when, I made it and…… I like it! I have to put some milk and sugar in there because I find it a little bitter plain (I am kinda a newbie tea drinker, so I an trying to sweeten my drinks less and less as I get used to the tea taste) but overall it is pretty light and citrusy.

No notes yet.

No notes yet.

I am not going to rate this as I didn’t prepare it and it was mostly ice. What I do want to comment on is how nice the mint in this tasted. I am not a big mint fan but this did not overpower the tea. The ice however gave me brain freeze.

I needed a new pitcher of iced tea, and raspberry sounded like a good choice for a nice glass of refreshment. I made this hot, poured a small amount into a cup for me to sample, and poured the rest over 2 TBL sugar in a glass pitcher.

The unsweetened hot tea was fine, but I didn’t taste much raspberry. The base was ice and smooth. The very last bit of tea in the cup had a more fruity taste than the rest, so maybe I just needed to let it cool a bit more. I tasted a little of it sweetened and I think the sugar did bring out a little more of the fruit flavor.

Since my pitcher wasn’t as full as I wanted and I had only had two bags of this, I made another teabag of their American Classic tea, which I know will further dilute the raspberry flavor, but I can already tell it has upped the “oomph” factor of the black tea. We’ll see if this was a big mistake when the tea is fully chilled, but i sampled a bit and so far it is a decent iced tea and should be really good with a meal.

Damn good…nuff said.

I think it is really cool to be able to drink tea that is commercially grown and produced in my home state. For a long time, we South Carolinians were the only folks in the country who had that priviledge (see the IMPORTANT UPDATE!!! below). What has made the honor even sweeter is that the Charleston Tea Plantation teas are also very good.

Since South Carolina is also the #1 peach mecca in the country, I was looking forward to tasting this blend. When I opened the container, the pre-brewed tea leaves had a very nice fresh peaches aroma. There was no physical evidence of peach chunks among the leaves, however.

I steeped this tea at 212 degrees for five minutes. The result was a reddish gold brew.

With the first one or two sips, my tastebuds could not locate the peaches. After the third and fourth sips, though, a subtle peach taste began to emerge. Sip #5 and on continued the very light and unassuming peach taste with a full Charleston Plantation tea flavor alongside it. There was no bitterness and I have no complaint about the flavor, except that I prefer strong flavors in everything I eat and drink.

If you crave robust fruity taste in your flavored teas, you may be disappointed by this blend. However, if subtlety is your desire, this tea is tasty, even, and pleasant. The discernible peach taste is fresh and natural, just not particularly hearty.

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!
Many thanks to Steepster Bonnie, who just made me aware of another tea producer in the lower 48 states (besides South Carolina)! About five years ago, Sakuma Brothers Farms Market Stand in Burlington, Washington began selling teas grown and produced there. Here is more information about that: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20070911/BIZ/109110041/-1/headlines

Also, Steepster Bonnie put me on the trail of a collective of small growers in Hawaii who started a pilot project producing and marketing tea several years ago. I will do some research on that too.

I can see that I still have a lot to learn about the world of teas, but it’s a fun adventure!

Peaches! oh yes, peaches in droves. So good! Muchos thanks to Ashmanra for the sample!!
Very similar to the same tea blend from Tsaa. I’m not sure which I prefer. When I first tried it, the peach overwhelmed me. Then in later steeps(I had three), it balanced out with the tea base.
In comparing it to the Tsaa version, I think this version is less “fuzzy” and sweet but I need to try a side by side to be sure.
Sooo… which do I prefer? throws up hands I really don’t know!
Thanks again Ashmanra!

Quoting a tasting note from JacquelineM directly:

“This is another one that I think people with “bergamot problems” would like. :)”

Bingo. I am often bergamot-avoidant (bergamotley challenged?), though I stand by my statement that all good tea drinkers need to have an Earl Grey variety in their repertoire. Had this pyramid sample from ashmanra handy at work, had my little liquid creamer pack at the ready to tone down the flavor, and surprise! I didn’t need it. This is good black tea foremost; bergamot hindmost. I’d drink more, and that’s saying something for an EG.