After yesterday’s awfulness and Orange Dulce experiment, I knew I wanted something reliable and delicious. Enter Mid-Summer Night’s Dream. I’ve been up all night, and now I have to rush to the library to return an overdue book (which charges $0.02 per minute it’s overdue…eff you Lamont, you stingy bastards). Anyway, I need some caffeine, stat, and MSND always delivers. Plus, it tastes amazing.
I’m not a huge fan of tropical flavored things, but this tea is delightful. Actually, I’m not sure tropical is the right word to describe how this tea tastes. It certainly has bits of tropical fruits in in, but the blend overall doesn’t really taste “tropical”, I guess. It just tastes…dreamy.
I can see cubes of dried fruit (most likely pineapple) and what I think must be dried strawberry mixed in with the green and black leaves. It says to brew at 195 degrees for 3 minutes, so I set the Zarafina to green tea and strong. The resulting liquor is amber with a hint of red.
What I love about this tea is how well the strawberry, papaya, and pineapple notes blend together into something unique. No single flavor is predominant, but if you concentrate especially hard you can pick out each of the flavors. I could sit here all day, inhaling the sweet (but not too sweet), tangy (er, not sure that’s the right word…this isn’t sour or tart, it’s just “exotic”), swirly scent of this tea. Mmm, strawberries…no, wait, pineapple….no, wait, papaya….no, wait, strawberries again.
Although the dry leaf looks like it has more black than green tea in the mix, the liquor tastes mostly like green tea, with a little something extra added. I love that the tea flavor isn’t drowned out by the fruit. I’m not a fan of teas that taste just like their flavoring (once again, boo to Orange Dulce).
One thing I dislike about this tea is that it can be finicky. That’s the trouble with black-green blends—it’s very easy to oversteep the greens. Oversteeping means bitterness, but that can thankfully be fixed with a little sweetener. This would be great with honey, but unfortunately I don’t have any sitting around at the moment, so Splenda will have to do.
Now, off to return that damn book. And to pick up some raw honey to stir into the next infusion.
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2nd infusion – even better than the first. lighter and sweeter. Added newly purchased honey for the heck of it – turned into ambrosia. Yum.
Ever tried Agave Nectar!?
I haven’t, but I’ve heard it’s good! It just looks expensive :x
It’s not that bad at some places…plus it seems to last forever! :P I don’t use anything in my tea but I use Agave nectar for other things in place of honey and just because I like it!
I read online that it tastes more “neutral” than honey. Maybe I’ll buy a small bottle. Honey does change the way the tea tastes, but that’s okay with me….I LOVE honey! Nom nom nom nom nom.
3rd steep – with honey—apples? I’m tasting apples. Strongly.
2nd infusion – even better than the first. lighter and sweeter. Added newly purchased honey for the heck of it – turned into ambrosia. Yum.
Ever tried Agave Nectar!?
I haven’t, but I’ve heard it’s good! It just looks expensive :x
It’s not that bad at some places…plus it seems to last forever! :P I don’t use anything in my tea but I use Agave nectar for other things in place of honey and just because I like it!
I read online that it tastes more “neutral” than honey. Maybe I’ll buy a small bottle. Honey does change the way the tea tastes, but that’s okay with me….I LOVE honey! Nom nom nom nom nom.
3rd steep – with honey—apples? I’m tasting apples. Strongly.