Stash Jamaican Butter Rum 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 about the size of England that lies just 22 miles off the southern tip of India. Sri Lanka supplies about 25% of the world's tea. The nearly six hundred thousand acres of tea under cultivation provide well over half of the island's export earnings. 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. For hundreds of years, Anhui province in central China produced only green tea. Tea plants grew well in the warm, moist climate and well drained soil of the province, but most of the tea produced was of mediocre character. However, in the 1870's, Yu Quianchen decided to try his luck at making black tea from these same leaves. Much to everyone's surprise and delight the new black tea he produced was of excellent character. Keemun tea, named after Quimen precinct in southern Anhui province, soon was a big hit in England and became a key component in English Breakfast tea blends. Its popularity quickly spread and eventually surpassed India's Darjeeling tea as the favorite black tea in the world's tea markets. 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 upper Assam valley contains over 2000 tea gardens. 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.

Natural rum flavor gives this tea a distinctive taste. To produce the world's best tasting rums, molasses is allowed to ferment for approximately 30 minutes. It is then distilled to separate water, alcohol and any impurities. Next rum is filtered or mellowed using natural charcoal for smoothness. The rum is then barreled and aged to give it richness. The longer the rum is aged the more distinctive its flavor. Rum is consumed as a drink and used in cooking, especially in desserts.

Caffeine

Caffeinated