Mascarpone & Sour Cherry

Advent Calendar 2022 Day 23
I have 2 left to note about from last year. I might just make it before I open the 2023 calendar. Steeped for about 4 minutes in 195 F water. I don’t get much of a scent off of this one but I’m not able to smell much these days due to a lingering/new cold. The sour cherry flavor comes through very well though. I was expecting more creaminess but I’m enjoying the cherry well enough on its own.

Like the “Candy Floss” I tried recently, I love the smell of the dry leaf in the bag, which has a very appealing creamy cherry aroma. Brewed, the aroma doesn’t come across as sweet or as creamy as the dry leaf, with a sharper tart cherry tang on the nose, with a slight mineral quality.

The tea has that silky smooth mouthfeel from the oolong base, but I was expecting a sort of creamy and buttery flavor given the “mascarpone” in the title, but I’m not really getting that. It tastes nice, though. There is a cherry flavor, not particularly strong but also not obnoxiously medicinal either, and overall the tea is more on the sweet side than particularly tangy.

I made a coldbrew as well, but it tasted on the sour side… I’m thinking I overleafed and oversteeped it. I’ll probably add some sugar to my current batch and switch to drinking the rest of this tea warm, since this cup turned out quite pleasant.

Sipped on this one last night and it was… interesting?

The idea of mascarpone and tart cherry together kind of weirds me out a little bit because of the acidity and creaminess juxtaposition, but drinking the tea I totally could see where they were coming from and it wasn’t as peculiar as I had expected. Definitely that thick sort of buttery creaminess from the milk oolong along with some fairly floral undertones and a little green sharpness to the oolong. The cherry is thin in mouthfeel and flavour, but definitely discernible in the top notes and does have a tartness to it. I didn’t mind it with the milk oolong, I just wished the body hadn’t been so thin and the finish of the sip nearly as astringent as it was.

This tea wasn’t that great hot, but cold, it has a really unique, authentic sour cherry flavor. I taste no hint of mascarpone. Really the only flavor is the sour cherry. I also don’t really notice the tea itself even though there’s quite a lot in the blend. So I appreciate this tea for its originality of flavor, and I quite enjoy the taste. Not a favorite though.

I’m not sure what i expected with this one, but it wasn’t this lol.it’s more sour cherry than anything…sort of reminds me a little of cherry snowcone from davids tea but less sweet. Marscapone? not really. ALso don’t really taste the oolong…which isn’t a bad thing for me today haha

The smell in the bag was ahhhhh. Subtle sweet creaminess. I smiled and my shoulders relaxed.

It smelled pretty good brewed up, with that same subtleness but also light tanginess that accurately captured mascarpone. A vegetal/cooked green quality was present from the oolong (cheap and/or old tieguanyin or milk oolong?). The taste was strange and weak. The cherry came through with a 3 minute steep time but sampled with a longer 5 minute steep, the flavor was more watery, generic hibiscus sour. The light vegetal taste from the oolong didn’t complement the intended flavor profile. In desperation to get some of that creamy taste, I inhaled through my nose while taking a sip. Nada. I think the mascarpone and sour cherry combination would be awesome but the aroma and tastes didn’t integrate well enough for me to consider this a cohesive brew. Still enjoyable but not recommended.

This is one of those weird teas that doesn’t pop up in searches properly so it was never added to my cupboard but today I was going through the teas I keep at my sisters and there it was. It sounds good to me but mostly it was hibiscus to add sour to the cherry flavour. While that was fine, it didn’t really have marscapone.

Cold brew in oat milk overnight

A free sample from my B&B order! Thanks so much, you excellent team of tea people! This blend was intriguing. First, I had to look up what mascarpone is. It seems like a fancy cream cheese, but also, how the heck would that translate in a tea?!?! Let’s say since I didn’t know what mascarpone tasted like, I was looking for cream cheese and definitely wasn’t tasting that… if anything there was a hint of salt, but that can sometimes be from oolong leaves itself. So there was a savory element more than not but only if you’re thinking about mascarpone. I’m not sure if I’ve had a B&B oolong before, except for the tasty Brighton Rock, but that might not even be the same base oolong. Another B&B blend where the hibiscus and rosehips are tame enough not to overwhelm. I hope nobody sees those ingredients and gets scared away from trying B&B blends… in most of the blends, the hibiscus and rosehips are subtle. I really wish the blend didn’t have orange peels though? They don’t fit here, but I’m also not tasting them. The first steep has the most flavors of tart cherry and cranberry. But those flavors slowly fade in the second and third steeps. With a slight cream note throughout. Credit for actually using cherries and cranberries in the blend though! The color of the brew was actually lavender which was different. I like this tea, but it just isn’t special enough for me to really crave or call amazing. But this is why I LOVE samples.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // 18 minutes after boiling // 1 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 7 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 3 minute steep

My Bird & Blend order arrived! This is one of the teas I was most looking forward to of the ones I bought. Creamy sour cherry oolong sounds basically like my perfect tea. Steeped, it smells and tastes of cherry, but it’s fairly light. However – there’s basically no oolong, which is the most disappointing part. Despite having a decent amount in my cup, I just can’t pick out any contribution from the base tea. So this more or less tastes like a cup of slightly creamy, weak cherry juice. Not terrible, but not what I was hoping for. I’ll try a longer infusion next time to see if it makes a difference, but I’m not sure that it will. If I can’t coax out any oolong, this may just become a summer iced tea, instead.