I brought this tea in to work because I remember it being such a lovely cuppa to have in the morning during the winter. However, when I steeped it up at work this morning, it was a completely different experience. First off, the leaves had this powdery stuff on it that I don’t remember from before. I think maybe some of the leaves were crushed and became like a tea dust coating the other leaves. Perhaps due to this, the tea turned out bitter in contrast to the gentle tea that I remember from months ago. I was disappointed, of course, but then I realized that I could use this opportunity to try out some more iced teas with the syrups at my office.
I dumped the rest of the tea into a cup with ice and a pump of strawberry syrup. I do feel a bit blasphemous using this nice tea to make a flavored iced tea, but oh well. The strawberry syrup did a nice job of not only adding some strawberry flavor but also masking the bitterness with its sweetness. The syrup wasn’t so overpowering that I couldn’t still taste the maltiness from the black tea, though. So I guess what started off as a disappointingly bitter cup turned into a successful iced tea experiment. Not bad.
I’m planning to make a tea concentrate out of this one to milk tea boba…kinda blasphemous too, but it’s a favorite of mine, so why not?! ;)