August Uncommon Tea is Hipper Than Your Coffee

By Rathika Sheila  •  02 Oct 2015 in News

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Images August Uncommon Tea

Yes, that’s what the teas are packaged in. Haven’t we already discussed the most likely cause of death of our bank accounts will be from purchasing items solely for its packaging? Pay attention to us, please. Now back to the tea. When a brand aims to reinvent tea so that the consumer is given a gastronomic experience, it’s bound to be exceptionally good or flat out terrible – we’re glad the latter is not the case with August Uncommon Tea. Its SS15 collection includes five teas: A Field In Innsbruck, Cocteau, Dolomite, Jet Black, and Midnight In The Garden. Each tin also comes with a brief description of what the tea is contained with and what it feels and tastes like. We’ve tried all five and here’s what we think of it:

A Field In Innsbruck

Feels Like: A Walk Through Alpine Woods
Tastes Like: Juniper berry, ripe blackcurrant, spruce, and lemon balm

When we read the description above, we admit we chuckled a little because how could tea possibly make us feel like we were strolling through alpine woods? But by Zeus’s beard, it honestly felt like it. The combination of ingredients in this tin is south indian black tea, chinese pu’erh tea, juniper berry, blackcurrant, cornflower petals, thyme, rosemary, and some flavouring. It’s ideal for rainy days or as a nightcap sans the alcohol.

Cocteau

Feels Like: Ethereal Noise Pop
Tastes Like: Vanilla, ruby grapefruit, mint, clover honey, and earth

This one is mixed with south african green rooibos, south african honeybush, grapefruit peel, peppermint, and flavouring — hands down our favourite tin out of this entire season. Although it’s a caffeine-free blend, we’d recommend having a cup of this in the mornings when you’re looking for a pick-me-up to start the day.

Dolomite

Feels Like: Fantasia On A Theme
Tastes Like: Raw honey, jasmine, sweet almond, honeysuckle and cut grass

Double took at cut grass? So did we. Dolomite definitely played with our tastebuds more than the others, so its description was rather apt, and once we realised its ingredients, we understood why. It’s made of chinese jasmine white monkey tea, chinese chun mee green tea, jasmine flowers, rose petals, and flavouring. Three teas in and we were already impressed by the different textures and flavours we’d felt.

Jet Black

Feels Like: Breakfast In A Roman Café
Tastes Like: Espresso beans, hazelnut, sugar cane, and steamed milk

This tin’s content is a mix of coffee and tea; it includes indian black assam tea, brazilian roasted maté, barley malt, roasted honduran coffee, roasted honduran coffee beans, and flavouring. It does taste like coffee, but without the strong coffee bean aroma the drink is known to have. While it contains less caffeine than a regular cup of joe, similar with other teas, it has amino acid L-theanine that gives the same energy boosts as coffee, only without its highs and lows.

Midnight In The Garden

Feels Like: Subtle Play of Light And Shadow
Tastes Like: White nectarine, sweet hay, oats, and wet limestone

We can neither agree nor deny this blend tasting like wet limestone because we’ve not tasted wet limestone for ourselves, but this is the most interesting one of them all. This tea is made of delicate white pu’erh, which essentially tastes like white nectarine, sweet hay, oats, and wet limestone. An odd combination of tastes but we enjoyed it nonetheless. A fun fact about this tea is that its main ingredient is harvested in Fujian and is later dried under a full moon. Also, because it’s a raw form of pu’erh, it’ll improve with age like wine only without the potential of getting drunk.

Each tin is marked with the number of cups it’s able to produce — usually within the range of 10 to 30 — and besides drinking it as it is, the teas can be used as an ingredient for cocktails! Each box comes with a recipe card to help consumers mix a glass of August Uncommon Tea cocktails themselves, five tins of the season’s teas, and a one-cup infuser. There’s also the option of purchasing a single tin or trying out its starter pack.

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