Tea Tales – Nuovo Tea, and How I Spent St. Patrick’s Day

Nuovo Tea store, Glen Ellyn, IL. Note tempting samples on right.

THE DISCOVERY

In late February (the 20th, to be exact) I found myself hunting down a fast dinner and stopped in at Trader Joe’s on Roosevelt Road in Glen Ellyn. Trader Joe’s just happens to be next to a tea shop I’d heard about, but had never stopped in to investigate: Nuovo Tea. I eyed it warily, wondering if I had enough time to give it a proper investigation. Then I noticed they had free tea samples outside, three of them.

Sneaking over, I tried all three. Then glancing inside the store I saw they had…more tea samples. Four more, to be precise. Like an animal being lured in with bait, I furtively slid through the door and said to myself: just one more sample. After trying two, the staff member working there popped out from a back room to see if I needed any assistance. I was guiltily holding a sample cup, so I greeted her warmly, and started talking about tea. I also asked if it would be OK to try the other two samples, and she said “Of course!” So, seven samples in, and after conversation comparing their tastes with store lady (I learned her name is Kathleen), I was suddenly seated at the counter and removing my winter coat.

Kathleen in her natural habitat. She’s actually a nurse who blends her own health herbal teas. That’s skillz!

“I’m really getting into matcha,” I told her.

“Oh! You’ve got to try ours. We have several flavors of fruit matcha, and ceremonial grade matcha. Do you have 5 minutes? I could make you a cup.”

“Ah! I wouldn’t want to trouble you! Are you sure you have the time?”

“Of course! Here, smell the different kinds and let me know which one you want me to brew for you.”

I smelled them all, discussed the differences between Japanese and Chinese matcha, and decided to go for the Japanese ceremonial grade regular flavor matcha. She showed me how to make the tea, and it was served in a gorgeous Japanese pottery vessel. I drank it with pleasure.

“We do tea classes here,” said my new friend, Kathleen. “You can schedule them any time you like and bring others with you. We cover all the tea basics, including matcha.”

The Pu-erh and Earl Grey tea Kathleen blended for me.

“Oh DO you now?” I said, with interest. Many tea places have such classes, and I’ve attended a few, but there aren’t many that will let you schedule them at your whim, nor many that include matcha. Intrigued, I vowed to make one of these classes a goal for the near future, and to bring others with me.

“We also blend teas to order,” Kathleen continued. Remembering the unique blend of Pu-erh, orange peel, and vanilla that I had tried in Le Claire, IA before Christmas, I said asked her if she could blend something similar and read her the “Sunrise Mojo” description from the Royal Tea website.

My tea blend labels.

“We can certainly try!” she said.

And reader, she did. She blended me a pu-ehr and vanilla Earl Grey combination. It tastes nice; not exactly like I remember from Royal Tea, but hey, that’s great customer service! I left extremely content and felt that I’d found a new hidden tea kingdom.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY: THE TEA CLASS

Jump forward to March 17, when the aforementioned tea class was scheduled for me and 8 other friends who came along. Tea is such an Irish thing to do, it seemed the perfect activity to celebrate the day. And hey, the store walls are actually green!

Our tea group holding matcha lattes. Nuovo Tea also provided a variety of fruit, cheese, crackers, and cookies to go along with the tea. Major bonus points!!

We were seated along the counter, and the lovely staff brought out FOUR trays filled with fruit, cheese, cracker, and cookie selections! This was a winning deal from the start.

We tried several varieties of black, oolong, green, matcha, white, rooibos, and herbal teas…all explained to us and brewed to perfection.

Malik serves the Earl Grey Bravo. He’s also a Tolkien fan. We bonded with him.

BLACK TEAS

They served us Earl Grey Bravo, Assam, and Pu-erh teas, allowing us to see and smell the tea leaves, and watch the brewing process. My favorites were the Earl Grey and Pu-erh.

Pu-erh – steep one.

Pu-erh – steep two. Totally different color, and delicious taste!

