This is my saddest sipdown yet, and actually the only sipdown which has been of a tea that I’ve had more than a one or two cup sample of. I bought this from Adagio mainly to take me over the £30 window for free shipping, and because it was one of the ingredients of a Sherlock fandom tea which I wanted to try and was unavailable in the UK, so I planned on maybe making my own substitute. As it turned out, I never did that, as it was just too good to blend with other teas.
When I first tried this tea plain, I was very surprised by the powerful flavour, as all fruit-based teas I’ve tried in the past have been disappointingly weak. Not this one. Instead of a diluted summer fruit cordial type colour like I had expected, within a minute of steeping the cup was a deep deep reddy purple, and smelled heavenly. Like blueberry tarts baking in the oven. I haven’t logged this tea before as I went on a bit of a berry blues binge and drank nearly the entire thing in less than a week, before I’d even made my steepster account. When I realised I was down to my last teaspoon, I panicked, and have been hoarding the tiniest amount since, waiting for the appropriate moment. This was not quite the perfect time for it, but I really really wanted it.
Plain, this tea is a little tart, and if you oversteep (which I tend to do a lot, as I have a really crappy concept of time), it is very tart. This is probably due to the hibiscus content, although I don’t seem to have a problem with it as many people seem to. To counteract this, I like to drink it with an added spoon of sugar. Drank this way, it tastes exactly like blueberry jam in the initial sip, but with an almost sour aftertaste that stops it from being overly sweet and balances it out perfectly.
I am currently sitting on my bed, drinking this tea and reminiscing about my childhood – when it snowed in the winter, me and my two cousins would play outside in the snow for hours, and then when we came in, my mam would make us “hot juice” which was basically a cordial drink made with not-quite-boiling water instead of cold, with a spoon of honey in it, to warm us back up. It was my favourite winter treat, and this reminds me of it so much, because even though it doesn’t taste like any of the juices we had in it, it has the same hot, sweet, fruity goodness which I just find so comforting. I am sipping this so slowly, because I know that once it’s gone, that’s it. I was planning on leaving some of it to cool, and see what this is like iced, but I don’t think I can bring myself to. I will miss this tea dearly. My post-8PM tea collection will not be the same without it.
I have already discovered how amazing it feels to click the ‘remove from wishlist’ button on a tea, followed by the ‘add to cupboard’ button, but this is the first time I have clicked them the other way round, and it is so sad :/
I will be making an Adagio order very soon, re-stocking on this and the 9th doctor, and buying myself an ingenuiTEA while I’m at it! Every cloud…
