May I Share this Gourd?; the Teas of May and 'Radiance Blend'

New month means new teas! Although one does have to wonder where the year is vanishing too.

May opens up with some delights from London Tea Club; the herbal Radiance Blend and black teas Charles Dickens and the flavoured Opera Rose. I can't tell you how excited I am by the Opera Rose tea; one of my favourite teas is China Rose, which I bought locally from Imperial Teas, or, when my only options are less artisan, Twinings' Rose Garden. I'll confess, I was bought the Rose Garden tea on a whim, fell in love and promptly searched for a better quality rose flavoured tea at Imperial Teas (my go to for tea shopping). My mother also bought me a rose tea from Whittards of Chelsea, so that I could 'have a fancy tea she liked' (my mother is not a fan of much else other than Earl Grey or English Breakfast, unlike my papa) buuuut this got lost before it even got to me.

The suspicions currently lie at my brother's door. Hmm!

The back of the newsletter had a rather stunning photograph of Wuyi Mountains in China, where London Tea Club have recently been, sourcing their teas. Wouldn't it be fantastic to take a trip around the world to source teas? Ah, one can dream!


The same day I'd also been out shopping with my boyfriend (mainly just enjoying what scant beautiful weather England wants to provide us this year) and I saw that Penguin Classics had released a new set of books, including  The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura. Have I heard of it before? Not at all, but it was all of £2 and is the '1906 guide to the beauty of the tea ceremony' which is 'both a paean to the art of simplicity, and a wry critique of the West's view of Japan'. I felt that it was worth adding to my collection and will hopefully in due course teach me more about the wonder that is tea.

To date I have read little more than the first page; today has been a lazy kind of Sunday and from what I have read, it is a book that need concentration. Not today then!

Last night I was home alone and recovering from a long week that culminated in a sickening three day migraine (hence the need for a lazy weekend). I curled up in my pyjamas, put Netflix on and treated myself to one of London Tea Club's teas. I decided to go for Radiance Blend as the card informed me it was 'best enjoyed in a bath with Himalayan crystal salt and lavender'. I don't have a bath (or Himalayan crystal salt or lavender for the matter), but I felt like I was doing my only possible equivalent, of being snug and cosy and calm on the sofa. (I've also just realised; is the salt and lavender meant to be for the bath or the tea? Huh.) The card further described this blend was 'a champion of self-care, deep healing and radiance'. After the week I had had, it sounded very much like what I needed.

I also apologise now for the quality of the photos in this post; unfortunately my phone went caput and is was taken in for repairs last week, leaving me with my older model and its lower spec camera. I told you it had been a long week.

Radiance Blend is a herbal blend of green mate, lemongrass, spearmint, nettle, ginkgo (leaves from a Chinese tree), ginseng, cornflower, calendula and sunflower petals. I have a huge bag of plain green/yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) in my tea cupboard of which, I'll be honest, I am not a fan. However, I was intrigued to see how this blend stood up, as I know mint or lemon is often added to yerba mate for flavour.

For those of you who do not know, yerba mate is a South American plant that is used to brew the popular regional beverage, mate. Mate is traditionally drunk from a calabash gourd (literally a hollowed out gourd) using a bombilla ('bom-bee-yah'; a filtered metal straw) and as part of a social gathering; the host prepares the mate in the gourd, drinks from it, refills and passes it to the first guest, who then drinks from it. It is then refilled and passed on until the yerba becomes lavado ('washed out'). Unlike Camellia sinensis, preparation of mate requires a large amount of the dried leaves, usually filling up about two-thirds of the gourd (can you imagine the strength of the infusion if that were tea?!), which allows it to be resteeped several times, making the passing of the gourd to other guests possible.

As I mentioned before, I am no stranger to mate, but it is far from a favourite. I've brewed it several different ways (adding peppermint tea, honey, rum, etc.) in attempts to make it more palatable to me but, ultimately, it ends up tasting too bitter and far too much like eating old, musty vegetables for my liking. But here it was, in a blend recommended to me by London Tea Club, and, so far, everything they have sent has been wonderful, so surely this one couldn't be so awful as I remembered? Certainly, this blend smelt incredible.

So after a short fight to get the cork out of the test tube I went about preparing it. How did I prepare this infusion? Why, in my calabash gourd, of course! You didn't think I would have come this far in my tea journey without having acquired such a piece of paraphernalia? Why did you think I had the yerba mate in the first place?

Now, I was a little confounded when I went to brew this tea; the test tube proudly announced that this tea needed to be brewed at 100C, but I have always been lead to believe that yerba mate should be brewed at around 70C, so as not the scald the leaves and, also, so you don't split the gourd. I decided to brew the infusion as The London Tea Club had instructed, so I poured the leaves into one of the supplied teabags and prepared it in a jug so I could use boiling water without damaging my gourd. After the recommended 7-10 minutes (and checking with a thermometer that the liquid was cool enough) I poured the liquor into my gourd. I made more mate than there was room in the gourd, so I poured the remainder into a pre-warmed thermos as a slight twist on the tradition of carrying around a thermos of hot water to refill the gourd on the go (apparently very common sight in the streets of Uruguay). I was also intrigued to see just what mate would taste like with a 'tea' amount of leaves.

My infusion was brewed, my gourd was full, it was time to settle back down on the sofa and relax. Once in the gourd, the drink just looked black, any colour cast in shadow. Fortunately, I had thought to make a note of it while it was still in the jug; it was a vibrant, spring-bud green. Much brighter and more vibrant than a green tea. My photographs, unfortunately, did not quite capture just how pretty a hue it was (instead making it look far more gold).

My first thought as I sipped the drink through my bombilla was that it was a little weak. This was my fault; I fear I was a little over zealous when adding the water to the jug. Although (ironically) it was not as strong as I would have liked, it was pleasant and thoroughly refreshing. Despite the weakness of the brew, the flavour was surprisingly bold (it would have just been improved by a more balanced water-infusion ratio). I felt the spearmint (a satisfying change from peppermint) was the predominant flavour, but there was a sharpness to it that can only have been the lemongrass. It also tasted quite verdant, as to be expected from a mate, but far less bitter and harsh. There was a lingering, subtle sweetness, although I'm a little unsure if that was the infusion or the gourd; as the gourd is a natural produce, it's inner is porous and absorbent, often picking up the flavours of whatever is put within. As I mentioned before, I have added (a lot of) honey to my mate previously, so it was difficult to tell if this slight syrupy flavour was from the container or the brew.

As I topped up my gourd with the last drops from the thermos, I realised I had not stopped to smell the tea, so relaxed was I. I did hold the gourd to my nose to try to detect the aroma but, much like the sweetness, it was hard to tell what was gourd and what was not. The gourd itself smelt a little like wet wood, as always, and, given how small the opening was, I felt this masked the scent of the brew within. From what I could determine, however, the infusion smelt of citrus and the dewy, spring grass.

Overall, unlike my previous encounters with mate (including a couple of not-so-biting trials at cafes, which both resulted in a burnt tongue from a too hot bombilla), this was a very pleasurable and did not need to be forced down. Afterwards I felt both serene and rejuvenated from the migraines, which was particularly impressive when you consider I was watching a TV series with zombies. As the Radiance Blend card says under 'brewing tips' it is 'an uplifting brew for both busy days and quiet nights', and was just the pick-me-up I needed that calm Saturday evening.