Leafhopper: A Sweeter Future for African Tea

By Max Falkowitz (featured work in New York Times, Saveur, Food & Wine, Wall Street Journal)

"Spiced teas aren’t a regular part of my drinking diet, but I enjoy making them now and again as a sweet and aromatic break from my usual choices. People make good drinks with tea and spices all over the world, and I’d be a fool to ignore them out of some misplaced sense of purity. The problem with most blended teas is that they’re usually made with low quality spices to cover up the flavor of nondescript leaves. Some spices take longer to fully infuse in water than tea leaves do, so unless you’re simmering the blend on the stove, the aromatics that smell so nice in the dry leaf can taste underpowered in the cup. That’s not the case with this fragrant East African blend. By weight it’s roughly half orthodox black tea, half fine cinnamon shavings and cardamom seeds. There’s a natural spicy sweetness that lingers on my tongue, and the cardamom contributes high aromas that complement the bass note of black tea. All killer, no filler.

I was introduced to Kazi Yetu (“our work” in Swahili) by my friends Ethan and Ori, who as the founders of Burlap & Barrel set a high bar for good spices."

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