Grape Sencha

A fun one from the TTB. It smells like grape Jolly Ranchers! Grape is a divisive flavor… I know avowed grape lovers and avowed grape haters. I’m in the middle, leaning toward “love it.”

Anyway, the bag recommends steeping this for 30 seconds with boiling water, which… seems odd? Regardless, I tried it, and it was fine. But then I tried again this morning with cooler water (175˚F) for a slightly longer steep (around a minute), and, whoa, yum! Sweet, smooth, buttery, grape candy deliciousness, with just a hint of bitterness toward the end (but in a good way). I appreciate that the artificial grape flavor is pretty muted; it mostly comes through in the scent.

Enjoying this one quite a lot on this rainy morning.

The tea smells more like grape bubblegum than normal grapes. It’s a very sweet somewhat aggressive smell. The taste however is a bit more subtle. Again, more grape bubblegum than grape the fruit, but much milder, less aggressive than the smell. It’s a fun tea for the morning and mid day.

As the evening wears on, I tend to want black teas less and less and I start to turn to green and white options more. This one was a sample sent to me by KiwiDelight along with the other flavored senchas from Den’s. The leaf itself is quite pretty with a few purple flower buds mixed in. Dry scent is candy sweet and grapey. I steeped a teaspoon for 1 minute at 175 degrees (my usual sencha treatment).

Hm, I definitely don’t like this one as much as the pineapple. And that’s mostly because the flavoring here is definitely not genuine grape, it’s more like a grape candy and it reminds me of wine and champagne flavored teas. I was hoping for a more authentic grape flavor, as the pineapple seemed very true-to-life to me. Ah well, can’t win them all! :)

TTTTB

I typically really enjoy senchas – and the flavouring seemed spot-on when I sniffed the bag – so I’m not sure what went wrong with this one.

The sencha base tasted really bland – more of a generic “green tea” than the more nuanced and complex flavours I’m used to – and although there was a great artificial grape smell when the tea was hot almost none of it came through to the actual flavour of the tea.

So I wasn’t all that impressed with the tea. I wanted it to live up to the expectations built up by the delicious scent…but it looks like it just couldn’t.

Teeny Tiny TTB

Well I goofed with this one. By the time I realized that the recommended steep time is mere seconds, I had gone over. However, it’s still not too grassy. It’s buttery with a faint grape aroma and taste. Now, if you read my tasting note about Teavana Chateau Blanc, then you’ll know grape isn’t really a favorite of mine. This is nice enough, but it’s a similar type of grape flavor and so I’m not enthused enough to keep it around or buy.

Thank you to whoever sent this to me! It smells wonderful. It has a nice bubblegum\candy like grape aroma. The flavor is lovely against the green tea. It has a sweet candy grape flavor. It’s sweet and smooth. It would make an awesome iced tea.

I received a sample of this in a swap with bluebelle. Thank you.

This has a pretty strong scent to it and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I have 2 cups work left so I brewed this up and had it over ice tonight. It is very tasty. Tasty enough that if I ever ordered from Den’s tea I would definitely pick some of this up. I am not sure I get grape. I get more fruity green. It is sweet and I would say that it taste exactly how it smells.

This one definitely tastes a lot better cold-brewed. The grape flavor stands out better and doesn’t come across as artificial. When it’s hot-brewed it tastes bitter because of the sencha.

The dry leaf is one of the prettiest and most colorful I’ve ever seen. Up above the picture doesn’t show it well. The sencha is very dark green, and amidst them are small pink and purple flowers. Nice aroma too (from the entire leaf).

After drinking this tea hot and really enjoying it, I decided to cold brew it! I’m surprised because based on the hot tea, I thought it would make a perfect, fruity, refreshing cold brew. Unfortunately, I was getting a lot of the grape medicine taste that I was afraid would happen. I’m not going to lower my rating or anything, because I still really enjoyed it hot, but I won’t be cold brewing it again.

I did a cold brew of this one overnight. It is completely drinkable, but sadly a little “kool-aidey” :/

Now I’m REALLY wishing I’d gone for a larger quantity of the Sakura instead, for sure :(

Maybe the Apple will be slightly better….we’ll see! :)