Since I’ve been writing about tea I’ve run across some pretty strange stuff. Poo poo puerh is one of the types of tea that stands out from the pack. Yes, if you’re wondering, it’s kind of what it sounds like. Read more about it here.

But tea that’s flavored (in a manner of speaking) with dehydrated ants has to take a close second to the above mentioned. Of course, for those of you who prefer not to take your dehydrated ants straight up, you’ll be glad to know that this blend also contains raspberry leaves and other unspecified flavors. It’s made with a base of black tea and comes to us from an Australian tea company who teamed with an entomologist to create the blend.

If you’ve ever thought that drinking tea in an airplane was a less than optimum experience that’s likely due to the effects of flying on your taste buds. That’s assuming that the airline chooses to serve decent tea. As I noted last year Twinings and British Airways teamed up to solve this problem by creating British Airways Signature Blend. More about that here. As the Trinidad press noted, British Airways recently held a tea at a hotel there to introduce and sing the praises of this blend.

If you’ve never heard of pandan before then you’re not alone. I’ve been writing about tea for nearly a decade and I hadn’t either, at least not until I ran across a merchant recently – presumably an Asian one – who sells it. It’s not a tea in the strictest sense of the word, but rather is more of a tisane. The merchant says it’s “well-known for its aromatic flavors and most predominantly used in the Southeast Asian cooking” while Wikipedia weighs in on Pandanus amaryllifolius, the plant it is derived from, here.

See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles here.

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