An evening of tea tasting with Dragonfly Tea

I love tea. I’m the sort of person who will always pick a cup of oolong over a glass of red wine, and a cup of Darjeeling over… well, anything, really. So when I heard that Dragonfly Tea was holding a tea tasting masterclass to celebrate their new Tea House Collection, I was immediately intrigued.

I have never been a fan of English breakfast tea… my favourite leaves have always been, and will likely always remain, Darjeeling. And whilst this ‘king of teas’ did not feature in the masterclass, I discovered what is now likely my second favourite: Dragonfly Tea’s Eastern Beauty Oolong Tea! They mixed it into a cocktail (the cleverly named ‘Oolong Island Ice Tea’) as well as brewing it up for us separately, and it was stunningly subtle and delicious in both forms.

I love the floral branding on Dragonfly Tea’s products, and that gentle beauty and friendliness is something that permeated the entire evening. From the moment we came into the Waitrose Cookery School and were offered tea-infused cocktails, to the extremely creative canapés, to the education on various leaves, this was likely the most authentic and genuinely interesting bloggers’ event I’ve attended thus far.

The evening ran very smoothly, as we munched on the canapés (the green tea wasabi nests were an astonishing overall favourite) before tasting three of the teas. As we did so, Georgia Ginsberg, one of the founders of the company, told us more about the Dragonfly teas, and her knowledge impressed us all.

Whilst I know that you should never use boiling water on good tea leaves (just like us weak humans, they will scald), and I never double boil a kettle (the horror!), I had no idea that matcha contained brown rice, nor that you could infuse gin with Earl Grey and make an amazing cocktail!

We then took part in a tea tasting competition, where I narrowly missed out on the prize (damn my inferior knowledge of green tea!), but was rather pleased with getting nearly all of the flavours right!

Dragonfly Tea’s new range includes some classic British favourites, like English Breakfast and lemon & ginger, but it was their Eastern infusions that really shone for me. As mentioned, the oolong was my favourite, but their genmaicha and matcha green tea was wonderfully toasty, and the bai mudan white tea won my heart with its silver-tipped leaves. I’m sorry to say that their English Breakfast, whilst superior to Tetley, couldn’t convert me, but I know it’ll always be a favourite with the Brits!

I love tea so much. I’m sipping a cup of the genmaicha as I write this (fresh water in the kettle, of course) and now that autumn has well and truly arrived, I cannot wait to indulge in my newly acquired Dragonfly Tea to warm me through the winter months! I suggest you do the same… all their flavours are available online, but you can also find them in larger UK supermarkets.

Cheers!

I was invited to the tea masterclass by Dragonfly Tea but as always, all opinions are entirely my own. I really, really, really love tea.