Lapsang Souchong Black Tea & Wicked Little High by Bird York
"Bird York's songs subtly reveal those things that rise out of the corners of the night: Memory, reverie, desire, and the emotions that lie cloaked when the sun is high. The melodic grace, affecting honesty, and elegant atmosphere of Bird's music will lead the listener to an inescapable conclusion: This musician is a rara avis," says Billboard Magazine. We're pairing this album with smoky, sultry Lapsang Souchong.
Our pairing:
Lapsang Souchong is a smoky, aromatic tea with a smooth, crisp character. Reminiscent of woodsmoke or even expensive cigars, this classic tea has a hint of natural sweetness.
Ginger Peach Black Tea & Soul Journey by Gillian Welch
"Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall / If I can't have you all the time, I won't have none at all," sings Gillian Welch in this lyrical folk album.
"She strips country back to its spiritual and storytelling roots [...] Welch has refined her bare and beautiful songs and on Soul Journey embraces the blues," says The Guardian.
Our pairing:
Peach and ginger are a winning combination in this fruit-forward, slightly spicy blend. This smooth black tea is bright and flavorful, and also makes an excellent iced tea.
Assam Black Tea & An Appointment with Mr. Yeats by The Waterboys
"Mike Scott, aka the Waterboys, doesn’t work on a small scale. Even his earliest work reveled in bombast and bigness with U2 like intentions. Likewise, this two decades in the making set that marries legendary Irish poet W.B. Yeats’ poems with Scott’s music is [...] one that exudes plenty of charm and talent," says American Songwriter.
Listen to An Appointment with Mr. Yeats
Our pairing:
Our Assam is a robust black tea with tremendous flavor. This 2nd flush tea has a grade of FBOP (Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe). It brews up a rich coppery color with a full body, hints of malt and toast, and moderate astringency. An excellent tea to start the day!
Himalayan Spring White Tea & Bright Future by Adrianne Lenker
"Though the distances traveled are expanding still / We meet in dreams by the lilac river," sing Lenker on this bittersweet spring-tinged album.
"Lenker’s songs find beauty in the attempt to give memory solid shape: to hold it in one’s palms like a wounded bird that sat still when the others flew away, and coax it with a sweet melody into sticking around a while longer. Bright Future is like an attempt to hold the memories of the songs themselves, to stop their wild wings from beating for a moment and get a good look before they vanish in the air," says Pitchfork.
Our pairing:
The first leaves of the spring season are hand-plucked in the foothills of Nepal to produce this refreshing white tea. Himalayan Spring brews up into a pale, peachy straw color, and embodiesthe characteristic lightness and brightness of a spring harvest white tea.
Milk Oolong & Hadsel by Beirut
"It remains thoroughly cathartic to hear Condon in full canorous flight, pushing simple vocal lines to grandiose conclusions. [...] Condon went to Norway and came back with a familiar tangle of contradictions: Hadsel is a new beginning for Beirut that sounds like old times, a record born of despair and solitude that still feels full of life," says Pitchfork.
Our pairing:
Prized for its milky scent and taste, our Milk Oolong is produced by hand in the Fujian Province of China, within the Prefecture of Quanzhou. These hand-rolled leaves are a rich olive-green color and brew up into a beautiful golden liquor. This relatively new cultivar of tea has a distinctive mellow, buttery flavor.
Santa Fe Sage Black Tea & All Hail West Texas by The Mountain Goats
"I have no place to go / So I drive up to New Mexico / Fix my eyes in the rear view / When I cross the state line," sings The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle on this 2003 album, one which we advise singing along to whenever you're on a road trip headed west.
"This is what John Darnielle has been saying for over 30 years as the Mountain Goats: You can survive, and you can survive on your own terms no matter what they are, and you will emerge from the darkness into the light if you have to drag yourself there bloody and howling. You have a light within you that no one can extinguish if you refuse to let them. Do whatever you have to do to survive. With a little water and sunlight and tender mercy, you will survive," says Stereogum.
Our pairing:
Santa Fe Sage combines Lapsang Souchong black tea, Nilgiri black tea, anise seed, juniper berries, white sage, and cinnamon for an intensely aromatic, slightly smoky tea that embodies the spirit of the high desert.
