"What's extraordinary about this tea is not the taste, but the good work being done behind it. " Jamie’s Teaview: 6/10 Other Teaviews: Katie gave it 5.2/10 Your Reviews: Add your review »

Shapna (a Bengali word for Dream)Tea is an interesting new social entrepreneurial company. It looks like the company was started in January of 2009, in an attempt to make concrete a hope to eradicate poverty overseas (specifically in Bangladesh) and at home in underserved communities in the United States, where the company is based, as well. I checked out their website, which is still largely under construction, but contains a neat YouTube video along with their mission statement. The video introduces you to the two young men, Steven and John, who have started the company as their way of actively working toward eliminating poverty.

In January of this year they travelled together to a small community owned farm comprised of 70 acres and about 50 landowners in Bangladesh. The owners of the land have opted to raise tea plants on this land and Shapna Tea is financially supporting their efforts. Shapna is donating 40% (wow!) of the proceeds of their total tea sales back to the farm in Bangladesh as well in donations to underserved communities in the US. The donations to underserved communities in the US is a little more vaguely defined, I'm not sure at the time of writing this review which communities or programs in the US that the company seeks to empower through financial donations, or how much of the 40% donated goes to Bangladesh and how much to US communities. You can check out the Shapna website or follow them on Facebook (under The Shapna Project) to find out more. I'm intrigued and made a request to follow them on Facebook to learn more. Here's an excerpt from The Shapna Project homepage at Facebook:

What Makes Shapna Tea so special? Our black teas are carefully selected from some of the finest independent tea growers on Earth, in the Tetulia region of Bangladesh. The difference is that our tea brings happiness not only to those who drink it, but also to those who cultivate it. Through the Empowerment Initiative(TEI), a non-profit project we have started, an unprecedented 40% of our profits are reinvested in villager entrepreneurship, health, education, development, micro finance and infrastructure initiatives within the communities that depend on growing tea for their livelihood, under the Tea for poverty Alleviation Model created by the Tetulia Tea Company Ltd (TTCL). Shapna only sells teas that were cultivated by independent growers who left a life of indentured servitude on massive tea estates, in order to begin growing for themselves and their families on their own lands.

I'm really impressed with the mission of the company. It's neat to see a couple of people start and take on a project like this! These are the kinds of projects that are exciting to support and see grow in the world.

So how did I like the tea? I had a sample of this tea in bagged format. The tea bags are very simple. They look like an unbleached cotton material, no frills ribbons or bows (that's nice if you don't like a lot of packaging!). I boiled my water, and steeped four minutes. A four minute steep produced a nice dark liquor - not super round in its flavor, but a little bit malty and nicely, mildly astringent, even without sweetener. I didn't find this tea to be very rounded in the body. It was a little flat...but maybe what I am tasting in this regard is that this tea is from a young in years farm? I sweetened this tea with about a third of an eighth of a teaspoon of stevia. This tea tastewise didn't knock my socks off. It had an unsurprising taste and appeared to be a CTC style black tea, which is not a tea I'm usually keen on, but that is solid, standard fare for tea bags and is a common way of producing Indian style black teas. My second sample I tried brewing for five minutes, to see if it would take on a bitter overbrewed taste, but this wasn't the case at all. It yielded much the same results as before. Not extraordinary but easy to enjoy and prepare.

This is a basic black tea that would be good to have on the road, or to have with you when you needed a decent cup of tea and weren't at home to brew loose tea. I didn't really find it to be remarkable in taste, but there was nothing off putting about it either. It's got a good, solid passable taste to it. Bagged, it seems a nice thing to have on hand. What's extraordinary about this tea is not the taste, but the good work being done behind it.

I think anyone who enjoys black tea and needs an easy to prepare alternative for school, work, travel, etc. would be happy with these tea bags. If you enjoy bagged tea, this would not let you down. It takes well to sweetener, but frankly, is smooth enough to enjoy solo, sans sweeteners.

— To purchase Shapna Fine Black Tea, or for more specific information on ingredients or the story behind this particular blend, click here to go directly to the manufacturer's web site.

Jamie Teaviews.com Reviewer » Read more about this reviewer on Jamie's profile page. » Find a list of recent posts by Jamie.