I will also preface my review with saying that I can understand why many tea aficionados wouldn’t like this tea. As previously stated, it’s not very “tea-ish!” I also like fruity teas (when I’m not sipping a nice, traditional black). I love this one and it’s currently in my Tea Forte shopping cart.
I’ve had it at least twice – most recently yesterday. All have been in the silk pyramid infusers (not the traditional loose variety, though with Tea Forte, I’m not sure there’s a huge difference). Used boiling water and steeped for approximately 5 minutes. My most recent cup was blended with a 1:2 ratio (by liquid volume) of English Breakfast (also Tea Forte).
I’m still very much a tea novice, so I’ll skip the reviews of the aroma and whatnot, but will comment about the color – it’s gorgeous! It seemed a shame to pour it into my metal thermos.
It is no doubt extremely tart, but I take all my tea with an obscene amount of sugar, so that isn’t a problem for me. It does NOT taste like cough syrup to me, nor do I get any of the vodka taste that some people have mentioned. My immediate reaction both times was that it tastes like a Sweet Tart. It mellows as it cools (and I prefer my tea on the cool side, anyway) – I think it would be fantastic iced.
Next time I’m going to reverse the ratio of black to cherry (two portions black; one portion cherry). I think that might be a very nice blend!