Irish Breakfast Black Tea & Dublin Blues by Guy Clark
"A subtle but stoically devastating romantic epic that pondered the nature of love, pride, art, and distance, every verse dropped like a challenge to songwriters around the world: can you top this? It begged to be replayed, quoted, and reckoned with by anyone who heard it, an itinerant landmark for fans and fellow artists alike. Feel free to pause for a bit and listen to it by whatever means available if you’ve never had the pleasure," says Lone Star Music Magazine of the title track of this 1995 album.
Our pairing:
Our Irish Breakfast makes a rich cup of tea that’s sure to get you going in the morning. This malty, robust blend includes Assam, Ceylon, and Tanzanian teas. Unlike our other loose leaf teas, our Irish Breakfast is finely ground, which results in a hearty, full-bodied tea that pairs well with milk and sugar.
Midnight Rose Black Tea & Midnights by Taylor Swift
"This is the kind of truth-telling that's earned Swift the devotion of her fans. She still notices the little things that shatter a person.
The question this album poses is, who is that person? On its deepest level, Midnights is an interrogation of the first person, an attempt to find its origin point not in well-spun confessions but in the more confused and prescient utterances that come before any conclusions are drawn," says NPR.
Our pairing:
This rose black tea is a smooth tea with a medium body and floral notes. Midnight Rose features Chinese black tea with rose petals—a classic combo that results in an aromatic, flavorful cup with a sweet, floral character.
Pacific Paradise & Clandestino by Manu Chao
"Clandestino seemed to look both backwards to a time when songs meant something, when people thought music could change the world, and forwards to a new globalised pop. At the cross-fade of the millennium, it sounded perfect – a radical masterpiece, on the side of the dispossessed and immigrants, that united, irresistibly, a European and South American perspective," says The Guardian.
Our pairing:
Pacific Paradise is a bright, fruity herbal tea that's sure to have you dreaming of a tropical paradise. Naturally caffeine-free, this blend combines cherry, coconut, and kiwi and makes an excellent iced tea!
Raspberry Lemonade Herbal Tea & Lemonade by Beyoncé
"With this album, Beyoncé is telling us that she's made it this far in spite of the system in place; you know — the overtly sexist, subtly racist one. She was served lemons. And she made the most fire, refreshing, delectable, thirst-quenching lemonade ever known to man. Actually, scratch that — ever known to woman," says NPR.
Our pairing:
Summer in a cup! Raspberry Lemonade blends raspberry, apple, hibiscus, lemon peel, rosehip peels, chamomile, and strawberry leaves for a fruity, tart tea that's delicious hot and excellent iced.
Winter Forest Green Tea & Stick Season by Noah Kahan
"Kahan’s songs tend to unfold in the strange liminal space between late adolescence and adulthood [...] His best lyrics are clever, earnest, and suffused with vague yearning—a nudging sense that, as Bruce Springsteen once sang, not without a little despair, “There’s something happening somewhere,” says The New Yorker.
A nod to the titular "stick season" of the album—the time in Vermont in between fall foliage and the first snow of winter, when the trees are bare—we've paired this album with Winter Forest Green Tea.
Our pairing:
Winter Forest blends Chinese green tea, orange, almond, and pink peppercorn for a light, festive tea blend reminiscent of biscotti. Delicious in winter, but also great year-round!
Earl Grey Black Tea & Handel: Water Music by Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
"Sir Neville Marriner thins out the usual ASMF textures and leads vigorous, stately accounts of both the Water Music Suites and the Music for the Royal Fireworks. The playing is snappy, the feeling of dance-inspired animation just right. This is the ideal compilation, presenting both scores complete; and the sound is open, well balanced, and extremely well defined," says Ted Libbey.
Our pairing:
Earl Grey is a popular classic with notes of citrus and spice. Our Earl Grey is flavored with oil of bergamot sourced from Italy, with a smooth, citrusy, slightly floral flavor and a full body with a smooth finish. This tea is refreshing hot or iced, or even prepared as a London Fog Latte!
