Casa Pereira da Conceição

Trying to decide which tea to start the new year with. Digging in my cupboard uncovered this tea, which I bought a few days short of a year ago. I was on my way to Portugal this day last year where I stumbled on the Casa Pereira shop in Lisbon. We took the trip to see if we would fall in love with Portugal and want to move there like several people we know have done, but the timing and mood wasn’t right to be wooed by a new country. I did enjoy my time there and wish we had stayed longer. Maybe we will go back and visit friends some day.

This tea has chunks of dried strawberries and lots of rosebuds in the mix. The taste is light, a little dusty as it cools. The strawberry flavor comes through although I’m not familiar enough with the taste of champagne to know it other than bitter, dry and sour, which I don’t get in this tea. I’m feeling so-so about this tea and would like to try it cold steeped at some point.

Ran across this tea shop near where I was staying in Lisbon. I was so excited to find a Portuguese tea company and rushed when I stopped by that I didn’t even look at the logo on their sign out front. When searching for a company website I found the Yelp page that pointed out how racist the sign is with old unflattering caricatures of Chinese and African men. Suddenly something that didn’t even register when I had my tea goggles on came into clear focus. I have regrets.

The tea shop it’s self was pretty inside. The woman who worked there looked like she wanted to be anywhere else. They didn’t have a large selection of tea (maybe 8 blends), but I chose one green and one black tea that sounded and smelled interesting. They were 15 euros each, which is a lot for a moderate amount of tea packaged in a plastic pouch that doens’t lock in flavor and is then stuffed into an oversized cardboard tube packaging. I had to ditch the tubes in Portugal to fit them in my luggage.

Dry, this tea has a very rich red berry scent. Very heavy, like chocolate covered berries, but without the chocolate, just the depth. Once steeped I took a few sips and was really disappointed. It seemed weakly flavored compared to the scent and had this almost tart hibby like tang at the end of the sip. I kept sipping, mostly because I’m stubborn and it paid off! The flavor starts to build the further I get into this cup. The sip is way more perfume like and there is a flash of something alkaline, but the finish is really nice. The deep berry flavor comes out again and lingers. I don’t know that I would pick this out as Port flavored (which was the description that attracted me) as Port has a much more raisiny profile IMO, but that depth of rich fruit is there.

Would I buy this again? No. Not at all. It’s weird that the company has no online presence for their only eight teas, making me think it’s a front for something else. Also… racism doesn’t taste good in tea, or anywhere else for that matter. I feel like there are way more interesting teas flavored with rich berries that taste better when sipping and are a fraction of the price. My beloved French teas aren’t usually this expensive and if they were as expensive they would taste phenomenal or have something very unique and special about them. This feels like a store trying to be really fancy with mediocre products.