Oooooh the scent of this one has me most intrigued! Yes, upon opening the packet you are greeted by fermenty-grapes aromas, all sweet and a bit vinegary. Reminds me quite a bit of going wine grape picking last fall, where the guy had us sniff grape clusters to pick out good molds vs. bad bacteria. Unfortunately it was the grapes that had the smell that were infected with bacteria and discarded, and the fungally-infected grapes (I should know this…! Was the good fungus Botrytis, perhaps?), that looked rather unappetizing but had no smell, that they actually collected for a particular type of wine. Or something.
Anyways, I digress. It reminds me of picking grapes for wine.
Steeped, I’m getting much more concord grape aroma. Exciting! Haven’t ever had a grape tea that I’m aware of. I can also smell a malty black base…. smells good!
Hmm. Well we’re not having the bitterness problem here that there was with the Cherry Garcia, but there’s not as much body as I would like. Where’d that black base go?! Definitely getting grape flavour and grape aftertaste. Ok, actually there is a touch of astringency. Maybe I’ll reduce the infusion time next time.
Well… doesn’t exactly taste like wine to me. Maybe it needs some more time. I do appreciate the grape though, and would love to see a tea like Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish, but with grapes (as that tea really worked well).
ETA: Perhaps I should have used less water for the second infusion. Water just below boiling, steeped about 3.5-4 minutes. Definitely tastes like a re-steep. There’s a bit of grape in both aroma and flavour, but it really tastes just like a grape-flavoured black. Quite hoping this improves with age – I would have been happy if it tastes like that sickly sweetish fermenty grape scent it smelled like! More like wine to me :)