This is the Tea of the Week for January 21 – and to continue the theme of “Retro Candy Shop” I chose to create a tea inspired by my favorite candy from my Handy Candy haul – Licorice Rockies! I wasn’t at all surprised that I loved the candy since I love black licorice. But I do know that it’s a somewhat polarizing flavor, most people either love it or hate it. So I’m careful not to go crazy making licorice flavored teas but the candy that inspires this tea is a bit different from most licorice candy because the black licorice rope is filled with a sweet fruit and cream filling that softens that sharp edge that is usually present with most licorice candy. So while it does have a taste of licorice, it also has the taste of fruit (the flavor I noticed most was raspberry) and sweet vanilla cream and since it was a bit softer than most licorice candy, I thought this would be a safe inspiration to draw upon and that even those who might not be terribly fond of licorice might like this.
This has a licorice presence but I also taste a note of raspberry which is particularly noticeable in the aftertaste. In the aftertaste, it comes out as a distinct raspberry flavor while through the sip, I get more of berry-ish fruit notes. It doesn’t come across as strongly raspberry. When I taste tested it, I didn’t want to play around with that a lot to make it taste more raspberry because this isn’t specifically a raspberry candy, it’s licorice with a few different fruit flavors with raspberry the most distinct flavor I noticed. So I decided to have raspberry play the role of “fruit” in this blend. The cream is also not strongly “vanilla” but more of a smooth, sweet cream note that does more to soften the licorice than it does to offer a stand-out flavor of its own.
I absolutely love this tea.
I’m one of those people that loves black licorice candy!
Black Licorice>red!