I’m cheating just a bit – I had this before, but as an after-dinner tea to accompany raspberry sorbet. It turned the whole thing into the most berryful of orgies, so I didn’t bother with a tasting note.
I still find flavoured black teas slightly overwhelming at times. There’s just so much of everything. Then again, black teas get away with things a green tea never could. This makes them so much harder for me to analyze using scent alone.
In the case of Fruites del bosc, the forest fruits in question are very present in the nose; the berry aroma is deep and rich and tart, which is nice enough, but there’s just so much of it.
In a green tea, or an infusion of some kind, this kind of berry would probably end up tasting like a mouth/noseful of chemicals when steeped. The black tea, on the other hand, rounds off the flavouring nicely. The base tea is very present scent wise in the cup, but the taste is more subdued. The individual berry notes are mostly lost, and the end result is a somewhat generic, impersonal berry. I would have enjoyed some more character, and maybe a little less tartness.
And, I guess, an element of surprise. This tea is exactly what it says it is, and though it may seem unfair to detract points for honesty, I do love a good trickster.
[Gifted by my friend T, who got it for me in Barcelona in August 2013.]
