192/365
This happens to be my 2000th tasting note, and it feels kind of fitting that it’s for a tea I keep returning to, year after year. Maybe it’s also fitting that this time I’m doing something different with it – after yesterday’s success with Raspberry Liquorice Laces, I decided to cold brew this one in lemonade too. Given the name, it feels like a match!
My first sip of this reminded me instantly of ice pops. It’s totally artificial and totally delicious! It’s strange, because when I drink this one straight as a hot tea, or just cold brewed in water, the strawberry comes across as quite natural and even a little muted. It’s tart, thanks to the hibiscus, and even a little sour. Substitute lemonade for water, and the strawberry suddenly comes alive. It tastes like its name (I suppose it is it’s name…), but it’s also super-sweet and candy-like. I can tell there’s hibicus, but it doesn’t bother me at all – if anything, it’s actually adding a pleasantly sour edge that tempers the otherwise OTT sweetness just perfectly.
This one wanted to be a lemonade all along, and I just didn’t realise until now. I suppose that makes me pretty dense, since the clue was right there in the name. It honestly didn’t occur to me until recently that I could cold brew in anything but water, strange as that sounds. All of the recipe suggestions for this from a few years ago are for either icing or cold brewing in water, and then adding lemonade or sparkling water in a 50:50 ratio. That works, but it does result in something far more watery and thin-tasting than this, which is obviously far more concentrated, but also bright, vibrant, and inexpressibly happy. Something about leaving it in all that sugar overnight has really worked here.
Love!
Wow! Congrats!
Do you make your own lemonade to cold brew in lemonade or do you get some at the store?
I buy it. Homemade sounds excellent, though!