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Back-logging from this morning.

So, I stopped at the Bar Harbor Tea Co shop on my way home from work last night (huzzah! I don’t have to pay shipping for this stuff! Na na na-na na. Ahem…) with the intent of picking up a Bodum travel tea press. I got the press but figured I’d pick up a new tea while I was there. I had smelled this one during my last visit (to pick up a new tin of the chocolate chai) and had been amazed at how much like the native blueberries this smelled. So I snagged a small tin.

Now for those of you who have not spent time in Maine or the Maritime provinces of Canada, there are two kinds of blueberries. Most of you are likely familiar with the big, plump, bursting-with-juice blueberries commonly found in the grocery store. Those are called highbush blueberries. What we have here in Maine is called the lowbush blueberry. The plants grow right down flush with the ground, no taller than 15" and usually more like 5"-10", and the leaves and berries are smaller than those of the highbush berries. But what Maine blueberries lack in size they greatly make up for in flavor. No highbush berry can compare to the sweet/tart/juicy fruits of the lowbush blueberry that grows wild in the acidic soil of the region. Yes, wild. While there are indeed fields where these berries grow and are harvested they grew there naturally, with no human hand to plant them, no field equipment to water them.

It is of course the flavor of the native, lowbush wild blueberry that is used in this tea. The bright, red-amber liquor is redolent with the aroma and flavor of these berries, even more strongly in the aftertaste. And I would love to know what variety of black tea was used as a base for this as the steeped leaves are quite colorful. Large, though broken, and green, but with red-brown veins and stems.

And writing this has made me want another cup of this tea!