 

 

 

 

OOLONG TEA

We were treated to a really lovely, rich flavored Jade Oolong tea, and a Peach Oolong tea. I was surprised to like the Jade Oolong more, even though I’m a huge peach tea fan. The peach tea included raw sugar, which was a bit too sweet for me.

Peach (left) and Jade (right) Oolong teas. (Pu-erh in back – I was savoring it.)

GREEN TEAS

Matcha whisk and bowl

The green teas we tried were Chinese Dragonwell and Mango Green. They were both very good green teas. But of course, my FAVORITE green tea of the day was the Matcha tea.

We all agreed to try the regular ceremonial grade matcha tea, and then also a matcha latte. Most of our group preferred the latte so that the milk cut the bitterness a bit. Fair enough!

Regular matcha – side view

Regular matcha – top view

 

 

 

 

They demonstrated the difference in color and quality between ceremonial grade Japanese matcha (left) and regular matcha (right).

Whisking the matcha!

WHITE TEA

The white tea we tried was Jasmine Silver Needle, and as I love Jasmine, I LOVED this tea! A sweet, floral-infused very flavorful brew. Often called the “champagne of tea.”

The white tea poured from the infuser.

ROOIBOS TEAS

We tried a Green Rooibos and a Red Rooibos Vanilla Chai. The green was nice, the red was full of spice and flavor! A bit too spicy for me, personally.

Green Rooibos

Red Rooibos Vanilla Chai

 

 

 

 

 

HERBAL TEAS

Tumeric Bliss Herbal Tea

Our friend Kathleen shared 3 herbal teas with us:

Tumeric Bliss herbal tea: tumeric, black pepper, ginger root, cranberry, mango, apple, orange peel. It’s anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, aids digestion, promotes gut health, boosts immunity, antioxidants, and is good for cholesterol and blood pressure. At this rate it probably does your taxes for you too!

Active Life herbal tea

Active Life herbal tea: ashwagandha, dandelion root, Siberian ginseng (eleuthero), peppermint, skullcap, nettle leaf, gotu kola, and licorice root. Helps physical stamina and recovery for nervous and muscular systems. 

Nuovo Tea Blend

Nuovo Blend herbal tea: chamomile, lemon grass, ginger, spearmint, peppermint. Calms the nervous and digestive systems.

A huge “thank you” and shout out to the staff at Nuovo Tea. They really gave us a fantastic class ($15 per person for all this included is really very reasonable), and were so kind, knowledgeable, and responsive to all our questions. I highly recommend trying Nuovo Tea yourself, or a similar tea class near you!

Until next time…tea you later!

Tea Tales – Matcha Madness: Celebrating Green Tea

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we’re celebrating a GREEN tea that I happen to adore: MATCHA. Matcha is tea that comes in a powdered form, and can be enjoyed not only as a beverage, but is used as flavoring in a variety of foods as well. To my North American friends, matcha is prepared differently than the types of green tea you may be used to tasting. You actually get to drink the tea leaves in a powdered form after they’re mixed and dissolved in steamed water. In this Tea Tale, I’ll share my introduction to matcha and various experiences with it to date.

The scene of the crime: Chinatown, Chicago – April 23, 2016.

The first time I ever tasted the flavor of matcha was April 23, 2016 in Chicago’s Chinatown. I was at a dessert restaurant called Honey (now closed, oh the sadness), and saw they had ice cream mochi on the menu. I’d never had mochi, so we got 3 flavors: red bean, mango, and green tea (matcha).

Green tea (matcha) ice cream mochi.

The mochi itself started another journey of bliss for me…but that’s not the focus of this post. The mango mochi was good, the red bean mochi was delicious, but the green tea mochi…that stuff changed my life. It tasted like tea, but not a flavor I had ever experienced before, and I LOVED it. Combined with the sweetness of the ice cream, and the soft and sticky outer layer of the mochi, it was a sublime experience. I had to take some with me, pictured here.

