Quetzal Kombucha

Montreal Tea Festival – Tea #2

This was the other tea that I tried at the Quetzal Kombucha stand – it was picked to sample by the other person that I was with, and I think she likely picked it because the colour jumped out so much compared to everything else there. If I’m remembering correctly, this one is elderberry, lemongrass, and butterfly pea flower.

I will give it them that this is pretty – but I found the taste a little more average/mediocre than the other flavour that I had selected to try. It was nice, and smooth but the taste was mostly just like a lemonade type of flavour, with a slight hint of berry to it. I think, of the flavours they had present, this is probably the most commercial one and that, combined with the colour, probably means it’s very successful/popular for them (or that would be my hunch, anyway). I just know I’ve tried other very similar kombucha elsewhere so I was less captivated.

Nothing bad about it though.

Montreal Tea Festival – Tea #1

Worth noting that I’m not writing these festival notes in the order of what we tried – just the order of when I remembered to write them down. Sometimes my brain is a chaotic mess.

As I mentioned, there were a lot of Kombucha companies at the festival – but this was the only one present that I’d actually not heard of before. Their booth was a bit smaller, and they had about four or five different flavours of bottled kombucha with different designs they were sampling, and then a menu board with another five or so kinds of kombucha that they had “on tap”. I’m not sure if that means they were brewed specially for the festival and aren’t things they normally carry, or if it just means they didn’t bring any premade bottles of those flavours.

This flavour combination was from the “on top” menu, and to me it seemed like the most interesting and unique flavour available – which is why I had to try it. I do have a very clear “favourite” kombucha from the festival and it’s not this one, but I think this might be a close second for me! It was very smooth and juicy tasting, with bright and crisp citrus notes. I’ve never had a straight kumquat before so I don’t know that I can totally identify the flavour of it – but I’ve tried a handful of kumquat flavoured foods/drinks now and they all seem to have this similar tangy note to them that was present here as well. It’s like a tangy, sweeter lime almost? With like an apple-y undertone. At least to me, anyway.

As for the pu’erh component of this kombucha – I didn’t quite get it!? I supposed I anticipated that it would be like an earthier shou type of pu’erh but I suspect this might have been made with sheng and not shou because the colour of the kombucha was a really pale yellow/green and the taste had just a hint of a greener edge to it that I don’t think would have come from a shou. It wasn’t really present overall though – much more that citrusy- element.

But overall this was very nice!