Meet the Lady…

It’s our orange tree.

It’s an odd tree, it has several crops per year, and often it has several different types of orange per crop. It’s either a clever hybrid, or a new mutant species intent on taking over the planet.

The photo was taken just prior to step one of the process.
Lady Devotea (the tea) starts with these oranges. The second picture shows just after step one.

It’s a fairly simple step.

After picking them and putting them in a bowl, we separate the components. The peel goes into the tea, the flesh of the fruit in this case goes into a lovely marmalade, and the pith between them gets to join the compost heap.

After a super secret process that takes a while, these oranges were ready to meet their destiny.

Next we need some lavender.

We have exhausted our own lavender bushes this season, so after gritting our teeth through a visit with the Mother-In-law, we left there with a large bag full of lavender flowers/seed heads.

Again a super secret drying process and we are ready to blend.

I personally virtually never touch this tea during its processing.  Being allergic to oranges, I am reluctant, so the Lady Devotea is always hand blended by Lady Devotea herself, which is a nice form of symmetry.

Two single source black teas, which we have infused with genuine bergamot oil. Some white tea. The lavender. And then all those oranges.

Lady Devotea blended eight kilos of this tea yesterday. Do you have any idea of the aroma of that? That’s about 4000 cups of tea worth.

I love all the teas we make, but this tea, the one I have never tasted is such a favourite. In Australia, it has been our number one or two selling tea every month since it was first blended.

It is unique in that there is more of us in this tea than any of our others.

You can see why it’s not available in all of our territories.

But we hope one day to bring it to everyone.