This is the first tea we have created due to a hashtag.
Yes, you read that right. A hashtag.
One of my mutuals on Twitter (and a fellow spoonie, to boot) kept sending out tweets with the #365 teas hashtag. I initially assumed it was a specific company, and had not investigated. (I kept meaning to check, but as I am a small business owner 1 (which translates as burning the candle at both ends and in the middle) sometimes things like ‘poke a hashtag’ get set aside for long periods of time.)
After a chunk of time seeing it pop up in my timeline, I realized that it couldn’t be a brand of tea. Some of the tweets involved pictures, and they indicated that the hashtag was being used for many brands of tea – and sometimes the brand wasn’t mentioned.
So I finally did the smart thing and asked what it was all about.
She explained. It is a hashtag for people who love tea.
Of course I immediately went and semi-stalked the hashtag, wandering through it, poking things, asking questions, and generally enjoying the expressions of tea as an intrinsic part of life.
I also discovered there’s a tea-off happening amongst the people who use the hash-tag. This sounded pretty neat, and I figured it might be a way to discover new types of tea to use as foundational ingredients.
I hadn’t expected this to provoke a tea. Which was probably a bit goofy of me since we’ve had teas inspired by everything from lines in a book or show to candybars to music to…
The week I started looking at the hashtag, the contest was between Sencha and Raspberry Green tea.
Sencha I had had, and enjoyed – it used to be our standard general green tea.
But raspberry green…. I’d never had it – which, of course, also meant we didn’t have one.
So, in order to participate in the tea-off, I blended a test batch – and both Mister Tea and I thought it was lovely.
Frankly it fell into the “why hadn’t I already made this?” category from conception, but became more so as we reveled in the taste.
The name came from one of the random bits of data I have collected. Savoring the second cup and thinking about a name for the tea, I remembered that our galaxy tastes of raspberries. If I ever manage to get the smell and taste of rum into a tea – this one will probably have a companion.
Organic Ingredients: High Mountain Green Tea, Freeze-Dried Raspberries
Batch Size: 1.8 ounces, approximately 25-30 servings of tea
Options: Loose Tea (Sample, Bag), Teabags (Single, Sample, Bag)
Purchasing: Personal Shop, Etsy
