On my vacation with Justin in August, I stumbled upon a little pamphlet in our hotel for Portsmouth Tea Company. I thought this was interesting and I love tea..so I decided to take a trip down. I fell in love with this little store. It was in the middle of this old mill-type building, but inside was adorable and just filled with lines of barrels filled with different types of tea.




They also had shelves filled with tea accessories. I had my eye on the little yellow one :)



After torturing the poor sales girl with asking for different samples (which they make you your own little cup), I decided on the Green Tea Chai and the Caramel Ooolong. The Caramel Ooolong smells exactly like a scrumptious little dessert. This past Sunday I decided to shop around their site a little for other hidden gems and came across their tea circle. If you're in the tea circle, Portsmouth tea sends you a fairly large canister of their tea of the month. The sucker that I am..I joined the tea circle that same day. Coming home from school today I found my little package in the door, that was awfully fast! The tea for the month of September is Osmanthus.

Here..educate yourself:

Osmanthus fragrans is a flower native to China that is valued for its delicate fruity-floral apricot aroma. It is especially valued as an additive for tea and other beverages in the far east. While the flowers of osmanthus range from silver-white (Osmanthus fragrans Lour. var. latifolius Mak.) to gold-orange (Osmanthus fragrans Lour. var. thunbergii Mak.) to reddish (Osmanthus fragrans Lour. var. aurantiacus Mak.), the extract (alcohol absolute) is usually prepared from the gold-orange flowers. Osmanthus absolute is very expensive (~U.S. $4000.00 per kilogram) and accordingly is used in only the most expensive perfumes and flavors.

(leffingwell.com)

I sent out my little package to Germany on Monday. I can't wait to get mine :)