Welp, that’s a ginger tea.
This was a Christmas present from my lovely friend and colleague, Marika.
I can’t remember if I brought this up in a tasting note closer to Christmas, but she and her family actually drove to my apartment this Christmas for a quick socially distanced present drop off and ‘Merry Christmas’ exchange. We’re on a pretty strict lockdown here in Montreal and, because of the pandemic, I didn’t fly home for Christmas this year so I was spending Christmas alone for the first time in… years. So it was just an extra nice thing that she did to make the day feel that much less lonely.
Added bonus to the sweetness of all of that – this tea is actually from the store that her family owns! It’s almost shameful to admit, but prior to this tea the only teas I’ve had from what they carry are some avocado leaves – which really aren’t meant to be tea, but are just something that I enjoyed steeping as a tisane.
I’m normally not at all about ginger teas and I fully expected to not love this one because it is an INTENSE amount of veeerrryyy fresh and veeerrryyyy high quality ginger used in the blend. Like, when I open up the package of it and give it a smell the amount of ginger immediately makes my eyes still a little bit and I can’t help but sneeze a little. That said, it’s not half bad. If I actually liked the taste of straight ginger I would probably love it, but I don’t and so instead I feel more of a deep respect for the quality of the ingredients used and the level of freshness. It’s such a punch of spicy, tingly ginger that really opens up your sinuses in a profound way.
I should ask Marika what specifically the three types of ginger in the blend are – I can see large chunks of ginger and finer threads of it mixed throughout the black tea base but I’m not educated enough on ginger varieties to be able to identify all of the types at a glance. I would wager, however, that one of them is probably Galangal. The punch and intensity here sort of comes across in a way that I’ve almost exclusively experienced with Galangal – at least when it comes to Ginger…
Comments
This sounds delicious (ginger is one of my favorites) — is your friend’s shop something one could access online to try this or just in Montreal? Is it just three types of ginger on a black tea base?
This sounds delicious (ginger is one of my favorites) — is your friend’s shop something one could access online to try this or just in Montreal? Is it just three types of ginger on a black tea base?
I think they just have the physical location here in Montreal – they’re actually an Artisan Spice store, but do have a small selection of teas as well (largely Spiced, of course). And yes – this is a simple blend of just black tea and the three gingers.