Don't mess with perfection
A lot goes into the making of high-grade, pure tea. Factors such as region, soil, the weather or general climate of where the tea's grown, altitude of the plantation, the skill of the producer making the tea – tea masters that have honed their skills over many years, applying their knowledge and experience to create something divine. We don't want to mess with any of that. Our aim is to extract the right balance of flavours from the tea leaves and preserve them in every bottle.
Cold Brew Tea
There are a wide variety of different compounds within the tea leaf that come together to make up the tea that you brew. Different compounds dissolve at different temperatures. What cold brewing over an extended period of time does is it slowly dissolves all of the volatile and aromatic compounds within the tea but leaves the ones responsible for the more bitter and astringent aspects of the tea relatively untouched. Enough to create a more interesting and rounded mouthfeel, but not so much as to be unpleasant.
Developing the Drink
We choose only the most exquisite single origin teas to cold brew, picking out varietals that display interesting and complex flavour profiles, and are unique reflections of their place of origin. Acidity is needed to help with preservation and is balanced with just enough sweetness to give the tea a more rounded and satisfying mouthfeel. The drink is then sparkled to further enhance the aromas of the tea and also to add an additional layer of texture and interest to the beverage. We aim to showcase the essence of the tea, and anything that gets added is with the purpose of preserving and enhancing its inherent qualities.
The Phoenix Mountains of Chao Zhou, in Guangdong province, China, is the home and birthplace of Dancong oolong tea, which are some of the most exquisite and aromatic teas in the world. Sitting at approximately 800m above sea level is the Lin family tea plantation, home to a wide variety of high-grade, aromatic and complex oolong tea cultivars, one of which is the Phoenix Honey Orchid. When this cultivar gets produced as a black tea instead of an oolong, the fruity qualities, depth and sweetness that are inherent in the tea gets enhanced. This is the Phoenix Honey Orchid Red black tea.
More to come
While we're launching with our Honey Orchid Red to begin with, we have plans to add more to the range. The world of pure tea is vast and provides an endless range of experiences and possibilities.