So, I was craving this tea tonight, which so far has been my favorite of the three Dollar Tea Club teas that I’ve tried. I even decided to up my rating on it slightly from 65 to 70, because I initially marked it down for its lack of the promised maple flavor, but 65 feels somehow low if it’s good enough for me to be craving it.
Made it in my preferred method as determined in my previous trials: 0.75 tsp of dry tea steeped in my 12 oz cup, instead of the recommended 1.5 tsp per 8 oz. Interesting to note, this time I ended up with a fairly large, mostly intact purple flower in the mix. My google searches tell me this might be the mallow flower listed on the ingredients. I wonder how that might affect taste as I don’t believe such a flower was part of my first two rounds of this tea. I’d say the one flower amounts to around 20% of the total dry tea I used.
It’s fascinating to me that in teas like this, there can be variation from cup to cup that may lead to a whole new experience. It’s rather exciting.
Anyway, I steeped it at boiling for 2 and a half minutes, then added sugar. I did try a sip before adding the sugar just to see if the flower fiasco had a major impact on the bitterness—if it did, it didn’t cut the bitterness enough for my tastes. I then later re-steeped the tea 5 minutes for a second cup.
Updated cup count (12 oz) from 8g sampler size: 3 (+ 4 re-steeps). I’d say there’s enough tea left for another two cups or so, not counting re-steeps. I do enjoy the fact that since I don’t do well with strong flavors, this 2-3 cup sample makes for more of a 5 cup sample in my case.
