It's not just coffee at Addison Coffee Roasters

Thirty years ago, Addison Coffee Roasters was known as the Coffee & Tea Trading Company. Some of you may not know this, especially if you’ve never visited our retail location, but we do, in fact, still sell teas! Now you’ll have access to all of our teas online as well.

A lot of times, there is a great divide between coffee drinkers and tea drinkers, and never the ‘tween shall meet, as they say. I, myself, have claimed a die-hard allegiance to coffee up until fairly recently. I’m here to tell you, there is just as much rich history, diversity, and versatility in the tea world as there is in the coffee world, arguably more, in fact. Black teas, pu-reh teas, white teas, green teas, oolong teas, fruit infusions, herbal teas, and then someone throws around the term, “tisane,” and my eyes would start to glaze over with sensory overload. But once you understand the basic process of tea manufacturing, it all starts to make sense.

First, black tea, pu-reh tea, white tea, green tea, and oolong tea is all from the same plant. These categories represent the different stages of oxidization. Oxidization is a chemical reaction that results in the browning of the tea leaves, like an apple slice turning brown, causing distinct tastes and aromas to develop. Tea production involves the prevention, control, and arrest of this process. So, knowing this, we know that green tea has the least amount of oxidization, while pu-reh and black teas have the most oxidization. White teas and oolongs fall within the spectrum between these two.

On the other hand, tea infusions such as tisanes, fruit teas, and herbal teas have nothing to do with the process described above, or for that matter, even the tea plant referred to above. Let’s get some definitions out of the way. Tisanes, fruit teas, and herbal teas are all “tea” infusions. It’s all rendered by the same process: something is steeped in hot water until you have a lovely broth, for lack of a better word. Fruit infusions steep fruit and herbal “teas” steep herbs. Wait, what the heck is a tisane? It’s a pretty broad term, but basically, anything you’d use to render a beverage that may or may not have medicinal benefits. This could be spices, herbs, fruits, etc. And what about rooibos teas? Fine question! Rooibos is technically a tisane. It’s the needle-like leaves of the Red Bush, a plant native to South Africa. It’s not a tea plant, strictly speaking.

This, of course, is only scratching the surface of the vast world of teas. There’s a ton of history and brewing requirements, not to mention recipes! Let’s skip to the good stuff.

Here are some recipes make your sweltering summer a little bit sweeter, cooler, and just delicious, frankly:

Thai Tea

A strongly brewed black tea served with half and half or sweetened condensed milk.

1 qt. filtered water

4 tbsp Ceylon black tea, or Assam black tea

1 star anise

1 green cardamom pod, crushed

2 whole cloves

1/4 c sweetener, or to taste

1 c half and half or sweetened condensed milk

Bring water to a boil, and add everything except for the milk. Allow the mixture to steep until it comes to room temperature, then strain, and refrigerate. Once the tea is cold, pour over a fair amount of ice, and top with your dairy of choice.

Iced Earl Grey tea latte

2 c filtered water

2 c milk of your choice

4 tbsp Earl Grey tea

¼ c sweetener, or to taste

Mix water and milk of choice over low-medium heat, stirring occasionally. Just before boiling, remove from heat and add the tea and sweetener to steep for 5 minutes, then strain and let cool in the fridge. Once cold, pour over a nice, tall glass of ice. For an added twist, add lavender flowers during the steeping stage or even lavender syrup.

Raspberry Tea Floats

4 c filtered water

4 tbsp Raspberry Tea

Vanilla ice cream or Raspberry sorbet

Seltzer water of choice

Bring water to boil, remove from heat, and steep tea for 5 minutes. Strain and put tea in fridge to cool. Add scoops of your iced cream or sorbet to a 16 oz glass. Pour ¼ c of seltzer water over ice cream, and then fill the rest of the glass with your raspberry tea. Rum is optional. Wink, wink.

Verrry Berry Lemonade Popsicles

4 c filtered water

4 tbsp Verrry Berry infusion

2 lemons, sliced

½ c sweetener of choice

Bring water to boil, remove from heat, add Verrry Berry infusion, lemon slices, and sweetener. Let steep for an hour, then strain, and refrigerate completely. This step is very important to the texture of your pops, so don’t skip it. Once it’s thoroughly chilled, pour in to ice pop molds and freeze until solid.

See? It’s not just about coffee at Addison Coffee Roasters! Let us help enhance your summer with TEAS!!!