Jamaican Butter Rum Black Tea

For our Jamaican Butter Rum tea, our master blenders have taken fine Ceylon, Indian and Chinese black teas and combined them with natural rum, sweet butterscotch, and creamy caramel flavors for a rich, aromatic and slightly sweet dessert tea. For a special taste treat, enjoy with a splash of milk and some sugar.

The Ceylon tea for this blend is from Sri Lanka, a small island off the southern tip of India. Ceylon tea is grown from sea level to altitudes exceeding 7,000 feet. The best Ceylon teas are harvested at altitudes above 4,000 feet. Here the bushes grow more slowly and yield far less, not to mention being more difficult to harvest. Most high grown Ceylon teas come from gardens so steep that the newly picked green leaves must be conveyed to the estate factory by means of aerial ropeways.

The Chinese tea in this blend is a Keemun from Anhui province. Keemun tea, named after Quimen precinct in southern Anhui province, became a key component in English Breakfast Tea blends. China Keemun has narrow, tightly twisted black leaves that brew a brilliant reddish-brown cup with a light, toasty flavor.

The Indian tea is a wonderful, robust Assam. On the border of China, Burma and Bangladesh, one hundred and twenty miles to the east of Darjeeling, lies the Assam Valley in India. The rugged Brahmaputra River bisects the valley and floods every year during the monsoon season when the heat and humidity turn the entire region into a giant greenhouse. It's a challenging environment due to the rough weather and flooding, but it's a splendid place to grow tea. The climate, the soil, and the indigenous tea plants give Assam teas their characteristic full-bodied strong taste and dark liquor. The best Assam teas are known for their unique, distinctly pleasant malty character.