Miss Sweet Send Message

Its come to my understanding that nearly all fruit teas are completely useless hot – its like drinking warmed up juice and tastes all kinds of wrong.
The cup I brewed yesterday had a single flavour: tart hibiscus. But leaving it to steep in the fridge overnight and beat the hibiscus into submission, resulted in a lovely mango-pineapple concoction. Yet another fantastic “serve poolside” blend from t leaf T, its a shame they are releasing this as we are head towards winter!

This tea is nothing special plain, but adding a touch of milk made me swoon! Lets add it to my list, shall we?

List of things that make Amber swoon:
1. Frank Sinatra
2. A perfectly lead lindy hop move
3. A devilishly handsome man in uniform
4. Raisin flavoured tea

Raisin is fast becoming my favourite flavour, which is odd considering I don’t care much for raisins themselves. Both the aroma and flavour are heavenly, I wish I could carry this scent around with me all day! And sipping this at work just makes me long to be at home, curled up in a blanket with a pot of this and at least five Fred & Ginger movies…

Well I was in the middle of writing this tasting note when the Great Wellington Powercut 2010 happened, so let me try to remember what I had written…
The aroma of the dry leaves smells promising, sweetly lemon. Could this be the lemon tea I have been looking for? No. No it could not. Oh my god, why did I take a mouthful instead of just a sip?!?!? Medicinal lemon with a medicinal lemon aftertaste. Yikes.

A rooibos blend with fruit in its name generally scares me, but I figured I should give this a go. I’m glad I did! The aroma is strongly mango, but the flavour that comes through in the resulting infusion is dominated by passionfruit. Even though we are heading towards winter, I’m thinking that the full-flavour of this blend would make an amazing iced tea. Splash of vodka, bit of soda, few slices of orange, lounging poolside, mambo on the boombox… perfection!

A moderately sweet, smooth and natural tasting vanilla – its a shame its wasted on this rooibos blend! The vanilla cuts through that woodchip flavour, but if you thought you had managed to dodge that pesky red bush entirely, you are sorely mistaken! It creeps up on you and lingers, like a long hug from someone you dislike.

Another misleadingly-named tea! The aroma has a sweetness along with the raspberry, so you assume the vanilla will be a discernable flavour. It is not. A perfectly palatable raspberry flavoured rooibos though, perhaps they should just name it “Red Raspberry Rarrr!”.

This is my second tea from 52teas and the second time I’ve had to refrain from just typing expletives in capslock in conjunction with accusing them of witchcraft (I believe I just did the latter in my last tasting note). The flavours really are all there! I managed to pick out the chocolate and strawberry in the aroma of the dry leaves, with the vanilla coming in with both the aroma and taste of the resulting brew. I thought this would be nice with milk, but its already pretty creamy on its own.
Neapolitan ice-cream tea? This guy has nailed it!

Chocolate on the nose, and a delicious chocolate-apple taste that is just begging for a black tea base – I may need to experiment later. But where is the chilli? One shouldn’t judge a tea by its name, but it makes for a disappointing cup. It should be called Choco Apple… Chocapple… Chapple… or something less ridiculous.

Sorry to say, but rose petals make for a fairly dull drink. Rose buds pack more flavour than these if you’re after a rose tea, but the petals are so handy to add to or blend with other teas and tisanes! Sometimes if I’m feeling floral, I’ll add a pinch to my favourite earl grey…

I want so badly to like this tea, but after several cups I have decided to give up and face the facts: I do not like Sweet Lemon at all. It has a strange lemon flavour, reminiscent of imitation lemon essence that you think is okay to use in your cupcakes when you’re out of real lemons, but it ends up ruining the whole batch.
I guess I’ll continue my hunt for a tasty lemon black tea…