Thus began a hunt for matcha in any form, anywhere I could get it. I quickly discovered that matcha has a very different taste in its sweetened vs. UNsweetened forms. Although I’ve learned to appreciate both, the unsweetened taste took some getting used to. I still dislike unsweetened matcha ice cream (it’s vile, although some will disagree with me here), and as my mother endearingly described some matcha candy I gave her: “it tastes like grass.” Well, everyone has their own interpretation…

Matcha iced tea – May 2017

One of my next matcha experiences came at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant out in the western suburbs in May 2017. I got a matcha iced tea, which was unsweetened but tasted very refreshing, and you can’t beat that amazing color, right? I also plucked an adorable leaf-wrapped mochi off the conveyor belt. I wasn’t sure what it was when I grabbed it, but quickly discovered it had a matcha mochi layer underneath its cute leaf wrapper (more sticky than what I’d tried before) and was filled with a sweet red bean paste. Delicious!

 

On another day in Chinatown Chicago, April 2018 to be exact, I went all out and found matcha crepe cake, rolled ice cream, and Kit Kats. Japan is known for its multi-flavored Kit Kat variety, and I can confirm that the matcha ones are fabulous.

Matcha crepe cake, rolled ice cream, and Kit Kats.

One of the best things about my matcha adventures, however, has been the memory making with friends. A year ago, the Wheaton College Tolkien Society was approached to come up with a themed drink for Tolkien Reading Day at the college’s coffee and ice cream establishment, Sam’s. At the time, no matcha drinks were on the menu. We settled on trying for a green drink since the color green is often associated with Tolkien’s works due to his love for nature (and it’s a favorite color of hobbits too). We developed a matcha frappuccino with the staff at Sam’s, and named it the Green Dragon in honor of Tolkien. He once wrote about a green dragon as a little boy, not to mention it’s the name of a Shire inn. The name matched Tolkien, as well as Asian culture — also known for its dragons, so a win-win either way!

Tolkien Society with our Green Dragon drinks, March 2018.

We had the inaugural drink ceremony on March 24, 2018, and the drink has done so well it retained a permanent place on the Sam’s menu.

Trying out the matcha cafe with some iced tea, August 2018.

This past August, I discovered a matcha CAFE in downtown Chicago that serves only exclusively matcha drinks, all unsweetened and steeped for at least 4 hours before serving. I stopped in on a warm, beautiful summer day on the way to see Hamilton with a friend, and now this memory is forever etched into the fabric of that excursion.

For presents at Christmas or birthdays, my family has gotten me matcha pocky, matcha mints, and matcha Blendy Sticks (which is one of the easiest ways to make it at home, by the way, and highly recommended).

And in recent months (since the fall), I’ve discovered one of my new favorite places of all time to go: Mitsuwa Marketplace in Arlington Heights. Dear readers, this establishment has a full Japanese grocery store, book store, bakery, DVD store, and food court. And that food court has a matcha cafe, a crepe restaurant, and bubble tea stand…all of which have matcha-flavored items (not to mention all the places matcha appears in various food items in the grocery store).

I’ve had to exercise a great deal of self-restraint every time I go, and try new flavors besides matcha while I’m there, but I have so far tried matcha ice cream, matcha latte, and a matcha crepe. The crepe (devoured in January 2019) had thick whipped cream, red bean paste, and a generous helping of matcha ice cream with matcha pocky sticks for an aesthetic flourish. This was not dessert, my friends, this was an art form, as evidenced by the photos below.

Have you tried any matcha flavored tea or food items? What did YOU think of them?

To end off this Irish / Japanese cross-cultural blog post:
“Sláinte” and “Itadakimasu”!

Until next time…tea you later! 😉

Tea Tales – Mix it Up

Although I’ve been drinking loose leaf teas for a while, I’ve only recently had the revelation and gathered the bravery to try combining them. My first experiment: taking Midnight Vanilla and Vanilla Chai from Serene Teaz (my all-time favorite tea vendor) and mixing them together for a nice cuppa. I mean, they both have “vanilla” in the name, so why not?? It was pretty good.

The takeaway: DO try this at home, and let me know if you have any awesome discoveries!

Until next time…tea you later!

Next in Tea Tales: a special St. Patrick’s Day tea blog, but not about Irish tea. Tune in next time!!