Sample I recieved in a swap. Backlogging this tasting from yesterday, and making the rest of this tea right now. Addition comments not a part of yesterdays tasting will be at the end under “Update”. This one came from Alphakitty. Sipdown!!
Dry: This shoots me right back to when I was a kid. We went to a couple of fairs every year and I was always getting cotton candy and fried dough (Oooh. Now I’m thinking fried dough tea!). This smells like pink cotton candy (and also a little like Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum…hmmm); sweet and fun (yes, you can smell fun).
Brewed: A little of the black tea base has seeped into the scent, but it’s still incredibly sweet and cotton candy smelling!
Taste: Hmmm. I don’t know if this is traslating for me in the taste. I’m getting a rooibos flavor, which is totally strange! Maybe the tea sample picked up on another sample in the package? I am getting a slight sweetness, and it does taste faintly of cotton candy. The aftertaste is definately cotton candy (yay). I am picking up the black tea base, too, and it’s slightly astringent. I think I’m going to wait for this one to cool down a bit, and take it from there.
-Once cooled down, this tea definately gets better. The astringency is gone, and the cotton candy, sweet flavor picks up. The aftertaste is still the most cotton candy-esque, but I’m digging this one cold. Next brew I’m going to add sugar and see if that helps it hot.
UPDATE: Sugar is definately a friend of this one. It brings the cotton candy flavor out to a good level, so long as you don’t add too much. I’m still slightly getting that strange rooibos-like taste (maybe my taste-buds are just translating something in this tea into rooibos) but it isn’t as powerful. The black tea base is nice and subtle (no astringency). I’m liking this one a lot more today.
Overall, not bad. I don’t think it’s a favorite, but it was pretty good. Thank you, Alphakitty, for sending this one my way. I’m glad I got to taste it! =)
UPDATE #2: I put what I had left from this past steeping in the fridge for a bit – the cotton candy/sweet flavor really popped after that. Changing this from a 74 rating to a 78 to reflect this nice change.
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I think this is definitely better cool—I don’t care for it much hot but iced it’s one of my faves!
I threw what I had left in the fridge for a bit, and the flavors really popped after that. Rivising the rating a little to reflect the change. Thanks again for sharing this!
I think this is definitely better cool—I don’t care for it much hot but iced it’s one of my faves!
I threw what I had left in the fridge for a bit, and the flavors really popped after that. Rivising the rating a little to reflect the change. Thanks again for sharing this!