Arby Send Message

This is a lovely fruity tea with notes of stone fruit and tropical papaya. I can’t say I taste the lime leaf but I do think it still makes a great iced cup. The black tea is slightly malty so the tea was thicker than many fruity black teas I’ve consumed lately. Unfortunately it wasn’t very smooth because there is also an acidity and a lot of tannins. It benefits from a touch of sweetener to bring out the fruit notes.

I wanted this to be super creamy, thick, sweet, maybe some ice cream and sugar notes. I do taste blueberry, but it takes more like apple and coconut than cream in the base. Also there is a fairly noticeable rooibos flavour that doesn’t make me think of a dessert. If this was called blueberry granola I would be more accepting of the flavour combination, but there is nothing that makes me think smoothie or milkshake.

This tea is great iced. I don’t actually taste a lot of guava but I do get lots of strawberry, pineapple, and maybe some citrus notes. It is nice over ice slightly sweetened or straight.

I finished off the package of this today. I’m trying to get through some of my older 52Teas blends before the 12 days of tea begins again. I still have several of the packages from previous years unopened. I don’t drink caffeine often so unfortunately I can’t sipdown most of these anytime soon.

I’m having my last cup of this one in hottish (80ish deg. C water) with 800 mL water. I’ve been letting it steep as I drink it Grandpa style. I get some nice oolong notes (molasses, thick, floral in the after taste) and some dried fruit flavour. It is reminiscent of dried fig or raisin. The spices aren’t helping since I don’t associate figs (I eat them as a fresh summer fruit) with winter spices. Overall, the blend is alright. I would prefer no spices and more fig but I like the oolong choice. It verges on bitter after ~1 hour of steeping at low temperature but the oolong flavour works with dried fruit.

Not related to this tea really, but I just thought of a new fig tea for 52Teas to make. What about fig newton? Cakey pastry and graham cracker notes with the sweetness of dried figs. Or, maybe a blend called “Greek holiday” with freeze dried figs (Fresh fig taste) and freeze dried grapes. When I went to Greece I lived on grapes and figs. No regrets. You can buy figs by the dozen for a few euro in Greece (in contrast Canada grows quite a few figs but they cost over $1 each).

I was so excited for this tea. Unfortuantly it does not live up to its name.

I brewed it in 500ish mL cold water _ ice for ~10 minutes.
I taste no jasmine and nothing distinctly blackberry. It isn’t even floral. There is a fruitiness here, however I can’t make out any particular fruits. It is also verging on tart for some reason. The green tea can’t be tasted except if you leave the tea to steep overnight in the fridge. The result was the bitterness of overbrewed green tea but no green tea flavour…and still no jasmine.