Coming to the US market can be quite scary for outside tea companies. With it already having quite a large amount of tea companies, competition can be quite fierce. When Statera Marketplace approached me and asked me to do a tea review of their teas, I was beyond interested as I had never tasted organic Colombian tea. They wanted to bring a Colombian Tea brand, Bitaco, to the US Market. They sent me a variety of teas, but here are my thoughts on Black Coconut, one of the first teas that I had tried that they sent me.
Black Coconut:
The aroma is chocolate-like, with the toasted coconut bringing an aroma that is quite decadent and brings out some of the tanniny notes as well. The tea brewed an orangy amber color. The taste of the tea was quite different from what I was expecting. There was a smoothness to the tea, and I cannot quite taste the coconut but I can experience it when smelling before I take a sip. It seemed that since the coconut looked more toasted, perhaps it did not contribute as much to the flavor or perhaps I am too acquainted to coconut natural flavoring that I can not recognize the true taste of coconut in tea. Either way, I do think that the coconut mellowed out the tea but also brought out the tannin taste from the black tea. There was an tasting element to the tea that I associate with purple tea as well, which was odd since this was a black tea.
One thing I can say for sure is that I really loved that they did not use natural flavors and used toasted coconut instead of trying to synthesize it, which I really appreciated.
Price: I was given this tea in the form of loose-leaf tea. Currently, it does not seem to be available on their website, but they do have it in teabag form in a pack of three different varieties. For 12 sachets, it looks to be $7-9. But I cannot be totally sure of that.
Packaging: The packaging was a standard tea pouch. I did not notice much aroma coming out of the bag, so I will not have any need of replacing the packaging.
Sourcing: The website says that their tea is sourced from Colombia, as well as their whole brand being built around selling authentic Colombian tea. Statera Marketplace is the company that is bringing this tea from Latin America into the US tea marketplace. So, I went to the tea company, Bitaco and saw that their coconut is also from Colombian providers. They also state that they are strong supporters of environmentally friendly products, direct relationships with source, and fair trade.
I have been trying to seperate reviews up a little more so I can focus more on one tea at a time, what are your thoughts? I received multiple teas from this company, but I will slowly cycle them through to make sure I fully look at each tea and see how it makes me feel. Happy Brewing!
-Danielle