Sniff.
Sweet.
Candy-ish.
Something that may or may not be cherry, accompanied with the ’there’has-to-be-some-right?’ tea leaves trying desperately to compete with the overwhelming sweetness in the scent. Perfect tea for making divine pralines, especially when dark chocolate is involved. Since that’s why I bought this overcute specimen.
The scent after simmering a couple of minutes is still sweet and I start having doubts with it. Not that I haven’t enjoyed sweetness in my cup before, but compared to Japanese Cherry, that I also happen to have and need to introduce to people who don’t know it yet, which is green tea with cherry bits in it, this type of sweetness is like getting suddenly trapped in the middle of a swarming group of gothic lolitas and end up seeing more frills than in your baby pictures combined. No sense of discretion with this one.
No harm meant for the lolitas, though, frills and me just don’t mix well.
After the first sip…
Huh.
Not so bad.
Actually the sweet aroma that teases until the ‘bitter’ end (ah, the joys of bad puns) suddenly seems to give room to other tastes there are. As if finally realising that as cute and adorable as it is it’s still blocking the way and needs to move a bit. It gains more dimensions, gets longer, and instead of getting a frosting on your tongue it lures to take another sip and to enjoy it’s company. Sadly the trace of cherry gets lost, keeping itself as a very thin undertaste and the initial sweetness transforms into a character I’m yet having difficulties to decipher. That factor leads to a tad flat flavour and not so round as I hoped. The final feeling resembles something between actually tasting the branch where the cherrys grow instead of the treat itself and the nagging sensation of needing to add something to it. Something strong.
My husband solved the problem by promptly mixing it with russian black tea.
I went for Lapsang. And that is yet another story how things turn out when cute things meet rough smoky characters. Not so ugly as one would have thought.
