two leaves and a bud | Two Leaves Tea Company BlogTwo Leaves and a Bud Blog

New: “Prime” Tea Time!
By naomi / in April Fools, News from two leaves tea company, Uncategorized / April 1, 2019

Get your tea when and how you want it.

Tired of waiting in line at your local café? They don’t have the flavors you want? Too embarrassed to ask for your tea exactly how you want it? With the super powers of Amazon Prime and the skills of the tea geeks at Two Leaves and a Bud, your tea will be made to order and waiting in the Prime Locker nearest you at exactly the right time, down to the second. It’s Amazon Prime Tea Time!

“Coffee drinkers have been accustomed to personalization for decades now. But what about tea drinkers? What choices are offered to tea drinkers beyond “hot” or “iced”?!” says Two Leaves and a Bud marketing manager, Christy Garfield. “Imagine the looks you’d get if you asked your barista to remove the tea sachet from the cup after precisely 5 minutes of steeping – without squeezing the bag, and to slowly stir your tea until 1 tablespoon of honey is fully dissolved?”

That is why we’ve partnered with Amazon to get you the customization you desire, with no judgement, and exceptional attention to detail. When you first log on to our Prime Tea Time app, you’ll set up your preferences with a simple 100-question survey. Then you’ll be able to place your tea orders with one-click, or a kind request to Alexa. Unless, of course, you want something different every time, in which case you may spend more time entering your order than actually drinking tea, but it’s worth it for the customization.

Amazon’s advanced algorithms will analyze your preferences and order history to suggest tea types and preparations you will enjoy. But most importantly it aids in our ability to predict your next order, which allows us to get orders to you lightning fast – even a cup of Organic Chamomile at 2am to help you get back to sleep.

Want to pick up your tea every day on your way to work? We offer Subscribe and Save. It’s now easier than ever to get the tea you love, how you want it, when you want it with Two Leaves and a Bud and Amazon’s Prime Tea Time!

Okay, sound too good to be true? It is. *Happy April Fool’s Day! For following our joke this far, here’s a coupon for 20% off site-wide, good through Tuesday, 4/2/19, 11:59PM MTN time: Use code PrimeTea at checkout.
Assam tea vs English Breakfast – why have both?
By christy / in English style tea, News from two leaves tea company, Organic Black Tea, Products from two leaves and a bud, Uncategorized / February 22, 2019

Here at Two Leaves and a Bud, customers have asked us for a traditional English Breakfast for years. We have always responded, “Our Assam is our English Breakfast.” Our Organic Assam tea has been one of our best-selling teas since the company was founded 15 years ago. So why, after all these years, have we finally added an Organic English Breakfast to our range of whole leaf tea sachets?

We created our Assam blend with large orthodox leaf tea that we felt tasted great and gave that wonderful Assam maltiness. But we have consumers who want a stronger tea. So we set out to create a tea that had the flavor characteristics our Assam but darker in the cup, with deeper body that would taste great with milk.

Assam is a whole leaf tea that is harvested from a single source: Assam, India. The soil is rich with nutrients that flow from the Tibetan Plains via the Brahmaputra River. The tea grown there is in intense heat and humidity, much like in a greenhouse, which gives Assam tea its bold, rich flavor black tea lovers crave. Read more about that tea in another blog post.

Our Organic English Breakfast is a blend of whole leaf black teas and is designed to be stronger and darker in the cup. Unlike pure Assam tea, English Breakfast is a blend of a few black teas from different regions of India, instead of just a single source. Also, our English Breakfast contains 3.2 grams of tea per sachet, as opposed to 3g in our Assam. Malty with a sweet edge, this is a flavorful every-day tea. It’s great with milk but smooth enough to serve without.

Our fearless leader, Richard, drinks Assam straight up but drinks our English Breakfast the way the English do: with a spot of milk.

So why offer both? Black tea is black tea, right? No way! That’s like asking why offer both Assam and the other famous tea named after a region in India — Darjeeling. While Assam, Darjeeling, and English Breakfast are all delicious black teas, they all have different nuances. Give all three a try and taste the difference!
A New Year’s Resolution: Switch to Drinking Green Tea
By admin / in Benefits of Tea, Green Tea, Healthy, Organic Green Tea, Uncategorized, Wellness Tea / December 26, 2018

At Two Leaves and a Bud, we went and searched for some good reasons why you should switch from coffee to tea, as a New Year's Resolution.

A Strong Antioxidant

Researchers seeking an explanation for green tea's apparent health-giving qualities believe they have found it in the form of substances known as polyphenols, which are strong antioxidants that have the potential to quell disease-promoting molecules known as free radicals.

Furthermore, research suggests that the most potent weapon against disease that green tea contains is a compound known as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG has been found to have a number of cancer-protective actions in the body, including an ability to help in the deactivation of cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens).

Many Benefits for Health

Green tea has been linked with a reduced risk of cancer in both men and women. In one study published in 2004, women consuming green tea every day were found to have a 47 percent reduced risk of breast cancer compared to those consuming none at all. In another study published the same year, researchers found that men taking green tea each day had about a quarter of the risk of prostate cancer compared to those who took no green tea. Other research has found that increased green tea consumption appears to protect against other forms of cancer too, including those of the stomach, colon, lung and skin.

The benefits of green tea seem to extend the circulatory system too. Research has found that individuals who consume green tea tend to have lower blood levels of cholesterol. Studies have also shown a decrease in blood pressure. These benefits go at least some way to explaining research which links green tea consumption with a reduced risk of stroke and heart disease.

