Tamarind Pop

A few months back I started a thread about what unique blends people would like to see, inspired by a sudden craving for tamarind tea—which mysteriously does not seem to exist! The awesome Stacy at Butiki contacted me about a custom blend and I jumped on the chance—I mean, it’s every tea-lover’s dream to have their own custom tea just for them! I was amazed that she liked the finished creation enough to add it to their regular lineup since it means that everyone can try what started as an idle idea and ended up being one of the best teas I’ve ever tasted.

Of course my review is a bit biased since the flavors are pretty much tailored to my palate—the original idea was to replicate the taste of those tamarind-flavored Mexican sodas, and boy does this deliver! The Guranse base adds a nice woodsy/earthy smoothness and there’s that bright pop of malty/sour flavor from the tamarind, followed by delicious brown sugar. But they combine to form something better than the sum of their parts: there are notes of caramel, vanilla, and yes, an almost soda-like fizziness! With just a pinch of rock sugar it’s somehow even better, and it really brings all the flavors together. I’ve had this hot, iced, lukewarm from sitting in the AC too long, and it’s perfect every way. This is definitely my ideal tea, and it’s amazing to actually have it in front of me!

This tea comes to me from my swap with Rachel Sincere. Thanks!

I love tamarind, in pretty much any form. Sweet, sour, earthy… it’s one of my favorite flavors. I always wanted to try this tea when it became available because of that fact, so I jumped on the chance to get some in a swap. I’ve read through the tasting notes and see that most people recommend it with a little sugar, but I don’t have any so I won’t be using it. I’ve never had Guranse black tea before, so I am interested to try it as well.

From the dry leaf I get an aroma that reminds me of the spicy tamarind candies you can find in foreign grocers sometimes. Basically thick tamarind paste, covered in coarse sugar, often mixed with a bit of cayenne for spice. Those also tend to have an earthy smell to them, which I pick up here a lot. I get the sour fruitiness, and what reminds me of a little spice.

Steeped, the tea smells black and fruity in a tart way. I am really enjoying this tea. It is blended in such a way that it really accentuates the black tea, which happens to work very well with the sweet-sour tamarind flavor. There isn’t a true sourness here, but perhaps the idea of it? Whatever it is, it works. I definitely pick up the smoky tabacco notes in the base tea, and again they somehow really fit with the tamarind. Normally I wouldn’t be really into a tea with smoky notes, but this one is working for me. It’s definitely subtle flavoring, and I’m sure it is brought out by sugar, but I’m not sure that it needs it. I like it that way.

This just reminds me that I really need to put in an order to Butiki one of these days.

I love this stuff! Stacy of Butiki Teas sent me a sample a while back that accidentally had some vanilla added to it but I loved it SO MUCH that when I ordered this she included a bag of vanilla powder for me to incorporate into my blend! So I did and let it sit a good long while and now it is bliss!
That is one thing I love about Stacy – she lets you doctor up your blends when possible and is not afraid to divert from her regular blends to suit your taste. Such as the time she left out lemongrass from one of her teas for me since I dislike it so much.
She is working on a special ordered blend for me right now and I am excited to try the first sample run soon!
Thank you Stacy for always being so flexible and inventive!
As for Tamarind Pop with Vanilla. OH YEAH its GOOOOOD
Also a huge thank you to Aplhakitty who inspired this tea!!!

OK, today I added a spoonful of turbinado sugar to the cup and OMG! This REALLY, TRULY tastes like a soda! But not a commercially processed soda that’s filled with the icky-sickly-syrupy-sticky corn syrup. This tastes like one of those expensive sodas that was made with cane sugar. Yum.

I REALLY love this stuff. I am going to have to order more of this … the little bit that I have left I am sending to my SororiTea Sister but I know that I’m going to be missing this stuff in another week or two… craving it. Yeah… I think we need to increase the rating on this one.

It blows my mind how good this is.

My bad, I really should have sweetened this. As is, unsweetened, it’s a pretty tasty generically flavoured black, with an aftertaste that I can make out to be tamarind. Mostly, though, it tastes like a fairly smooth black tea with vanilla and other flavours mingling in every now and again. There’s a low level of astringency (but I did oversteep this one a little, oops), but it’s very tolerable.

I’d definitely drink this one again without sweetener, just as a black, but I’m kicking myself for forgetting to add sugar when I was brewing it earlier! So curious about the tamarind soda flavour everyone’s raving about!

ETA: WOW Stacy, are you ever right that rock sugar makes all the difference here! Put maybe 1.5 tsp into my second infusion, and I definitely taste tamarind now. However, of course, since this is a second infusion of a black, no less, it’s not bad, but not great either. That said, I’m super excited to try this again properly! It’s crazy what a difference some sugar makes. Not that I intend to make this a habit, but if nothing else, it’s interesting! Will have to try with the Watermelon Dragonwell & Watermelon Xylophone for sure.

So much canning done!

