Flavored Black Tea: Banana

Sipdown, 147. So, Yunomi.us has a thing where you can request free samples for review. You can select two teas, and they do warn you that requests are not guaranteed and they may substitute a similar tea in its place. Fair enough. I requested two black teas because I am curious about Japanese black teas, so I chose two that sounded most interesting (based on the limited descriptions) and sent off my request. I didn’t notice at first that I got neither of the teas I requested. One was a different first flush black tea; I am satisfied with that substitution. The other was this tea. I would not consider banana flavored black tea to be similar to unflavored black tea other than the fact that they both contain black tea. Also, of all the flavors they could have sent me, I happen to hate banana flavoring (I barely like bananas themselves), so this may backfire on them. I know they couldn’t have known that, but they could have played it safer and sent a different unflavored black tea. Also, whether due to international shipping in a flat envelope or initial packaging, this sample was mostly dust, which isn’t promising. (Note that I did just get samples from Teavivre in a flat envelope and the Oriental Beauty oolong in that was not crushed to bits).

The dry leaf smells like banana candy, not shockingly. The steeping instructions provided give a time (2.5 minutes) but not a leaf to water ratio or a temp, so I guessed. I was scared of the tea dust, so I gave it a cooler temp. After one minute the liquor was already very dark, so I pulled the brew basket. Now it smells like banana candy with a slightly grounding background of black tea, but I can’t make out enough beyond the banana flavoring to tell much about it.

Yup, it tastes like banana runts. You know the little fruit-shaped candies, each with a different flavor, and there were the little yellow banana guys? I never see runts around anymore. Although someone did have to use them in an episode of Cutthroat Kitchen recently. Anyway, it tastes like banana runts. And a hint of black tea, mostly coming through as a slight punch of bitterness in the back. I do think that if I liked the type of flavoring used here, I might like the tea itself. But I’ll never really know, I guess. Oh well, hopefully the other tea I got will turn out better.

Cold Brew Sipdown (226)

On Saturday I went to visit my friends in Waterloo which meant getting on a train that left London at 7:30 am. I made this as a cold brew so I would have caffeine for my long day of stuff. Then I ended up forgetting it so I took it to school with me today.

This is kind of weird because while it is good and tastes sort of like banana, it also tastes sort of like green apple. Not clue why I am getting apple since the tumbler has never even been used before. So strange.

Thank you CameronB for the share!

Home – 8:00 PM

Yep, more banana. This is the last banana tea that I own, I promise!

For some reason, this tea is super crushed and there’s a lot of dust. I shortened my usual steep to 2 minutes. I probably should have lowered the temperature as well…

It came out a bit bitter, but not horribly so. Japanese black tea is so interesting, it almost reminds me of Darjeeling with its floral and fruit notes. This one is also malty and has a lovely freshly baked bread flavor.

The banana flavoring seems fairly mild, though I don’t remember how long I’ve had this tea, so it could be quite old. All three of my banana black teas seem to have similar-tasting banana flavoring, it’s how it interacts with the base tea that makes them different.

I see that Yunomi has barely any of Creha’s flavored blacks right now. Pity, I wanted to try their blueberry and a couple of others.

The bitterness is bringing this down a couple of points – next time I’ll try a lower water temperature.