Grapefruit Crème Brûlée

June Sipdown Prompt – World Environment Day: drink an organic tea

Sipdown edited to add – enjoyed it cold and sweet so I steeped it hot, added sugar, drank one cup and put the rest to chill for tomorrow lunch.

This tea was in my huge haul sent by Nicole! Many thanks!

I tried this tea three ways – hot and unsweetened, hot and sweetened very lightly, and cold steeped and sweetened.

Hot and unsweetened – I mostly tasted green tea, with the gunpowder flavor dominating, and chun mee being the second strongest layer. It was a well done green tea blend for the base. I was hardly tasting any flavoring but I think the grapefruit was so similar to the flavor of the greens in the base that it wasn’t coming through as a separate note. I added the tiniest hint of sugar and picked up a little of the vanilla. As the cup cooled, both the grapefruit and vanilla became more noticeable. I mainly felt it was a very enjoyable green tea and the flavoring was a whisper.

Then I cold steeped a carafe to use as sweet tea for lunch. I added a little hot water and sugar, swirled it until the sugar dissolved, and topped up the carafe with cool water from the filter. Then I added the tea leaves. I left it in the fridge for about five hours.

I don’t cold steep much. Usually I just make tea in advance and chill it for a few hours to a day. I was worried that it might really not extract much flavor since I am somewhat inexperienced at cold steeping with the exception of puerh, which I have cold steeped a lot.

The flavors are more prominent this way than prepared hot to me, and I taste both the bitter (normal) flavor of the grapefruit and the desserty vanilla, but they are still somewhat light. Good enough to have two glasses at lunch!

Next time I drink this, it will be a sipdown. I think it is a very good tea for anyone who enjoys gunpowder green tea or grapefruit flavor.

I’ve been saving a small amount of this tea to cold-brew. When I saw that this month’s scavenger hunt specifies a “grapefruit tea” I decided it was time to take that tea that I was saving & cold brew it. It’s a little cooler than I like for a cold brew tea, but it’s still very refreshing. The grapefruit comes out stunningly well when it’s cold brewed. It tastes so much like a grapefruit, if I were blindfolded, I’d think I was drinking grapefruit juice (not that cocktail stuff, but the kind straight from the fruit!) The grapefruit is super-juicy & a little bitter (the kind of bitter that goes with grapefruit) & it cleanses the palate nicely (which was very welcome because I had a mochi donut – which was delightful but I was ready for a clean palate).

The brulee isn’t as strong when it’s cold-brewed so I brought those flavors out a little bit with a drop of honey & it’s SO GOOD like that. I also added a half a pinch of salt to it to soften the bitterness of the grapefruit.

So, I’m halfway through the scavenger hunt, I might – (might?) – accomplish this list this month. I only have five days left though – so we shall see. This is indeed a true sipdown because this is the last of this tea that I have in my pantry. Goodbye, delicious, refreshing tea!

Mastress Alita’s Sipdown Challenge February 2022: A Grapefruit Tea

I’m a huge fan of the Butiki blend with the same name; this one uses a green tea blend for a base instead of a Kenyan CTC, but I otherwise find it comparable to memory. I like it a lot and am frankly surprised to see such a “me” tea neglected at the back of the cupboard (I didn’t know I had it. It would’ve been consumed long before now if I’d had even an inkling of its existence).

First off, this blend smells amazing: juicy, bright grapefruit embraced by a cloud of caramelized burnt sugar and vanilla that leans in a vaguely creamy direction. Yum. To taste, I found the tea largely delivered on that aroma, with a few steeping inconsistencies here and there.

My main complaint is that I wish it used a black tea base (I personally love my grapefruit with malt sugar notes). The green blend is alright though. It’s not too invasive or bold – allowing the grapefruit to breathe and stay light on its feet.

For some reason, I’ve never been able to taste grapefruit here. When I drink this cold, I taste a mild, high quality green tea with a slight hint of cream at the end of the sip. I included a lot of the fruit pieces in my cup, but still no flavor came from them. I enjoyed this one, but it was super mild.

Another one I’ll need to review properly another time. It was somewhat unremarkable for the first cup, but I did get a hint of something creamy and tasty at one point.