Products to watch from Fes-tea-val 2018

On Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 April 2018 the people behind National Tea Day organised Fes-tea-val at Chiswick House and Gardens in London to celebrate tea and its connection with British culture.

The festival consisted of stalls for food and drinks companies specialising in tea-based products, as well as activities for children and adults including yoga, mixology classes and afternoon tea.

Although there were many tea businesses represented at the festival, there were some that brought something new to the industry segment. We take a look at some of the stand-out products from the event.

 

Green Lady Tea

Green Lady Tea is the UK’s first sparkling tea product. CEO Francis Oyewole came up with the idea and launched the business whilst he was at university in 2013 with Sultan Bin Khaled. The original product was made using a soda stream and a bag of tea.

Oyewole says: “At the time I was looking to cut down on the boozing and partying with exams looming.Not drinking alcohol wasn’t that hard, the problem was the fact I was often left drinking a cola or lemonade whilst my friends were enjoying prosecco, cocktails and wines.”

The current product blends Green Darjeeling tea, which Green Lady describes as the ‘Champagne of teas’, with carob fruit, nutmeg and rose oil. It is produced in an independent brewery in the North of England.

Green Lady Tea originally aimed to join the growing low alcohol and alcohol free beverages trend. Oyewold says: “Generally, people have become more health conscious and are drinking less – 1 in 5 people in the UK are now teetotal.” Nielsen data shows sales of low and non-alcohol drinks have risen by 20.5% between July 2016 and July 2017.

However, the company also recommends using the sparkling time as a mixer for gin, which it claims is because of the blend of botanicals in the product.

The company has just launched a crowdfunding page to help it launch the next phase, which is launching a new flavour, a larger 500ml bottle format and new packaging designs.

 

T-sticks

T-sticks was inspired by a desire to create a convenient, drip-free tea experience – and it has succeeded in that aim. Rather than encasing tea leaves in a tea bag, the company packages its teas in a perforated aluminium foil stick. This eliminates the need for tea infusers and spoons as the stick can act as both a strainer and a stirrer.

The stick has 400 evenly spaced micro-perforations of 0.08mm, which T-sticks claims means the tea infuses evenly and tea tannins are not concentrated.

T-sticks are available in ten flavours, including breakfast, Moroccan mint, lemon, peach and strawberry. The company claims the contents are sourced from the world’s best tea plantations and larger leaves are used than in normal tea bags.

The company has recently rebranded to be named Sticksologist, which will allow the company to expand the uses of its aluminium packaging to other products. It already produces coffee variants called C-sticks in classic Colombian, Irish cream, caramel and date flavours.

Sticksology co-founder Ricky Kothari says: “We are really excited to revamp the box packaging and our formulated leaf tea blends for our award-winning recycled aluminium infusion sticks. Following excellent feedback on the product range we are looking at launching Sticksology across retail and foodservice channels to supply Hoteliers and across the shared service office space. We want our nation to love the experience of the loose leaf tea experience by reducing water wastage and simply stirring to get more control on brewing up a cup of tea to your perfection.”

 

Yu Lu brew

UK brewery Siren Craft Brew is the brains behind Yu Lu brew, a pale ale brewed with earl grey tea. Tea leaves are added in the middle of the brewing process and then drained out before bottling.

Yu Lu contains the hops Chinook, Citra, Amarillo and Simcoe and has a citrus taste from the inclusion of lemon zest in the recipe. The finishing notes are of peach and apricot.

Andy Nowlan, marketing manager, Siren Craft Brew says: “Yu Lu represents the care and attention that goes in to every one of our brews, and it’s a beer that has developed over time, as we’ve refined the recipe from its roots in Vermont three years ago. Earl Grey tea leaves bring an inherent dry bitterness, along with a burst of bergamot juice that begins to layer the fruit flavours through the beer – complemented by the hops. It’s just as good as an after work

pint as it is complementing food in a restaurant. We think it’s a great introduction to the flavour-forward beers in our flagship range, and an ideal starting point on the craft beer journey.”

The brewery is known for producing beers flavoured with variety of original flavours.

It created the Pompelmocello IPA by brewing beer with grapefruit juice, grapefruit zest and a grapefruit hop profile as a follow up to its Limoncello IPA.

It has also created Caribbean Chocolate City in collaboration with Cigar City, which contains hand-roasted cacao providing notes of tamarind and soft lemon, a malt which delivers coffee flavours and hop varieties offering orange, chocolate and coconut tastes.

Tom’s Tea

Tom’s Tea are fruit teas that have been crafted especially for children and aim to promote the healthy social and emotional development of children. They contain no caffeine or added sugar and can be enjoyed hot or cold.

The company was inspired by founder Anna Stopps daughters. Stopps says: “Tom’s Teas are a range of child centred, dessert inspired, delicious, fun, healthy drinks that can be enjoyed hot or cold. They contain no caffeine, no added sugar or other bad stuff, offering children an escape from the sugar laden drinks market.

“‘Time Out for Me, Time Out for Tea’ is our core value as it concerns taking a moment out of a child’s busy day to enjoy some tea, whether it be whilst spending time with family, reading a book, playing a board game or perhaps even after a melt-down…, and therefore aims to support children in healthy living and encouraging an overall sense of well-being that will hopefully transcend into adulthood.”

The dessert-flavoured teas come in biodegradable pyramid tea bags, which the company claims have space for the tea blends to move around and release full flavours and aromas. They are packaged in fun and child-focused boxes and each flavour features a different character.

The four flavours are cherry pie, peaches and cream, rhubarb and custard and tropical twist. Cherry pie is represented by Cherry Chinchilla and contains hibiscus petals, apple, rosehip, grapes and sour cherry and Peachy Panda characterises peaches and cream, which is made from peach, apple, hibiscus petals and elderberries.

Rhubarb and custard contains rooibos, rhubarb and sunflower blooms and features Rhubarb Rabbit and tropical twist is represented by Tropical Toucan and contains hibiscus petals, elderberries, grapes, rosehip petals, citrus peels, strawberry and raspberry.

 

Noveltea

Co-founders Lukas Passia and Vincent Efferoth were inspired to create a product that combined two drinks loved by Brits, alcohol and tea, and disrupted the spirits market; the result was Noveltea.

There are currently two variants of Noveltea: The Tale of Tangier and The Tale of Early Grey. Both recipes focus on tea flavours as a top note and involve cold brew techniques, as well as good quality tea leaves, according to the company.

Noveltea co-founder Vincent Efferoth, who was manning the brand’s stall at Fes-tea-val, says: “The unique Noveltea concept that sees tea as the main ingredient and infused with a matching spirit provides something very different and unusual when compared to conventional spirits, which is increasingly important within such a competitive market.”

The Tale of Tangier is made from a traditional Moroccan mint tea and white rum. It has hints of exotic fruit and floral citrus notes. While, in homage to British tea culture, The

Tale of Earl Grey is made with Earl Grey tea blended with British gin and selected botanicals.

Lukas and Vincent are working on producing more alcoholic tea blends to add to the Noveltea range in the next few months.

A major selling point of Noveltea is that it is versatile; they can be consumed hot or cold.