Black Tea Merlot

A very nice and unexpected tea.
I have tried many wine flavored teas but this one somehow rises above the others.
Unlike those other wine flavored teas I have had – this one is not artificially flavored and you sure can taste the difference!
Thank you LiberTEAS for sending me a sample of this!
There is a deep base that is quite excellent, the mixture of the black currant and licorice are perfection and combine to create something quite unique and tasty! Note, I dislike licorice with a passion yet the licorice tastes nothing as you would expect in this masterful blend!
This is my first tea ever from Vintage TeaWorks and I do hope to try more in the near future!
ETA: Only downside to this one is that it did not re-steep very well for me.

Even though it’s 2:41 pm here, it’s still very morning-ish to me, because we were up late and I still feel sluggish. I need black tea!

I don’t know if this will do the trick, but, it’s black tea, and it’s what I had sitting on my tea counter waiting for me to try. So, I grabbed it and am hopeful that it will help bring me to a better state of wakefulness.

The aroma is amazing from the moment I first open the canister. It smells very much like wine. Very grape-y, but with a distinct note of fermentation. Brewed, the tea smells very nice also, like black tea with a hint of fermented grape. Hints of floral seem to dance across the surface as well.

Wow! This is nice. It is certainly “velvety and robust” … it has a lovely black tea base that is strong and deliciously smooth. The merlot flavoring is sweet and has a very intriguing depth of “dark fruits”: grape, currant, and plum. It also has a hint of licorice in this, not a strong flavor (for those of you who do not like licorice, I don’t think that the flavor here would disturb your enjoyment of this tea), instead, it is more like a distant flavor that seems to enhance the overall wine-like experience.

Very enjoyable, indeed, and I do feel a bit more alert than I did when I started this tasting note!

After the last several weeks I’ve had – yesterday and today being among the worst – I really need something like this lil gem!

Merlot.

This IS Non-Alcoholic altho I think it would be fun to have it spiked! LOL

Regardless this is something REALLY REALLY REALLY Special!

It’s known for being their Velvety and Robust offering and I agree! It has a surprising velvety feel to it and it’s certainly robust! In addition…the Black Currant paired with the black tea base is genius! There is a little bit of licorice in there, too! At first I wasn’t sure how that would be…I was assuming it would be like many licorice flavored teas are but it’s completely different. It’s more of a natural flavor instead of artificial or candy-like, if you know what I mean. There are neat floral tastes thru-out and I can actually TASTE both the sweet and the dry – like you would taste in a wine…in a Merlot. It’s really wonderful, very creative, and beautifully done! This is excellent!!!!

This was in my December AMODA Tea box and it pretty much made me delightfully happy because I’ve been wanting to try these out but there’s a hefty price to them that just hasn’t left me inclined to order something that i don’t know if i’ll love. wow that sentence just hurt my head. punctuation much? yeaaaah…

so anyway, first off, this is a really pretty tea. I love the purple flowers in it. And man did this smell like wine! Now i prefer white wine over red, but I have been known to enjoy a good red wine from time to time. This tea smelled exactly like the last little bit that’s always left in the bottle no matter how long you hold it upside down heh.

How does it taste? Like grapes…but with a hint of…spice? hmm not sure if that makes sense.i can taste the currants and the brew is smooth. This tea makes me want to try some of the others to see how they compare. I don’t think i’d drink this everyday but I’d absolutely drink this from time to time.

I’m not really a fan of Merlot, so while this was a good tea, it didn’t wow me. I definitely got plum and grape from it. I love the purple flower petals, too.

Definitely would have no idea just by drinking this that it has black currant and licorice.

I was able to steep this for 4 minutes with no astringency or bitterness, impressive. It was a very smooth, full bodied tea that went along well with the fruity notes. But it’s just not a wine I go for at all.

So far the Puerh Cabernet has been my favorite, I still have the rooibos pinot noir to try and I do not have any of the green tea one, but maybe I’ll feel compelled to buy it sometime.

Now I’ve never been a huge red wine fan. My tastes run to the sweeter side of things. So I wasn’t super sure how I would feel about this one. But I got up very late this morning (after being out super late last night). I figured this would be a bit of a hair of the dog after all the wines last night. I was correct.

My first reaction after opening the container this tea arrived in was holy grapes! Yet I saw no grapes. What I did see were beautiful blue malva petals and some lovely black tea. So I set the kettle and waited and enjoyed the grape smell as I waited. This scent amplified as I poured the water over the leaves. It really began to smell like Merlot! While I let it steep I tossed a chocolate muffin top in the toaster oven because a) I was hungry and b) hello red wine + chocolate tends to = awesome. I was not mistaken!

This tea was smooth, yet slightly tart and full of flavor. I must admit the currant and licorice (not a licorice fan usually) played very well together. Everything worked well together…so well that my muffin top is gone and I need a refill on my tea!

I’ve never drank Merlot. Actually I haven’t had a drink of any alcoholic beverage (or other substance other than tea) in 29 years. So I have no idea what merlot tastes like, but I will say that this is a very tasty fruity tea & doesn’t taste at all like wine to me, which is probably a good thing! :)
Thanks Sil, for sharing this!

This is probably my favorite Vintage Teaworks tea. Nice and smooth, a hint of licorice, and just slightly sweet.