Tobacco and Fig at the Bottom of the Cup

The tea at most supermarkets is mostly apple pieces and something labeled "natural flavoring," which is a phrase that should make you suspicious every time you see it. You’ve probably drunk it anyway. We all have. But once you’ve had tea that’s actually made of tea—whole leaves, real botanicals, assembled by someone who thought carefully about what they were doing—the supermarket stuff starts tasting like a memory of a feeling of a flavor.

Berlin’s Paper & Tea built their whole operation around that premise. Their Master Blends are the clearest expression of it: green tea with strawberry and basil, white tea with apricot and elderflower, black tea with tobacco and fig. That last one especially. Tobacco and fig in a cup is not a combination I knew I wanted, but there it is now, permanently in my life.

The blends carry names like "Sprite’s Delight," "Perfect Day," and "Jackpot Derby," which sounds either charming or insufferable depending on your disposition. The tea itself is neither—it’s just serious and considered, made by people who actually care what’s in the cup. Which is rarer than it has any right to be.