Despite the name, The Teacup‘s Snow Leopard Blend is not camellia sinensis flavored with snow leopards. It is not even picked or drunk by snow leopards. Part of it does come from growing regions that overlap with the big cat’s range, however. The blend is made up of Yunnan black tea, Assam black tea, and Nepalese first flush high mountain tea. It has quite an interesting pre-brewed scent, kind of sour, kind of sweet. The tea liquor is very unlike the types of teas that I usually drink, but I have been enjoying drinking it.

The tea’s relationship to the beautiful endangered big cats of the Himalayas is that 10% of each sale goes to The Snow Leopard Trust, an organization that promotes conservation of snow leopards and their habitats. This great idea germinated through the friendship of The Teacup’s owner with some of the members of the organization, which is locally connected to Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. The snow leopards are indisputably in need of the clearly envisioned and implemented assistance provided by the trust. From the Snow Leopard Trust’s site:

The Snow Leopard Trust strives to follow these principles in all its community-based conservation efforts and throughout this website you will read about the different projects that we are implementing with our community partners. While the projects differ in response to the local needs and conditions, the underlying principles of each of the programs remain the same. We constantly endeavor to improve our conservation projects to better meet the needs of cats and humans, and we are seeing wonderful results at our project sites where the livelihoods of families and communities have improved greatly and snow leopards are being protected.

Snow Leopard Blend is not on The Teacup’s website, but if you are local you can go to their store in Queen Anne to buy it. Or perhaps they might be willing to sell and send you some if you give them a call or email them. You’ll enjoy the tea, and you’ll be helping to save a group of very magnificent cats.

Photo credit: Helen Freeman, courtesy of Snow Leopard Trust. Photo location: Woodland Park Zoo; Seattle, WA USA