Wildflower - Passed Over in Silence

08.07.2024

Even though I produced a fair number of batches at this stage, I'm still fairly heartbroken when it's time to dispose of the tea leaves, after brewing. There's still so much aromatic life left in our oolong tea, and it feels a bit wasteful adding them to the compost pile so soon. 
Earlier this year I reached out to our friends at Wildflower in Sydney to see if they would introduce the spent tea leaves into a beer (and they did). Even though I'm not the biggest beer drinker, Wildflower is the exception. I'm very much a fan girl of what they do. I find their drinks intriguing, really creative and delicious. 
I highly recommend visiting their brewery if you're in the Marrickville area, it's like nothing else. 
Thanks, Chrissie x
topher wrote this about the beer:
"Passed Over in Silence" 2024 was created from oak aged ales imbued with oolong tea.


The ales were brewed with Organic red wheat and Organic heritage barley wholly fermented by a diversity of yeasts and bacteria collected from native flowers from NSW before resting in French oak barrels until when they were infused before bottling with second use Taiwanese High Mountain oolong tea after it was first brewed in order to make the non-alcoholic drink we are mildly obsessed with, T.I.N.A. 1.0;

It was allowed to naturally condition and carbonate in bottle before release. Made exclusively for The Collective.

Since first tasting TINA at a wine fair in Paddington in 2022, I have been very intrigues by the balance of tannin and floral extraction in the drink. It is such a complex, and most important, just off dry, non alcoholic drink. After stocking it now at cellar door, for quite some time, we made contact with Christina and Imogen, the cousin team that started and owns TINA drinks. Imogen comes from the world of wine, which makes sense when you taste the structure of the drink. Christina on the other hand owns and operates Assembly Store Coffee and Tea in Carlton Vic. She has for over a decade dedicated herself to sourcing and importing the finest tea leaves from around the world, hence her ability to match specific tea profiles to what Imogen was thinking.Together, they make a formidable palate.

In speaking with Christina, I learned that the oolong tea which they primarily use in TINA 1.0 (called Dong Ding from Taiwan) would customarily be infused a good number of times, like 6-8 to make pots of tea before the leaves would give up the ghost and be discarded. However, for their drink the only use the tea once. Here's of course, where I got interested.

To make this beer we organised the leaves to come out of their brew in regional victoria and be cold-freighted to us as they were still wet and upon delivery here, immediately bagged and tinctured with two barrels of Gold selected for their delicacy.

The resulting beer shares some of that tannin which I love in TINA and a black tea jasmine aromatic. Its developed well in the past few months and expect it to diminish its tea-qualities over the next few years.

The label for Passed over in Silence 2024 was made by both Benny and Topher by drying the oolong tea leaves that macerated in this beer over watercolour.

Join our Mailing list

Be the first to know about new collections and exclusive offers.