DIY Tea Blending
I learned about tea blending during an Etsy workshop, with Literary Tea Co.'s Lauren Nolan. Although Etsy is an online store, they held a four day shop and workshop on the 7th floor of David Jones.
Lauren advised to avoid any wet ingredients when blending your own tea and only use dried fruit or petals. She offered us a range of four teas to choose from: Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Green and Chamomile and a range of aromatics. She advised to use between 1 and 3 aromatics per tea. In the case of Earl Grey which is already very fragrant, she recommended just one or two aromatics.
The blending process is simple and even with a business blending tea, Lauren doesn't use measurements, rather going on her sense of smell and nose for each batch. We half filled a bowl with the tea of our choice and added about 1 teaspoon of our chosen additions. I chose hibiscus flowers and coconut which made for a surprising but lovely aroma. I needed to add a bit more coconut as that does tend to get lost amongst the aromas of Earl Grey and hibiscus and within a few minutes, all of our teas were blended.
- 1 cup tea of your choice (Lauren buys her teas from Austral Herbs)
- 1 teaspoon each of whatever aromate you would like to add (some ideas are hibiscus, cinnamon, mango, coconut, rose petals and lavender)
- Tea bags (I bought heat sealable ones from ebay)
Step 1 - Place the tea into a bowl and then measure a teaspoon of each aromate, using up to three (or two for Earl Grey). Mix together. Coconut tends to settle at the bottom as it is so fine and light so make sure to mix this up.
Step 2 - Spoon into tea bags and wet the tops lightly. They said that you can seal them with an iron on the cotton setting but I found that only my curling iron really worked consistently to seal things. Attach a swing tag to the thread with glue. Store tea and teabags in a dark container away from light.