Berry Berry Nice

This one is from the package that I’ve started thinking of as Cteresa’s Yumchaa Highlights. :) It was one I had already seen and been interested in, so I was very pleased that she included a sample of it for me to try before purchasing.

I was double glad of it, when it turns out to be a disappointment to me when brewed hot. I mean it tasted really nice and all, but so so busy! There are so many things in this that neither I nor the boyfriend could pick anything out of the flavour in particular. It was just all sort of jumbled together into a generic ‘fruit flavour’.

And while that’s nice and all, it’s just not that interesting. It has no personality.

So I despaired a bit.

Then this week, while it has been so hot, I’ve been doing a fair amount of coldbrewing, and it struck me that this would be an excellent way to round of the sample.

It works much better for me as a cold brew. It’s still a generic ‘fruit flavour’ with nothing in particular standing out, but somehow that seems less anonymous and tame when it has spent some 8-10 hours in the fridge first. I’m glad I decided to do this and I’m rating it solely based on this.

I’ve been drinking two glasses just now while I’m catching up on Steepster, having not looked for a few days. Nope, make that three glasses.

Cheers!

thank you to Scheherazade who let me try some of this in our swap! This one smells like rooibos when it’s in dry form and brewing but once you take a sip of this its full of delicious berry goodness! This is more a red fruit rooibos than blue fruit but overall it’s just a happy fruity goodness time. That is my official stance. and now? now i’m tired. seriously behind in sipdowns but at least i managed a couple today with some steps towards being able to finish a bunch up over the next couple of days..216 and counting, though i think i’m slightly less as i lost track of a few things i suspect.

On to the reds now, of which I’ve three still untried. Berry Berry Nice is the first, and the scent certainly matches the name. This isn’t the same kind of rooibos as lemon sherbet, I don’t think. The dry leaves are shorter, wider, and more brown in colour. This is a mix that’s packed with additions, though. Pieces of berry abound — blueberry, blackberry and strawberry are all in evidence, as are pieces of kiwi, and they’re making the rooibos delightfully sticky. I can also see rose petals and pieces of vanilla pod. It’s interesting to look at, to say the least! The scent at the moment is a sort of generic “berry”, but I’m not smelling the typically woody rooibos, which is another point in its favour.

Brewed, this is another really fragrant tea. Yumchaa do that well, I think. I can smell a slight earthiness from the rooibos, but it’s more or less overpowered by the scent of strawberry, kiwi and rhubarb, which are the three ingredients I can pick out most clearly. To taste, the rooibos is fractionally more dominant in the initial sip, but the fruit certainly makes its prescence known. There’s a slightly floral note from the rose petals, and a sweetness from the vanilla, and then again a powerful berry flavour. The flavours of the fruit come out particularly well in the aftertaste, more so as it cools, but it’s mostly strawberry, rhubarb and kiwi I can taste. The blueberry and blackberry seem a bit lost, and I’m not really able to identify them at all.

This is pretty nice for a rooibos, certainly one of the nicest I’ve tried so far this year. Given that its berry flavour develops more and more as it cools, I’m definetly going to try this as a cold brew at some point. I’ll also try it with milk, just to see what effect that has, but I’m pretty happy with this. Definetly a hit!

I had the ends of a bag of this, and a new one of Yumchaa’s Raspberry Vanilla, and after a few nights of alternate enjoying, decided it was time for a proper taste test, before all the Berry Berry Nice was gone. It was totally scientific! Well, actually, it was nothing of the sort. I put the teas straight into two cups and infused for the same amount of time, then divided those two cups into two more, so Cara and I could each taste properly. Naturally, we ended up with different preferences, but Berry Berry Nice is my winner.

With that mix of fruits, I’ve very little hope of distinguishing each flavour note, but despite Yumchaa’s description of it as a “tart treat”, I don’t find it tart at all. Both it and Raspberry Vanilla have vanilla and rose petals (though BBN has vanilla “pieces” while RV has “pods” — ??) and I’d have thought the combined fruits in BBN were at least as tart as raspberry, but I find it a smoother, less tangy tea nonetheless.

It’s all gone now, and I will definitely be ordering more of this favourite. It happily serves as a winter, nighttime drink, as well as the summery one the “drink while wearing sunglasses” suggests.

After the Kusmi genmaicha disaster, I needed to drink something safe and strong flavored to cover all lingering unpleasantless both in my mouth, as well as in my apartment’s smell.
I decided then to open a new bag from my Yumchaa order.
FYI I ordered a few bags that I had delivered at my in-laws and collected there at Christmas. It was nicely wrapped in a thick enveloppe and the whole room was already sweetly fragrant even if the enveloppe had only been there for 2 days and had not been opened yet. My whole suitcase seemed to have the delighful smell when I opened it after arriving home. A much nicer experience than when I bring back cheese…
Putting this aside, I decided to try Cteresa’s favorite rooibos, the one that had motivated my initial order.
When opening the bag, I realized it was way less fragrant than the raspberry vanilla, that there were actual pieces of dried strawberries and other unidentified, as of now, fruits.
I was looking forward the tasting;) And this time I was not disappointed: the flavors blend harmoniously together. Strawberry and vanilla were the two most easy to identify flavors. But not the only ones definitely. I’ll keep looking but tonight, I just feel like enjoying my brew.
I love the remaining taste of fruits which last on my lips, much better than a gloss artificially flavored.
I can definitely see how this one could become an all-time favorite of mine.

My favorite of all non-caffeine teas and tisanes. It is very very nice indeed. Incredibly strong scented, all natural ingredients ( not “aromas”), and incredibly beautiful to just look at. The flavour is a lovely meld. I am on my 3rd 100 gr package of this.

Hum, nice, very nice. I need to taste this one again when I don’t have a cold, but this one seems VERY promising…