Cold Brew SIpdown (1292)
I’m very sore and very tired (despite sleeping most of the afternoon) and since I’m doing podcast recording in the morning I should probably go to sleep but this is the first time all day that I’ve felt productive and I felt like it would be a waste to squander that feeling while I still had the chance to use it to get through some tasting notes…
I’m sipping this currently. I made it up because it’s something that I saw in my stash that I could easily sip down in one go like this, if cold brewed. I’m realllyyyy trying to more consciously sip down things that I have small sample amounts of.
The dry leaf aroma weirded me out though – it was so grapey and sweet smelling! Actually, it reminded me of the grape flavour that I got from the first tea in the 52Teas Advent this year. In that circumstance, I believe that Anne was going for a raisin taste so that made at least some sense. Here, the taste is meant to be fig so for so much grape aroma to be coming off the leaf is… perplexing.
The taste… is grapes.
Not just grapes, at least, but definitely largely a sweet candied grape note in the top of the sip leading into the body and even the finish just a little bit. I do like the taste and to get such a pleasant grape flavour in a rooibos is uncommon so on one level I can appreciate it. However, it’s definitely not what I’m supposed to be tasting and so my brain is just struggling with it a little bit. It’s weird. Aside from the grapes, there’s a floral undertones as well – that’s not unusual for AQ2T blends though. It seems a lot of her teas seem to have floral notes even when it doesn’t necessarily make sense for the tea. I’ve sort of come to accept that as this weird “house taste” of the company, and I typically don’t mind that bit of floral character. Like here – even though it doesn’t make sense for the profile it compliments the grape notes I’m getting.
Aside from all of that, the best part of this brew is the finish and aftertaste. It’s sort of oat like at first, and in that way it does finally fit the “crumble” concept of the blend. After that little bit of oat fades, however, what’s left is a gorgeous lingering golden brown sugar note that sweeps across the palate. It’s delicious, like the taste in your mouth after a huge bite of a really good piece of pastry. Definitely makes sipping through the weirdness of the grape worthwhile!
