I never bothered with this tea until I was told if I like DavidsTea’s Goji Pop, I’d love this tea. Then of course it was sold out when the sales gal suggested. It drove me crazy for awhile until I could get my hands on some.
Dry Leaves: smells red fruity candy sweet, like red licorice but more fruity.
Steeped: steeps into a beautiful deep red, like fruit punch. Smells sweet, like cherries and slightly nutty (from the coconut maybe).
Taste: wahh, Tart! That first hit on the tongue is super tarty, booooo! I’m not a fan of tart as I associate it with that crappy bagged fruit tea that adds hibiscus to make it fruity – though this is a cleaner tart than bagged tea. Very fruity, but I can’t peg down the mango and papaya but I can taste the banana and coconut mellowing it out at the end. As the cup goes on, I start to notice the warmth of cinnamon. The tartness dries out my throat. For a 5 minute steep, this tea is quite strong. I don’t notice the stevia sweetness.
I’m not sure how this is like Goji pop as it doesn’t have that sweetness of the melons and Kanpe is much much more tart vs. the goji berry tart.
Kanpe Tea, I think, would make a good fruit base for sangria. Or maybe good iced or as a punch spliced with some Sprite/7up to pull out the tart.
If you like hibiscus and tarty teas, you will love Kanpe! It is also a herbal, so you can drink it into the wee hours of the night.
Me? I’m going to pass on this one. Too tarty for me (unless I just got a bad scoop of mostly hibiscus). I’m going to save it to splice with soda or sangria (I’ll review again then), but otherwise, I’m not going to buy more. I’m going to stick to Goji Pop.
