Tea Blending Guide: How To Make Tea Blends

Tea blending is a fun craft that any tea drinker can learn with a simple guide. So, how do you make your own tea blends?

What Is Tea Blending?

In the tea industry, tea makers blend various ingredients (to include teas) to create unique teas that we come to love and enjoy. Artisan blenders take things a step further and create tea blends that are proprietary to a tea brand or tea shop or for individuals.

Some online tea retailers even provide the option for their customers to create a blend based on several choices of teas, herbs, and infusions. You can get as wild and funky as you want by creating tea blends. However, the flavor is the end goal in any blend creation.

Popular Tea Blends

Let’s look at some of the most common tea blends on the market that we may already be familiar with. By breaking down the ingredients, you can see what goes into the blend.

• Earl Grey (Ceylon or Assam tea, bergamot oil, orange peel, cornflowers)
• Chai (Assam tea, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, star anise)
• Marrakesh Mint (Gunpowder tea, mint leaves)
• English Breakfast (Assam tea, Kenyan tea, Ceylon tea)

There’s a formula for every tea blend. The use of true teas (black, green, oolong, yellow, or white,) spices, herbs, fruits, and flavorings can include a multitude of formulas to create a specific blend. The sky’s the limit in how creative a blend can get.

Some tea blending formula examples:

• True Tea + Another True Tea (English Breakfast)
• True Tea + Another True Tea + Spice (Chai)
• True Tea + Fruit + Herbs + Flavoring (Earl Grey)
• Herbs + Fruit + Spice + Flavoring (Mayan Chocolate Truffle)
• Herbs + Fruit (Scarlet Herbal, Pomegranate Berry)

Steps To Blending Your Own Tea

Blending your own tea is a craft and takes time to prepare and carefully claim flavors in teas, spices, fruits, herbs, and flavors before you get all “mad scientist” in your kitchen. We recommend that you invest the time to become acquainted and comfortable in each step before proceeding to the next.

Step #1: Get To Know Your Ingredients

Popular tea blends are the result of many hours of tasting, blending, re-blending, and trying again. “Trial and error” will become your best friend.

We HIGHLY recommend that you indulge your palate with a tea journey to experience and explore various teas before embarking on tea blending. Unless you know what a certain true tea tastes like, it’s impossible to effectively pair it with other ingredients.

To begin that tea journey, we have a Tea Journey Starter Set that is perfect for such an occasion!

The ingredients that go into a tea blend must be something you are familiar with in taste, sight, and pairings. Some teas or herbs may not pair well with a fruit or another tea. To help give you an idea of ideal pairings when it comes to tea, herbs, spices, and infusions (flavorings, fruit, etc.,) we have outlined a few below.

Tea Base

This will be the foundation of your tea blend that sets the tone on what type of pairings you will add. Everything should complement one another in flavor. Tea blends are very personal, and what one person likes, another may not.

Tea Base = true teas (black, green, oolong, yellow, or white)

Infusions

Infusions are elements that are added to a tea base to flavor it, enhance it, and marry it to any added herbs.

Infusions = dried/fresh fruit/fruit peel, essential oil, artificial flavoring, cacao nibs, chocolate.

Herbs

Herbs are something that requires a bit of exploring because there are various dimensions of flavors in an herb. When tasting one, ask yourself if that particular herb complements the overall tea or fights against it. Dried herbs for tea blends may taste one way out of the jar and yet another once the tea is brewed. It’s best to taste the herb in both forms (dried and brewed.)

When it comes to herbs, less is more. Adding too much causes a tea to have a very unpleasant flavor (for example: too much lavender causes a soapy tasting tea.)

Herbs = dried/fresh herbs (leaves, whole plant, plant parts, flowers)

Use Caution With Herbs

Before adding herbs to your tea blends, we recommend that you do your homework on herbs and potential side effects, adverse reactions, and toxicity. This is especially important if you have any medical conditions, are taking medications, are undergoing chemotherapy, or are pregnant or nursing.

So, how do you make an herbal blend that isn’t harmful? Unfortunately, we don’t have the medical expertise to advise or make recommendations on what herbs to use. This is why we encourage doing a bit of research on herbs before using them.

