Rockville Raspberry

Special thanks to Jaime for this one! OMG! Jaime spoiled me!!! Stay tuned for more reviews!

I can’t stop thinking about a Raspberry -Jelly Lined Chocolate Cake I had for my Dad’s Surprise Party this summer because that is what this tea smells like!!!! Raspberry and cake! YUM! There is a cake-bake-spongy-chocolate type aroma trying to eeeeek out from somewhere but this is a marvvvy aroma! And, yes! That’s MARVY with 3 V’s!!!

The taste is wonderful, too! It’s a true black tea but the raspberry is a creamier raspberry not a tart or bitter raspberry. And I like that very much! This is a nice treat!!!!

I needed a new pitcher of iced tea, and raspberry sounded like a good choice for a nice glass of refreshment. I made this hot, poured a small amount into a cup for me to sample, and poured the rest over 2 TBL sugar in a glass pitcher.

The unsweetened hot tea was fine, but I didn’t taste much raspberry. The base was ice and smooth. The very last bit of tea in the cup had a more fruity taste than the rest, so maybe I just needed to let it cool a bit more. I tasted a little of it sweetened and I think the sugar did bring out a little more of the fruit flavor.

Since my pitcher wasn’t as full as I wanted and I had only had two bags of this, I made another teabag of their American Classic tea, which I know will further dilute the raspberry flavor, but I can already tell it has upped the “oomph” factor of the black tea. We’ll see if this was a big mistake when the tea is fully chilled, but i sampled a bit and so far it is a decent iced tea and should be really good with a meal.

Yesterday I started my spring break off right. . . by having allergy testing done. It was not much fun and I took Benadryl and slept pretty much the rest of the day. So this morning I needed an extra special tea to get me back into my routine.

We visited the Charleston Tea Plantation last April and it was wonderful! Everything is so beautiful there, and we loved seeing all of the tea plants and then watching how they are made into tea. Of course we picked up a few tins of tea while we were there, and this was one of the flavors. The smell of it isn’t overwhelmingly of raspberry, just a nice light black tea with a little berry aroma. The black tea is definitely still noticeable in the flavor as well, with a deep, sweet raspberry finish. It’s not the truest of raspberry flavors, but it doesn’t have any artificial fake notes to it. It’s more like a raspberry jelly or candy taste, I think. Kind of like the raspberry filling in a piece of chocolate. Overall a wonderful cup of tea and just what I needed to start the day.

-Dry blend has small pieces of black tea leaves and twigs.
-Dry leaves smell lightly of black tea and raspberry. Tea liquor aroma is of sweet raspberries.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium golden brown color.
-Malty flavor with a deep raspberry finish.
-Best with sweetener. Milk optional.
-Very good tea. Nice black tea base with a raspberry candy flavor.

thanks so much Erin, for sending a couple of these Bigelow Charleston Tea Plantation teabags to try a while back. Bigelow is one of the teabag brands I like, so I expected to like these! This pyramid bag seems to have more leaves than their other teabags. Sadly, I think I overbrewed it by a couple minutes. The taste was still fine, but I think it might have been better and with more raspberry flavor if I didn’t have it brewing for so long. There is a nice sweet raspberry scent and slight flavor, but not much. The black tea is definitely a step up from Bigelow’s usual bags, but I don’t think they are usually anything to complain about. I’ve been trying to write tasting notes for teas people have been kind enough to send me… I’m slowly making my way! I really just have a list of teas I haven’t written tasting notes for though.

Special Thanks to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea to try. YUM!

This has a delicious raspberry taste. The black tea is smooth with very little astringency. A rich tasting black tea with a sweet yet tart berry flavor… yum! So glad I got to try this!

I found the last two teabags from the Charleston Tea Plantation that my friend gave me about a year ago. I thought I had finished them already, so I was pleasantly surprised to find them.

At first, I didn’t think I would like the raspberry. Sure, I like how they taste and it smelled nice, but I remembered the Peach Tea from the plantation. I made it hot and plain. I was a little underwhelmed at first sip. It was light, but it didn’t taste bad. I could barely taste the fruit. It didn’t have the “wow, this is fruity” punch that I was expecting. By the time I reached the end of the cup, I had decided that this would be a good tea to have for tea parties with people you like. A social tea.

I think that the raspberry would have been brought out more with a little honey. I could see this being an interesting iced tea too. But, I don’t think I would drink it again.

I’m not a big fan for Charleston Plantations tea when it’s hot,but this raspberry tea… When you ice it,my god is it good! For a specific workout tonic; I brewed this hot,then added it to a gallon of cold water along with 2 scoops of iced tea mix and a scoop of sugar. If the initial taste of iced tea isn’t enough,take a moment to ponder a raspberry aftertaste that lingers to the last sip (in a good way)!

This tea is a definite favorite of mine. I like how the raspberry flavor is very much present and distinct without overwhelming the tea itself. I find that this tea requires no sweetening whatsoever. I grew up going to my grandparents’ summer home on an island very near Wadmalaw, so the Charleston Tea Plantation teas are really something special to me. I will definitely be buying more.

I was lucky enough to visit the Charleston Tea Plantation this past March. It was a wonderful experience that every tea lover should have.

Rockville Raspberry has a very delicate raspberry taste. You can tell that flavoring is used rather than actual raspberry bits, but it is a more natural flavoring rather than the candy-like flavorings I’ve had in other teas.

I can definitely taste a difference between the Charleston Teas and teas grown elsewhere in the world. One sip from any of their teas and I’m transported back to the plantation, where I sat and drank that first cup whilst gazing at the tea plants.