261/365
I picked this one up with my last Leaves of the World order. It wasn’t one of their summer collection, but I guess it could have been; it certainly smells of summer! In practice, though, the flavour is more muted than I expected. There’s a light strawberry flavour, very artificial, but I guess that kind of goes with the territory. It tastes like a strawberry maoam stripe, which is possible no bad thing, depending on your expectations. The thyme is somewhat stronger, and actually comes across a little bitter. It was a combination that worked well in my head, but which isn’t so flawless in practice. The green tea base is smooth and sweet, so no complaints there, but there’s also a quantity of pink peppercorns that are adding a bit of a spicy kick in the background. That doesn’t quite work either, I don’t think. It’s just a little overdone.
On the whole, I’m not super-impressed with this one. I’ve found Leaves of the World to be fairly hit and miss with their blends; some are amazingly done, others seem rather hastily put together from an odd selection of ingredients, with clearly mixed results. Here, for example, there’s sea buckthorn peel, lemon verbena, lemongrass, and pink pepper.
I think their ideas are good, if sometimes flawed in the execution. This one isn’t bad, but it doesn’t hold together well enough to really be convincing – the strawberry is too muted, the thyme too bitter (in my head, these should be the other way around in terms of prominence), and the pepper just plain odd.
Close, but no cigar.
