I’m drinking this cold brewed at work today, and I like it. I suspect this is partly because it reminds me of my beloved Raspberry Cream, which I will never, ever forget. It’s also awesome all on its own. I used 1.5 tbsp of leaf in 1 litre of water, and put it in the fridge for approximately 10 hours overnight. The resulting liquor is a very pale yellow, and I half suspected it may have turned out too weak. I was really wrong.
It’s delicious. There are no other words for it. The raspberry is the main flavour, and it walks a line between candy raspberry and actual fruit. It’s sweet, and has none of the sharpness that fresh raspberries sometimes have, but it is undisputedly raspberry all the same. The shou mei base works well here — it’s mild, buttery, a little creamy. It’s not shortbread exactly, but it captures the right notes to give the impression of something shortbread-like. The lingering sweetness after the raspberry flavour fades away is pure confectioner’s sugar. I would actually quite like a raspberry doughnut right now. Or a hindbaersnitter, more to the point. Unless I try and make some, though, I can’t see that happening. Perhaps I’ll try and find a recipe when I get home tonight!
I would like to try this one hot in the near future, just to compare, but it works fabulously cold-brewed. I’ll be sipping on this happily for the rest of the day!