Sunrise Melody Green Tea and I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning by Bright Eyes
"The sun came up with no conclusions / Flowers sleeping in their beds / The city's cemeteries humming / I'm wide awake, it's morning," sings Conor Oberst on the titular track.
"This record was made to be loved, to be obsessed over by some but remembered by everybody, to get scratched and worn out through constant rotation in a sorority living room or your first studio apartment or your mom's old radio," says Pitchfork.
We're pairing this peak of indie aughts lyricism with Sunrise Melody Green Tea.
Listen to I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
Our pairing:
Sunrise Melody blends green tea with strawberry, orange, and lemongrass. This light, refreshing green tea is sure to brighten your day! Sunrise Melody is delicious hot and also makes an excellent iced tea.
Lavender Lullaby Herbal Tea & They're Calling Me Home by Rhiannon Giddens
"Rhiannon Giddens’ new album with Francesco Turrisi, her partner in life as well as music, explores two subjects that occupied them (and, frankly, the rest of us) over the last tumultuous year. One is often comforting: home. The other is usually the opposite: death. [...] “Every culture has these songs that are laments,” said Giddens. “Those feelings that you have… you experience them through the song and at the end, you’re a little bit lighter,” shares The Guardian.
Listen to They're Calling Me Home
Our pairing:
With chamomile, lavender, roses, sweet orange peel, and calendula petals, this handcrafted herbal infusion helps soothe away the day.
Summer Romance Black & Green Tea & Ys by Joanna Newsom
"This isn't a great album because she owns a dog-eared encyclopedia, or because it stands above the cheap rewards or superficial freakiness we expected from her. It's great because Newsom confronts a mountain of conflicting feelings, and sifts through them for every nuance. It's intricate and crammed with information, but it's never bookish, and she never sits back in a spell and lets her heart flutter: She swoops into the sky and races across the ground, names every plant and every desire, and never feels less than real," says Pitchfork.
Our pairing:
Let this magical blend carry you away like a summer of love. Sweet papaya, strawberry, black tea, and green tea come together in this sweet, fruity, intensely aromatic blend. Summer Romance also makes an excellent iced tea!
Elderberry Meadow Rooibos & The Creek Drank the Cradle by Iron & Wine
"The Creek Drank The Cradle is a brilliant record. Not only does it hold up; in some ways, the passage of decades has amplified its mystique. Upon arrival, it felt like a dispatch from some distant enclave, a rare artifact that had been uncovered and distributed by one of the biggest independent labels in the world. Twenty years later, it really is an ancient relic of sorts, a treasure to be discovered (or rediscovered) and savored," says Stereogum.
Listen to The Creek Drank the Cradle
Our pairing:
This rooibos blend features rosehip, elderberries, blueberries, lavender, and rose petals. Floral and a little fruity, it reminds us of a meadow in summertime. Delicious hot or iced!
Rose Petal Raspberry Herbal Tea & Rumours by Fleetwood Mac
"Upon its release in 1977, Rumours [...] became the fastest selling LP of all time, moving 800,000 copies per week at its height. Its success made Fleetwood Mac a cultural phenomenon and also set a template for pop with a gleaming surface that has something complicated, desperate, and dark resonating underneath," says Pitchfork.
Our pairing:
Rose Petal Raspberry blends rose petals, raspberry, hibiscus, lemon peel, rosehips, and apple for a silky, aromatic tea that's fruity, tart, and refreshing. While this herbal infusion is excellent hot, it truly shines when served as an iced tea.
Lemon Mint Menage Black Tea & the record by boygenius
"To be wounded, actually and acutely: this is the price of real intimacy. And real intimacy is what you find on The Record, the melding of what’s yours and mine—a favorite Joan Didion quote, songs by Iron & Wine and the Cure, passages from Ecclesiastes—until what’s left is something greater than the sum. [...] As we evolve into new versions of ourselves, our friends accompany us into the unknown, bearing witness to and taking part in our transformations. They may hurt us sometimes, but it’s worth it; in the end, better than anything is being understood," shares Pitchfork.
Our pairing:
This refreshing, uplifting tea blends black tea leaves, mint, and lemongrass. Excellent hot or iced.