Coconut Almond Green

Attempting to get rid of a few ravaged-by-time teas today while I do a giant pile of ironing, and this tea from Kittylovestea is far too old to hang onto any longer. The flavours have faded to ‘pleasant green tea creaminess’ at this point, with some bonus weird fruitiness which I think is the result of cross-contamination. It’s okay, but I remember it being sooo much better. My ranking is based on how I remember this tea, creamy and nutty and delicious. I’m not going to mark it down because I let it hang around getting old in my cupboard.

Sipdown! 101/395

Queued post, written April 6th 2014

I got this out of the second round of the EU TTB, mostly attracted to the coconut, which is odd because it’s not usually a flavour in my attention sphere. If I had seen it, I would have been far more attracted to the almond, but I didn’t actually discover that it had almond until just now when I’ve made it. In spite of it being right there in the name. With big letters. I expect I just read ‘coconut’ and my brain stopped there.

I have to admit, it doesn’t smell very nice. I can smell the almond in the shape of warm marcipan and then a great deal of something chemical that reminds me most of all of the smell of acetone… NOT a smell I enjoy finding in my tea! I think it’s the coconut behaving this way.

It doesn’t taste like something that ought not be drunk though. For obvious reasons I don’t know what acetone tastes like, but I shouldn’t think it would taste like this. I can easily pick up the base green and the coconut, but the almond is more elusive.

Seems fairly cream-y, probably again the coconut, and sweet from both coconut and almond. I can sort of taste what the almond is doing here rather than the almond itself.

The flavour is quite nice, actually. The aroma is just very much ruining it for me and is the biggest reason for the rating being as low as it is.

I’d already committed to this one before realizing it was one of those nightmare samples.

1. It’s not in the database.
2. It’s barely googlable and not available to purchase online.
3. It turns out it’s an in-house (but possibly sourced) blend at this three-locations-in-the-entire-US coffee chain.
4. If I love it, there’s no way in hell I’m ever going to be able to score any more.

So let’s steep this sucker and hope for the worst!

In the bag, it smells really, really delicious. It’s strongly coconutty, but also a full-on, really gorgeous pistachio. I know it’s supposed to be almond, but this smells exactly like Sicilian pastry filled with pistachio cream. Sorry, almond flavouring – you and pistachio were switched at birth. In addition, this is a really, really beautiful tea – long strips of coconut, lovely shades of green. I’m sold.

In the cup, incomprehensibly, this just gets better. Coconut wise, this is as fresh as it comes. David’s Tea’s coconut always has a slight oiliness to it – I’m not saying it’s stale, but it’s mature coconut. Lupicia’s coconut is all coconut cream, a complete piña colada experience. But this? This is all fresh, crisp, pale, natural coconut.

Flavour wise, it’s not over the top, but definitely present. It’s a complete mouthfeel experience – I love how some teas are there, unapologetic, throughout the entire sip. This is definitely one of those – tongue tip-to-aftertaste delicious. It might just be the natural sweetness of the coconut, but I also get a vanilla-esque smoothness right at the end of the sip.

Well, this was completely awful. Who has an uncle in Blowing Rock, NC?

I would have loved to hold on to the remains of this, but since it seems so rare, I’ll drop it back into the box – I’d say the sample is good for about three more cups. Thanks a lot for sharing this one, KittyLovesTea!

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]