I cold-brewed this two nights ago and really meant to write it up, but I had the Batman marathon to attend! Quite possibly the most amazing movie experience of my life! But that doesn’t really have much to do with tea (aside from the fact that I brought this with me into the theater—thankfully the one I went to lets you bring in food/drinks for midnight screenings or long showings!). As a side note, now that I’ve been making my own iced tea I find grocery store brands way too sweet.
Anyway, Caraway’s teas don’t have the best rep here, I think a lot of people were disappointed with their purchases even with the crazy discounts. Some of them smell horrifyingly artificial, this one included. It’s like BAM cherry cough syrup right in your face. Eurgh. But I was determined to make it work, so I cold-brewed this with a small amount of leaf for less time than usual, hoping to tone down the cherry-ness. And, thankfully, it worked! This really just tastes like a nice mild sencha until the end of the sip, where you get a bright burst of cherry that really doesn’t taste artificial. It kind of reminds me of DAVIDs Cherry Blossom without the floral notes. However, neither are actually sakura tea, since there are no cherry blossoms. What is up with “sakura” tea being cherry-flavored? Sakura trees aren’t actually fruit-bearing so it makes no sense to me. I’ve had 3 other sakura teas that are really sakura, and it’s a very different taste than cherry. Anyway, if I treat this as a mild cherry iced tea I think it’s actually pretty nice—I don’t think I’d buy it again (I prefer Den’s Sakura sencha and Tay’s Kyoto), but I will definitely finish off the bag.
