Teacup #1

Fruity Tea, H-Mart being a jerk, and my craving for sweet tea

Hello, my friends!

To start off this very first edition of “the Teacup,” an at least twice-monthly newsletter about tea (and my opinions), let’s dive into the ethics of fruity tea.

An example of a delicious fruit tea that you should all buy (Not sponsored)

A question for you all!

For me, the answer will always be fruity tea. As much as I love, love, love a cup of good steaming chrysanthemum tea, I can’t resist the scent of grapefruit or smoking raspberries wafting out of a nice little mug, especially in winter, where fruit is twice the price it just was in fall. Although, breathing in smoke might not be exactly healthy for me. Yes, even in sunny California, the home of tanned athletes and palm trees and whatever the rest of the world thinks about us. (Side note: Avocado toast is overrated.)

Because I’m a weirdo, instead of being a good little cali girl and lining up at the local starbucks with the soccer moms to get an overrated iced coffee or whatever people get, I shockingly and devastating march myself to the nearest store and buy tea. And then I make tea and drink the tea and curl up in a cozy blanket with a nice little soundtrack of raindrops and piano music wishing that the weather wasn’t a jerk and that it would just rain already. (To be fair, it rains. During the night.)

a picture of a beautiful teacup (not sponsored, etsy homepage linked)

My rankings and recommendations for fruity tea are as follows:

1. Jardin Tea

2. Ahmad Tea (with plenty of honey)

3. Iced Fruit Tea

4. My own very personal lemon-honey tea that isn’t really tea but tastes like ice tea

Ahmad Tea by far has the best scents that I have ever smelled for tea. A key trick to making Ahmad tea is to microwave the tea for 2 to 2.5 minutes, and then plop in the teabag, add honey if you want, and then cover the steaming mug with a lid for five minutes. Then, while burning yourself and adding more honey, you get a nice little cup of steaming tea. Of course, the ideal sweetener for fruit tea is honey. I don’t like sugar in my fruit tea, because it takes away from the natural-ness and the sweet scent of the tea, and it kind of feels weird.

raspberry ahmad tea, one of my absolute favorites for this brands (not sponsored)

As I said in the caption above, this raspberry ahmad tea is one of my absolute favorites because when I brew it correctly, it smells like sun-baked raspberries glistening on a hot summer day with a cool breeze. Ignoring the YA fantasy first-crush details, the scent of this tea is absolutely phenomenal. Every single tea section I’ve went to has had a selection of Ahmad tea so far, (which, considering I mainly visit Asian groceries and small-businesses, might be inaccurate information,) so of course I’m recommending this tea brand. All of their teas are delicious and have the best scent, albeit they are a little bitter and thin for my taste. I think the texture is good, but it could be improved. But Ahmad is by far the best tea that is available to me.

By available to me, I mean to get into my grievances. H-mart employees, take some notes, because I am going to riot.

I am a very sweet person, which is why I am literally going to develop diabetes sometime in the near future. By sweet, I mean I have a sweet tooth. We will not go into specifics about my personality. I like my tea to be sweet, but not cotton-candy sweet. I like it to have a moderately sweet taste and leave a little sweet aftertaste, but not so sweet that it’s like I’m choking down Fanta. A nice, balanced little sweetness like that of a ripe apple, an orange, a ripe strawberry, or maybe a teensy bit sweeter than that. Ahmad, unfortunately, while delicious-smelling, is not very sweet. It leaves a rather bitter aftertaste, which is why I’ve been adding honey.

And I also like my tea to have a nice little consistency that’s not so watery but not so milky at the same time. (Because let’s face it, anybody who dares put a large, vast amount of milk in tea and still call it tea deserves to be burnt at the stake. Unless it’s milk tea. I like milk tea. The difference is that one word, people.) Like a lovely little sensation of oh it’s more than water but not so that I feel like I’m drinking a smoothie. Ahmad, unfortunately, is more on the thin water side. (I haven’t been experimenting much, which we’ll get to in a second.) I need to experiment with the amount of water more, but I’d like to address one thing first.

I had a favorite fruit tea, and it is not Ahmad. Even though Ahmad is pretty good.

Jardin is the god of all fruit teas, and my taste buds are clamoring just by hearing the name.

a box of jardin tea (not sponsored)

A quick google search reveals that jardin is a) the spanish word for garden, and b) possibly a boba shop. But based on google, a catalog, and a few websites, I’m sure that the actual tea I brew using a tea bag and the microwave doesn’t contain milk. (I hope.)

For me, jardin’s texture is perfect. The tea is sweet, and a little too sweet, but compared to bitter tea, the taste is pretty good. The dried fruit that comes with the tea also gives the tea some kind of citrus smell and texture that’s too good to refuse.

Jardin tastes good warm and great cold. This is a contrast to Ahmad, which I found is best when it is hot enough to emit smoke but not hot enough to burn your tongue, which I found out through trial and error. Ahmad is decent cold, but not as good as Jardin is, though that thought process may be from a lifetime of sugary sodas.

However, I prefer my fruit teas sweet. With the exception of lemon and a few others, fruit is mainly sweet. Even lemonade is sweet. So when I drink fruit tea, I prefer a sweet tea.

I was content with buying Jardin tea for six whole months and spending money on the tea and brewing tea at home until I went to H-mart and found that Jardin tea was no longer available. I went around for three other times in the past consecutive weeks, and have deduced that either H-mart stopped selling Jardin tea or they ran out of stock. Considering I’m too shy and socially anxious to talk to an employee, it’s the best conclusion I can come up with.

Which brings me to my problem. I was very ready to yap about Jardin tea, except the fact that Jardin tea is no longer sold. And I don’t know about you, but something about shipping tea online doesn’t sit right with me. Like it just doesn’t give me a good vibe.

So, I’ve decided to experiment with other teas until I find a tea brand that I can like just as much as I liked Jardin. Or, if Jardin is back, I start rating different Jardin teas. That works too.

Welcome to “A Cup of Tea,” my personal blog where I present you with the facts of life. I recommend tea, go into tea history, talk about tea, and like today, rant about my favorite teas not being available. Welcome to my bigoted opinions.