Organic Loose Leaf Tea for Each Season with Arbor Teas
A new season brings with it new moods and new cravings for your tastebuds. I believe there is a tea for every season and every mood, and this is how I choose the ones that I love the most.
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Arbor Teas, but all opinions are my own. Old World New also uses affiliate and referral links. By clicking on certain hyperlinks, you may help me make a small commission off of your purchase, with no additional charges to you. These links help me to continue to provide content here at Old World New, so THANK YOU for your support!
Hot Tea, Any Time
I am 100% a tea person. It is a soothing part of my day, so much so that I try to make it last all day by putting tea in my insulated mug haha! My auntie introduced me to tea when I was a teen, and it has stuck with me. When I was in college, I continued to drink it the way she taught me, using the prepackaged tea bags and a lot of sugar.
These days, the method has changed, and I love tea even more because of it. Learning about loose leaf teas upped my hot beverage game. The tea I drink now is more full of flavor because the tea leaves and herbs aren’t ground to dust, it lasts longer because it can be steeped more than once, and it is natural and sustainable tea because it doesn’t use tea bags which contain plastics in them. I also don’t use sugar anymore, for both health and taste reasons. My favorite way to sweeten my tea is to add raw honey by Y.S. Organic Bee Farms.
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Arbor Teas
Finding full flavor organic teas like those made by Arbor Teas is quite the treat. Finding a tea company that also practices sustainability at every step in it’s business, from the tea it sells to the packaging surrounding it, is rare. In fact, Arbor Teas is the only company that packages their organically grown loose leaf teas in plant-based, compostable bags and labels. They also offer one of the largest selections of Fair Trade Certified® loose leaf teas, which means that the farmers who grow these teas can make a living wage instead of living in poverty to support our first world tea habits.
I also love that the Arbor Teas website isn’t just a one stop shop. You can learn so much through their transparency about their loose leaf teas, the compostable packaging they use, and get a better understanding of what “fair trade” is and how they put it into practice throughout their business. You can also become a bit of a tea expert with their how-to guides, history & tradition articles, and tea & health articles.
The Arbor Teas website not only provides you with the information you need to be more knowledgeable about tea, but they also have the tools to help you brew and maintain your teas, called “teaware.” Along with my tea samples, I also received the Unitea Glass Teapot and it is cute, minimal, and practical for brewing loose leaf teas.
How to Choose A Loose Leaf Tea
Here’s a mini guide to help you select a loose leaf tea you may like!
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A Tea For Each Season
Winter Tea – Organic Masala Chai Black Tea
Chai (which translates to mean “tea”) is the real spicy drink – not a PSL. The Arbor Teas Organic Masala Chai Black Tea is an organic black tea combined with organic cinnamon, organic ginger root, organic clove, and more. This is exactly why I love it for winter. Chai is also a perfect tea to brew with milk for those who aren’t impressed by watery tea. I love to make this masala chai recipe at home, and I can wait to try it with this loose leaf tea.
Spring Tea – Organic Jasmine Green Tea
Jasmine tea is my favorite for spring because of the floral aroma. A real jasmine tea is enchanting to me. I say “real” because I’ve had plenty in little bags that smell the part, but don’t taste good at all. I learned that the reason this scented Organic Jasmine Green Tea is better than the rest is because the jasmine flower that gives the Chinese green tea leaves their fragrance is picked at night when it is in full bloom. The farmers then expose the green tea leaves to jasmine flowers for several nights to really build that flavor up. Who knew?! I’m glad Arbor Teas knew, because the results are amazing.
Summer Tea – Organic Nilgiri Black Tea
The long, hot days of summer deserve a tea that can go toe to toe with it. Calming and soothing versus the exhaustiveness of the heat. The Organic Nilgiri Black Tea is made from Indian black tea leaves grown in India at over 10,000 feet above sea level at what may be the highest elevation organic tea estate in the world. That’s a super fun fact to know, right? More importantly, though, is the fact that it tastes great whether it is hot or cold, which is what you need to know for when you want to sip it in the summer.
Fall Tea – Organic Hojicha Green Tea
The roasted leaves of the Organic Hojicha (or Houjicha) Green Tea give it a scent similar to coffee, but it tastes so much better in my opinion. It’s a hearty tea, and a great way to transition into the cooler temperature seasons. It also has honey undertones in the flavor, giving it a naturally sweet taste.
What is your favorite tea for each season? Or do you have a tea that you drink all year long? Let me know in the comments!
The Comments
Chelsea
Love Arbor Teas! Love this post <3
Lucie Palka
I”m not a regular tea drinker, but I do enjoy some flavoured loose tea here and there as well as chai. I like it with either honey, or some beet sugar.
Addie
Lucie PalkaI’ve never heard of beet sugar before! I have to try that with my tea now.
Rosie (GreenRosieLife)
I’m a green tea person and always loose leaf. Sometimes with jasmine, sometimes without. Luckily I can get both in tin caddies with foil tops which is fabulous and my husband uses the caddies afterwards for storing nails etc.
Addie
Rosie (GreenRosieLife)Yes for the low waste and circular reuse!! I use my old tins to store crafts, and these came in compostable bags, so I used old glass jars to store them after I opened them.
Petro
I’m a big fan of green tea with mint, and recently I got some very nice Oolong tea from Kazakhstan. Delicious! Here in South Africa, we also drink loads of rooibos – still my ultimate feel good cup.
Addie
PetroAll of that sounds so good. I love rooibos in the fall and winter, it’s so comforting!
Barbara Alfeo
Did you see the report on tea bags and plastic? I think everyone is going to be switching to loose leaf!
Addie
Barbara AlfeoI haven’t seen a recent report but I have read about it often! I sure hope folks do, because those bags are not safe at all.