Quality loose-leaf tea, made affordable
Premium teas at honest prices, plus our own chai and herbal blends, from a Somerville tea family since 2006.
Creamy Madagascar vanilla notes dance with tingling Malabar Coast spices. A lively ginger finish is accentuated by candy cardamom. No wonder it is one of our best selling teas.
Ingredients: Black tea, Dried miniature daisy, Calendula petals, Chopped and powdered ginger, cardamom, coriander, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, Natural flavors.
*Turn your bag of Chai upside down a few times. The powdered spices can settle at the bottom of the bag.
This Spiced Chai is a blend of seven classic spices and a flavorful black tea. It brews a full bodied and warm cup of chai with right amount of spicyness. Excellent both hot and iced.
Ingredients: cinnamon, ginger, black tea, green cardamom pods, allspice, cloves, black pepper.
*Turn your bag of Chai upside down a few times. The powdered spices can settle at the bottom of the bag.
Hot Chai brewing method: Bring freshly drawn cold water to a rolling boil. Place 1 heaping teaspoon of tea for each cup into the teapot. Pour the boiling water into the teapot. Cover and let steep for 5-10 minutes (for true chai taste steep at least 7 minutes). While the tea is brewing prepare your cup to receive the chai – put 2 teaspoons of sugar in the cup and add milk (about 20%) of the cup’s volume. When the chai is ready – pour into your cup.
Iced Chai brewing method: (to make 1 liter/quart): Place 6 teaspoons of tea into a teapot or heat resistant pitcher. Pour 1 1/4 cups of freshly boiled water over the tea. Steep for 5 minutes. Quarter fill a serving pitcher with cold water. Pour the tea into your serving pitcher straining the leaves. Add ice, milk and top-up the pitcher with cold water. Garnish and sweeten to taste.
Featured Green Teas
The taste of the tea is smooth with delicate and pleasing flavor and a heavenly jasmine character.
Jasmine Dragon Pearls are a green tea and are made from the top two leaves and the bud of new season growth (late March /early April). These delicate leaves are then hand rolled into the small pearls. When you infuse these pearls in your tea cup, you will see the top two leaves and the bud come to life. In fact you will see some small ‘hairy down’ on the bud of the leaves - this denotes superb quality and very careful and delicate handling. The extraordinary flavor of these Jasmine Dragon Tears is due to the time of plucking, manufacture and the fresh spring jasmine blooms. The new tea season starts in China in late March/early April (dependent on weather patterns) and it is during the first 4 weeks that the best teas are manufactured. After this initial period the quality of the teas and green leaf start to deteriorate rapidly and the teas become quite plain. Dragon Pearls are only made from tea plucked in the first 3 weeks of the new season. Coinciding with the new tea growth, the jasmine bushes are in spring bloom. Only the most fragrant blossoms are used (from bushes that are known to produce the most fragrant flowers). These fresh flowers are layered between the tea and before long the intense and uplifting fragrance of the new jasmine blooms is passed on to the tea. An extraordinary taste experience!
Country of Origin: China Grade: Hand-made tea pearls
This Sencha is classic steamed green tea from Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture. It brews a cup that is slightly sweet and vegetal. It is mildly astringent with reasonable depth. A quality well rounded green tea to be enjoyed throughout the day. It also makes very refreshing iced tea.
Japan produces some of the best green teas in the world. The efficiency of Japan’s tea production is among the highest in the world reaching yields of 1500 pounds per acre. Despite the fact that mechanical plucking is used, the teas made in Japan are generally considered among the top green teas in the world.
Japan only exports about 1-2 percent of its total production and recently has become a leading importer of the finest teas in the world. The production of green tea entails the steaming of the green leaf and hand or machine rubbing. The teas are then pan fried or basket fired which gives them a distinctive appearance and glossy look and feel. These methods give a taste that is light in color but rich and full in the cup.
Country of Origin: Japan Region: Kagoshima Prefecture
Grade: Sencha Infusion: Pale yellow with green hue
Manufacture Type: Steamed green tea
Genmaicha is a specialty Japanese green tea that is blended with fire-toasted brown rice. Our Genmaicha is a highgrade sencha and Gyokuro base green tea blended with the toasted brown rice.
The fresh vegetative character of the green tea is imparted on the cup, but it is tempered with the bakey-like character of the rice. The Gyokuro green tea gives this tea more complexity and adds the “umami” (a Japanese term for savory taste) to the tea.
There is a natural sweetness and almost chewy character to the finish of this tea. During the firing of the rice, it is common for rice to ‘pop’ like popcorn, hence the name "popcorn-tea."
Country of Origin: Japan Region: Shizuoka Prefecture
Grade: Sencha and Gyokuro Genmaicha
Manufacture Type: Steamed green tea
Cup Characteristics: Light brownish yellow liquor with toasty flavor, tending sweet.
Our Story
Our story began in 2006, when Wen and his cousin opened Tea Zone, a small tea shop in Somerville’s Porter Square. In 2007 the Boston Globe and the Somerville Journal wrote about it. Today Beantown Tea & Spices carries on the same mission: quality tea, made affordable.
Tea Gifts & Sets
Gift boxes and sampler sets for every tea lover, at prices that feel good.
This is a classic Masala Chai. Full bodied tea enhances South Indian Masala spices. The finish has cardamom notes peeking out from lively ginger. Superb with milk and sugar. Traditionally this chai would be brewed using milk instead of water. The same effect however, can be created by brewing your tea in the usual fashion and adding warm milk.
Ingredients: Black tea, Chopped and powdered ginger, Chopped and powdered cardamom, Chopped and powdered coriander, Chopped and powdered cinnamon, Chopped cloves, Chopped black pepper.