SUKI Tea
I often find tea to be a fairly uninspiring subject and even though I drink almost as much tea as I do coffee, I drink the coffee because I love it, I suppose I drink the tea because I need it or because it’s quick and easy.
The general public however drink a lot of tea and at times can be quite picky about how many pots of water it’s served with and what shape cup they get, which is interesting since they seem at times quite blase about the quality of their coffee (but that’s another argument). So it seems that there are more and more premium loose tea producers springing up which is definitely a good thing but I wonder is the tea really any good?
Well I got the chance to find out on Tuesday if one brand, SUKI Tea, is up to the challenge.
SUKI Tea are based in the world renowned Mecca of tea… Belfast. But they source their tea from all over Asia and they have a large selection of loose blends from traditional black tea to green, white, oolong, red bush, loads of fruit and herbal types and the list still goes on all the way to tea vintages offering blends aged since 2003.
I tried the earl grey mainly because it’s my daily tipple and I love how light it is with that citrus from the bergamot oil. The SUKI earl grey looks especially cool because it has blue cornflowers mixed in as well the tea is a Chinese ceylon. I really wish I had a standard bag of Twinning’s earl grey around to compare, but this one certainly tasted good with all the lightness you’d expect and a subtle citrus zing. I wonder if the cornflowers add any flavour or are just there for aesthetic appeal.
The quirkiness of the blue flowers seems to continue throughout the SUKI range with some inspired names such as China Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearls, Gunpowder Green Tea (because the tightly rolled pearls resemble gunshot) and the incredible sounding Black Forrest Gateau tea, yes that’s right like the 80’s classic it’s flavoured with truffle oil, swiss chocolate and cocoa!
I wouldn’t normally go on about a brand so much but since this is the first really decent tea I have had the chance to review I am really quite excited! My only real criticism is that they should offer the blends bagged. Loose tea is such a nightmare because it sticks to everything, cups, teapots, and blocks the drain. Just because your tea comes bagged it doesn’t make it lower quality and I would genuinely mail order this stuff for home use if it came in bags.
I am sure there must be other tea brands out there doing equally cool things so any recommendations would be greatly received.
The point of Suki tea is not to sell it in bags. Tea in bags is nothing but cheap dust left over from the decent tea thats been removed. That said, you can buy empty tea bags that you just put a spoonful of the loose tea into yourself. I find this the best way (better than strainers etc) and suki are the best at what they do. Although, their Earl Grey doesnt have enough of a bergamont flavour for me (twinnings do it better). All of their other stuff is a joy though.