TeaChat

I was just wondering if anyone else had any experience with African teas. I've tasted two Kenyan teas so far; the Kenyan Pekoe from TeaSource is an excellent breakfast tea, although the single-estate black I had from Upton sucked. I also have a Malawi single estate from TeaSource I haven't tried yet.

So: are there any African teas you like? Loathe? I'm very interested in trying tea from all parts of the world, and I understand that some African tea estates are starting to do some orthodox teas as opposed to their regular CTC. So suggestions are welcome.

Special Teas has an OP Kenyan that tastes a lot like a typical English Breakfast tea. I think it's very good...

Whatever you do, don't order from this company:

http://www.africantea.com/

I made the mistake. I never received my order, emails went unanswered and the phone call did too. I found out afterwards (on another forum) that other people never received anything either and they had a lot of complaints from the Better Business people. They also change their name quite frequently, but the webpage still looks like this. In fact, when I got screwed over, the company was called Honeybush something or other. A Google search for African Tea always brings up this webpage, though.

You mentioned Upton's. They have 3 or 4 different ones. 2 or 3 are under their "specials" page, along with the few they have under the African page.

EW

Thanks for the warning EW!

I'll be interested in seeing how this plays out.

I've had several Kenyan coffees that were excellent. Granted, I did not order direct. I would think that growers are aware of market trends and the fact that good "estate" teas would be very popular.

New Mexico Tea Co has a single estate, fair trade Kenyan Black tea from the Lesla Estate. It reminded me of an assam with a smooth, fruity finish. I found that it made a really nice breakfast tea when I wanted something brisk. The Kenyan Pekoe from TeaSource was pretty good too.

Cinnamon Kitty wrote:New Mexico Tea Co has a single estate, fair trade Kenyan Black tea from the Lesla Estate.

Putting it on my want list now.

omegapd wrote:Whatever you do, don't order from this company:

http://www.africantea.com/

You should have told me... I think those are the same people that tried to send me 12.7 million dollars to help the Nigerian royal family escape the rebel alliance... I haven't seen many legit deals from that country buying direct... but, I bet for a cool $100,000,000,000 you could buy 1 oz of roobios from Zimbabwe.

Bubba_tea wrote: I haven't seen many legit deals from that country buying direct...

I know it. I thought I was safe, though, since the "company" claims to be based in California and they used Google Check-out which also claimed to guarantee my purchase. Yeah, right. They weren't any help either.

EW

One African tea I like a lot is the Taylors of Harrowgate Kwazulu. Delicious. I happen to like African Black Teas quite a bit. This is one of my favorite black teas, especially when I really need a pick-me-up.