Very tired this morning, so I decided to finally try this tea that I bought in Montana. There was a brief discussion on the high caffeine content of white teas recently, so I figured maybe this one would perk me up.
The dry leaf smells very highly flavored, and not quite in a good way. It took me a minute but then I remembered where I had smelled this before… 52teas Earl Black, which is also a white tea-black currant combo. This tea is called huckleberry and it has huckleberries, but it also has black currant as well. I love black currant black teas (and really nearly everything black currant), but I had problems with that tea.
Steeped it smells similar, though a bit toned down. For some reason this combo smells to me like grape medicine (not black currants unfortunately), and it is being born out here as well. The flavor is not quite so grapey in this one (maybe the huckleberry is helping?), but it’s certainly candy-ish. Why is it so hard to flavor a white tea with berries and have it taste authentic? Anyway, robust, dark berries like black currants and huckleberries seem like they go better with a nice black base. I guess I know to avoid black currant + white tea in the future. Also, this is supposed to be huckleberry, not black currant, and I am disappointed that black currant is predominant here.
I may try cold steeping this one to see if it’s any better balanced. Glad the tin I bought of this is small.