There are hundreds of herbs that are documented as having potential harmful side effects/adverse reactions. A published research study (Dietary supplements and herbal medicine toxicities—when to anticipate them and how to manage them – Chart 2) includes a chart that lists a few herbs.

Spices

Spices are akin to “the frosting on the cake” by giving tea additional layers of flavor. Just as herbs, become well acquainted with how each tastes before adding to a tea.

Spices = dried/fresh

Step #2: Understanding How Blends Coincide With Seasons/Mood

Have you noticed that come fall and wintertime, we tend to gravitate more towards teas that are spicy, nutty, and warming? Our preferences in teas change with seasons and our moods. When tired or depressed, a minty tea is a great pick-me-up. Summer and springtime, we are more prone to indulge in fruity, floral teas.

Fruity Blends

Season: spring, summer

Mood: happy, optimistic

Flavor profile: citrus, berry, melon, apple, pear, sweet, floral

• Tea base: Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling, White, Yellow
• Infusion: dried/fresh strawberry, apple, peach, pear, pineapple, orange, lemon, peel, bergamot
• Herbs: chamomile, lemon verbena, mint, cornflowers, lemongrass
• Spice: sumac

Floral Blends

Season: spring, summer

Mood: melancholy, romantic, content

Flavor profile: floral, sweet, citrus

• Tea base: Oolong, White
• Infusion: dried/fresh peach, pear
• Herbs: jasmine, hibiscus, rose petals, rosehip, cornflowers, elderflower lavender (note: lavender is very strong and does best on its own without anything else added.)

Nutty Blends

Season: fall, winter

Mood: craving, nesting, solitary

Flavor profile: nutty

• Tea base: Genmaicha, Dragonwell, Rooibos
• Spice: nutmeg

Spicy Blends

Season: fall, winter

Mood: feisty, craving, festive

Flavor profile: hot, warm

• Tea base: Ceylon, Rooibos
• Spice: ginger, cloves, anise, cardamom, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon stick

Sweet Blends

Season: spring, summer

Mood: social, energetic, bright

Flavor profile: malty, honey, melon, fruity, floral

• Tea base: Assam, White, Sencha, Oolong, Rooibos
• Herbs: chrysanthemum, rosehip, mint, honeybush
• Spice: honey

Fire Blends

Season: fall, winter

Mood: nesting, solitary, quiet

Flavor profile: cocoa, smoky, toasty, ashy

• Tea base: Hojicha, Lapsang Souchong, Ceylon, Raw Pu-erh, Rooibos
• Herbs: cacao nibs
• Spice: chocolate chips, paprika

Step #3: Gather Appropriate Equipment For Blending

There are a few things you’ll need for tea blending—most of which you may already have in your kitchen.

• Shot glass (for measuring)
• Measuring spoons
• Dried spices, fruits, herbs (unless you have access to fresh)
• Note: you can dehydrate your own using a dehydrator.
• Airtight containers
• Base teas: loose-leaf true tea (such as Assam, Ceylon, Rooibos, etc.)
• Flavoring

Step #4: Begin Your Blending

NOW it’s time to become that mad scientist we mentioned earlier. You can start with three of your favorite herbs. Experiment with combinations of true tea, herbs, fruits, spices, and flavorings and create something you can call your own. If you would rather play it safe and save time, there are a ton of tea blending recipes online.

Step #5: Store Your Blend Properly

It’s important to store your newly blended tea in an airtight container while being careful not to include any moist/wet/damp particles or items in with the tea.

Sometimes if fresh herbs or fruits are used in a blend, it can cause the tea to become damp, which leads to mold. Adding fresh herbs directly to your hot tea creates a bright flavor finish.

Blending Bliss Is At Your Fingertips

So, now you don’t have to wonder, “How do you make your own tea blends?” You’ll get the process perfected and may even find that you’ll come up with new creations that will tantalize your palate!

We’d love to hear your comments and stories about your tea blending experience!

Don’t forget to check out our lovely gift sets with various tea flavors and blends. It makes a great gift for anyone. 

(Psst…don’t forget to treat yourself with one!)