Green tea has also been linked with a boost in metabolism. Some studies have shown that people can shed a few pounds by simply swapping coffee for green tea. A healthy diet and plenty of exercise is of course the best way to lose weight, but a little green tea may add to an overall lifestyle change.

Why Green?

All tea, including green, black and oolong come from the same plant. However, green tea, unlike the others is unoxidized so the active health giving ingredients remain unaltered. The other teas (from the Camellia sinensis plant), which go through an oxidation process, still contain some of the healthy properties, but appear to be more muted.

It should be noted that one can drink too much green tea. The majority of our liquid should be water, but a cup or two of green tea a day can offer some amazing healing benefits.

Learn more in: Dr. Perricon's 7 Secrets to Beauty, Health, and Longevity: The Miracle of Cellular Rejuvenation by Dr. Perricone
Organic Darjeeling: A distinctive black tea
By naomi / in Organic Black Tea, Products from two leaves and a bud, Tea Education, Uncategorized / December 5, 2018

Darjeeling, India sits in the high foothills of the Himalayas. It gets cold enough there that tea stops growing in the Fall.

“Organic Darjeeling isn’t one of our best sellers,” says CEO Richard Rosenfeld. “It's not a tea many Americans are used to, when it comes to black tea.” However, if you haven’t tried our Organic Darjeeling, you’re missing out.

Sourced from the mountainous region of Darjeeling, India (elevation varying from 2,000 – 8,000 feet), Darjeeling black tea is also one of the more interesting teas to learn about. The hilly terrain and cool mountain temperatures have an instant impact on the flavor of the tea itself. The light, arid soil mixed with cool winds generates a subtle astringency to the tea that you won’t find in a robust Organic Assam tea from Assam, India. Furthermore, the varied terrain from hillside to hillside creates differences in the amount of sunlight, wind, and soil quality for each tea “lot”. That means that Darjeeling tea from one hillside can taste incredibly different from the tea on a neighboring slope.

The First Flush

One can’t talk about Darjeeling tea without mentioning the term “first flush”. As one of the most prized crops of tea throughout the world, first flush Darjeelings are known for their astringent, green flavors intermingled with the depth and robustness of black tea. But what is first flush, exactly?

“The region of Darjeeling gets cold during the winter, and no tea grows anywhere,” Richard says. “Temperatures start to change, and the two leaves and bud of the tea plant open up, ‘flushing’ for the first time all season.”

After the first flush is plucked, there are occasional “bungee flushes” that then occur. A smaller growth of two leaves and the bud that appear somewhere in between the first and second flush. Bungee flushes are actually a lesser sought tea, lacking the complexity that Darjeeling is famed for.

Second flush Darjeeling tea, however, is certainly something to be prized as well. Noticeably darker and more “black” than first flush Darjeeling, second flushes still offer classic Darjeeling flavor, but with less of a green flavor, and more of the depth commonly associated with great black tea.

Two Leaves and a Bud’s Organic Darjeeling

So, what indeed makes two leaves and a bud’s Organic Darjeeling Black Tea so special? Says Richard:

“This is a lovely blend of first and second flush Darjeeling tea with light, but rich, body and floral overtones."

You’ll experience what our Organic Darjeeling tea is all about the moment you give it a steep. Your palate will instantly be met by notes of green tea. From there, you’ll experience a sharp (but pleasant) string of astringency, finished by the deep, robust notes of black tea.

Are you a Two Leaves and a Bud Darjeeling fan? If so, what do you like most about it?
Organic Peppermint Tea: Grown in the USA
By naomi / in Herbal Tea, Organic Herbal Tea, Products from two leaves and a bud, sachets, Tea Education, Uncategorized / November 7, 2018

After Two Leaves and a Bud CEO and founder Richard Rosenfeld and his wife were smack in the middle of a big field of peppermint, growing knee-high, Richard shared, "Our shoes and clothes had a strong pepperminty smell for the next four days!"

You see, Richard was visiting the farm in Eastern Washington State that grows organic peppermint for our tea company. As Richard tells it, his mission for this company is to produce the world's best tea sachet. And visiting this grower of organic herbs is part of that mission.

"I want peppermint tea to be buttery, not too peppery, smooth as opposed to sharp, still slightly astringent with nice cup color," he says. "Of course I am extra pleased that we have found that in American-grown peppermint."

Close-up of peppermint leaves used to make our organic peppermint tea.

Although many of us are familiar with the rainy aspects of Washington in the western portion of the state like Seattle, the eastern side of the state is hot and dry — one of the driest climate zones in the country, but it's well-irrigated from the Grand Coulee Dam. Herbs and spices grow beautifully there in huge crop circles, and our particular peppermint provider grows about 250 acres of peppermint, or half of a crop circle. In fact, most of the peppermint they grow isn't for tea at all — it's harvested and used as an essential oil, an ingredient in things like shampoo and toothpaste.

The leaves used for our Organic Peppermint Tea are harvested by the growers at the exact peak moment of the oils maturing in the plant (as a summer crop, peppermint only has one harvest per year). They chop the whole plant and leave it lying in the field to dry. Once dried, they collect it and separate the leaves (used in our tea) from the stems (used for someone else's essential oil).

Two Leaves' Organic Peppermint tea in a compostable sachet.

As for being organic, that comes down to lots and lots of weeding by hand, Richard says. "It costs 10 times as much as a non-organic peppermint," he says. "They're removing one weed at a time, as opposed to spraying the field (with pesticide or herbicide) from a plane."

This tea has been one of our top-sellers since its inception. The praise we receive for this tea affirms what we already believe: this truly is the best peppermint tea.

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Get your tea when and how you want it.