Another black tea that professes to be unsweetened, this time from Kirin. Thankfully, it does not explain that the tea’s deliciousness derives from tea fairies harvesting the final “golden drops” of tea from teapots in order to make the tea, which, to be fair, coca-cola didn’t EXACTLY say either (but they may as well have). It also didn’t proceed to list sweeteners in its ingredients so I had a good feeling!
The tea is, indeed, unsweetened, although it has a certain very faint sweetness about it that is faint enough to not make me suspicious. I don’t know if its the low temperature steep that did it, but there is an interesting air about this tea, a tiny hint of astringency that never quite comes to fruition. I quite like it, and it’s nice to finally find an iced black tea that isn’t sweetened instead of just pretending to not be sweetened. AND it was on sale, which, unfortunately in a combini means that it’s not been selling particularly well and they are trying to get rid of the last bit they have so they can replace it wish something else. Probably extremely sweet royal milk tea. Or Yet Another Green Tea.
It’s kind of weird to me that the Japanese would be so adamant about sweetening their black teas, when their desserts/cookies/that type of thing are often much less sweet than ones in the US. Ah well, cultural differences!