First: picked lots of pomegranates, like 15 or 20. Then I took the seeds out, blended and separated into juice, about 10 cups. Then I turned it into jelly and canned them. Turned out fantastic again!

After that, blubarb jam – so had to cook down some rhubarb and mixed it with fresh blueberries and turned it into jam and canned that.

Then bleach down the giant mess made, pomegranate splotches everywhere! I probably need to do more watermelon jelly, but after that I’ll be done the canning (and xmas presents sans the wine jellies planned for the when next 5cent Bevmo sale)

After all that, need a big glass of iced tea – tamarind pop! Very tasty, I added some light agave for sweetness. Flavor is great, as always – little tarty tamarind candy and a slight caramel like taste at the end.
Time to relax and knit!

Oh, the sweet, tangy comfort you bring. I love you and I need you and you always help to clear my head.
What a day. My poor dog had a rough go of it and ended up going through a million tests and getting diagnosed with a heart condition. We still need more answers though. But, man what long terrifying day.
I figured out that this is my go to tea though

this was a sample stacy included in my order… and i find myself wondering (not for the first time) whether or not she keeps a spreadsheet on her customers, lol! i imagine her perched late at night, working on excel!!!

tamarind… what was a tamarind anyway? i envisioned something citrusey, something with a rind as in the name. NOPE! it was actually named for the monkey the tamarin. (seems kindof obvious now)… i don’t know what i was expecting. i mean the name was weird, i sniffed it— meh? so left it for last. i swear, this is how it goes every single time.

aside from a funky indian date pod from a leguminous tree originating in africa (so says dr. wikipedia) what would this blend be? incredible.

i try really hard not to read about what i’m drinking beforehand, but honestly i don’t think i would have believed it as i sipped. caramel (which i only ever seem to detect when it’s butiki) pears? with an echo of orange. very smooth… not pears. an asian pear? fried?a fried asian pear that had been lightly brushed with orange. no kumkuat. no mango. what the hell! stacy does this to me ALL THE TIME! lol.

never tasted anything like it. added a tiny amount of agave syrup, but i didn’t really need to. i will definitely buy more…. very decadent, very smooth, truly exotic. inspired by tamarins and an african date tree with pods…. excellent.

Alphakitty! Thanks for this!!!!
It’s sweet and vanilla and caramelly and somewhat spicy but it’s the sweeter spices not really chai spices! It’s very aromatic and flavorful in every way! It kind of has a cream soda sort of a taste to it, too! VERY creative, VERY unique…LOVE the LOVE that went into this one! Very nice!

Thank you Stacy for this sample of the new Tamarind Pop Tea!

It’s going to be 102 in Fort Collins, Colorado today! Happy Summer!

I’m not even going to venture out to the pool…my air conditioner is staying on and after reviewing hot tea…I’m going to start brewing
some iced!

Tamarind
Pods of Tamarind are common in most markets in the S.F. Bay Area where I grew up, and tamarind drinks are also super common in restaurants.(You people in the Western State’s know what I’m talking about!)
Open up a lumpy tamarind pod and there are seeds and sticky dark fruit that is sour when unripened, and sweet enough for flavoring juices or using in pastries much like apricot or peach pulp when ripe. The fruit is good for the stomach and an antibacterial. The origin of the Tamarind Tree is in Africa. Today Mexico and Southeast Asia are the biggest users of this fruit in every day cooking and for beverages. It’s something I have used for sauces when I want a sweet but tangy ‘pop’ in my Thai main dishes but I’ve also had it tucked in a sweet pastry as filling, as a sweet iced drink and as candy!

Review!
The steep time was 3 minutes at 212F in a brew basket/mug which produced a maple syrup colored liquor.

Interestingly, the first sip tasted like a light vanilla maple pancake syrup! Not thick and not syrupy sweet but a little sweet…and delicious, warm and fragrant! The base is black tea but was not dark, malty or cocoa tasting. I did feel a splash of tannin at the finish which was just fine with me.

I took another bigger drink…and again there was the vanilla flavor
which was very smooth. The flavor puzzled me. I was expecting something sharper and more acidic instead of this smooth vanilla syrup tea with tannin.

(Stacy often says that some tea’s benefit from adding a little bit of raw brown sugar crystals…and I had purchased some from her…so…)

I added the sweetening at this point in my tasting.
The improvement was evident. The tannin receeded and the fruitiness began to wriggle free.
My tastebuds grabbed for the newly detected dry fruit flavors. A mix of membrillo (quince paste) with peach and apricot leather and one little tangy ping. This ping was the sour fruit that says TAMARIND and can be nothing else in the World. All of this fruit flavor was followed by the vanilla that lingered for some time afterward.
The cup made sense at this point. The fruit was ripe tamarind. The addition of just a bit of sweet was the unifier that was needed for the tea to be at it’s best.

I let my cup cool all the way down. Still Good! This tea will be great iced!

Another ‘Sabroso’(tasty) naturally flavored and unique tea from Butiki!