#ProjectTeaWall
This is one of the samples I nabbed today for Project Tea Wall; I know exactly why this is one I’ve never “tried” and that’s because I was with a friend who ordered it once and when I tried a sip of her’s it tasted way too tart to me. So I never explored it further. Well, I’m changing that today!
Even though it’d probably be better iced, I’m drinking this one hot tonight while I munch on some Pink Lemonade flavoured popcorn at the same time. I’m getting my little sister a whole bunch of different watermelon flavoured things for Christmas ‘cause that’s her favourite food overall. So while I was downtown I got watermelon popcorn for her and a couple other weird flavours for myself. It just made sense to me that pink lemonade popcorn would be nice with pink lemonade tea.
Well, the popcorn sucks. Sure, it’s SUPER pretty looking. But the taste is actually a little medicinal lemon tasting and for some strange reason the popcorn is still buttered and salted as well – neither of those two things are flavours that taste nice next to lemonade. So; I’m gonna pass on the rest of the bowl of popcorn and hope that my roommate likes it better than I did.
But I’m not here to write about the popcorn. Lets get into the tea! Firstly, the dry leaf actually smells really good. I mean, it’s pretty much exactly like canned pink lemonade. Acidic, tangy, and with a sweet undertone. When I steeped it up though my initial fears that the tartness comes entirely from the hibiscus in the blend resurfaced though: the liquor colour is a deep hibiscus pink purple.
I’m gonna go on a limb though and say that this is one of those few times where hibiscus is an appropriate addition to convey the intended, titular flavour that the blend is going for. The tartness of the hibiscus is apparent, but it’s also a good match for sweet and sour lemon notes in the blend. And while the merging of the two seperate flavour notes, hibby and lemon, is not seamless it’s pretty smooth. Apart from that this has a sweetness to the end of the sip that extends past the natural sweetness of the lemon; gonna go on a limb and say it’s the sugar cane rather than the stevia because it’s a pleasant sweetness and when stevia really makes itself known it’s not all that pleasant.
Other major points of note…
This is a good rooibos for people who don’t generally like rooibos because it’s completely masked by the other strong flavour. Additionally, the lime is a bit noticeable in the finish of the sip but the mango is totally lost amongst everything else. I wouldn’t be completely surprised if it was more intended as a filler.Anyway, I’m happy I gave this a real try ’cause one thing I can definitely say with confidance is that this cup did not taste medicinal which was what I expected from it. Surprisingly, as a hot tea, two thumbs up from me!
Friendly reminder that I am not currently numerically reviewing DAVIDsTEA blends because I’m currently employed by them and therefore an obvious conflict of interest exists.
