Old Barrel Tea Co. is the passion project of three hardcore tea enthusiasts and friends – The Steepery Tea Co.’s Kym Cooper, Flag & Spear’s Cheryl Teo and Cuppa Cha’s Tania Stacey. The trio of tea mavens linked up with a focus to draw attention to high-quality special tea, taking it from something niche to appeal to a more broad audience. The result was Batch No. 001 Jin Xuan, the women’s first barrel-aged tea. This link-up comes at a particularly opportune time for Kym’s Brisbane-based The Steepery – the business just took out the champion title at the Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards for its Jin Jun Mei Honey tea.

The Old Barrel Tea Co. creation process is distinctive, employing an ex-aprea cask from Melbourne’s very own Starward Whisky Distillery in which to age the tea (for 67 days, to be precise). When it comes down to the technical stuff, the tea is a Jin Xuan oolong – sourced from Wang’s award-winning tea garden located in the famed Alishan tea-growing region of Taiwan. The results are a distinctly Australian tea with a boozy, whisky aroma and tropical fruit flavour that lingers with a sweet whisky finish.

If you want to add some kick to your collection, you can grab Old Barrel Tea Co.’s first release of whisky tea through The Steepery’s website.

Image credit: Pixel & Halide