Warming Crimson Berry Tea

Oof! Thanks to TeaEqualsBliss for sending this one my way!

It smelled so SO good – I brewed it up as per the package instructions – 3 mins in boiling water, and took a sip. Ah! My throat! haha it is a very spicy tea (to me) with a lot of hibiscus! This would be SO perfect to drink instead of neocitron when you’re sick, I think. Certainly cleaned my sinuses haha.

I put the rest in the fridge to try iced, it was too strong to finish the cup sadly. Very spicy and very.. hibiscusy? Anyways, it was SO unique and I certainly had fun trying it! Thanks!

This tea scared me when I looked into the package and saw all the hibiscus. And then I smelled it and it eased my apprehension a bit because it smelled so good!

This tea is TART! But, the chili in it gives it enough interest to keep me sipping. It starts out tart (pucker!) and then I feel the heat from the chili.

It’s really very good, it actually surprises me how much I’m enjoying this, because I normally don’t go for teas this tart, but, its the chili that I find so alluring here, I like the way it plays with the other ingredients. I like this.

Not my cuppa…too tarty. The hibiscus made my throat sore. Perhaps less loose leaf is more in this case. Rating might change in the future when I get brave to try it again but the first impression and I didn’t kick things off

It’s cold and windy and in general a yucky day. How dare the sun shine! I have a head ache and don’t even want to get out of bed. Actually the cat is holding me hostage by laying across my legs. I can’t get out because you know I don’t want to bother the cat when she is purring so loudly :-P I had a bit of Warming Crimson Berry which I enjoy but not really enough for a cup. So I added some Strawberry Herbal. A little stevia to fight the hibiscus. A nice warming cup with a bright chili after taste. It’s kind of cleaning out my sinuses which I hadn’t even noticed were clogged up. I hope this isn’t the beginning of a sinus infection. It’s the kind of tea that I need to have eat with or the chili can upset my stomach. After forcing the cat off my legs, I made the tea and now she is on my lap and shows no signs of moving. Help, I may be trapped the rest of the day :D I lowered the rating on this a little. It does’t seem as good as I remember it or maybe it’s just that I feel crummy.

Aye, this tea is killer when I’m in the mood for it.

I used to work outdoors doing habitat restoration. In the winter, we’d have really intense days in the mudflats and salt marshes of the San Francisco Bay. If we were lucky, it wasn’t raining. After debarking the airboat, we’d mule sled upon sled of plants through the ankle-breaking terrain, crawling across ladders or jumping over channels and frequently misjudging the distance, plunging into the clay stank and 50 degree water… only to perform wrist, elbow and backbreaking labor once we got to our destination. Those days were absolute hell but I loved them because the mudflats offered a sense of solitude, nothing but you and the flocks of migratory birds maneuvering in unison as the airboat pierced through the winter air, stinging your cheeks. It’s a lot like a desert, though teeming with hidden life. Only the crazies end up in such places inhospitable to human occupation. Here, you can be overtaken by the tides and stranded. I thought about that a lot when I’d squat in a channel to pee at low tide as my boots sank into mud (I’ve been stuck before and lost many a muck boot to its namesake).

Anyway… I’d bring one of those old green thermoses in the field with me on those days and sip on this tea as it stewed in its juices for hours. It was the perfect warming, tart and spicy cup to keep my joints moving, keep my spirits up and give me a kick in the pants.

I brewed some in a 500 mL pot tonight after realizing I haven’t had this tea in several years. It’s better this way with a shorter steep, a heaping tablespoon for probably 4 minutes. Cheerful lemony, cranberry and caliente aroma. It’s definitely a very tart tea from the hibiscus, cranberry and citric acid but it’s not acrid at all when I mind the time. Plenty of heat from the red chili and cayenne, not burning but enough to warm the chest and body. Not recommended for hibiscus haters and spice wussies.

I kind of miss it all.