Cherry Green

Tea #9 from Traveling Tea Box C

When I made my Georgia Tea Co. six or so months back, I avoided this one because a lot of cherry flavoring seems really medicinal (read: cherry cough drops).

When it showed up in the TTB, though I figured I’d give it a go. So I cold steeped some for about six hours.

I’m kinda glad I didn’t go too much longer. The cherry flavor isn’t medicine-like, but it’s definitely not a natural cherry, and is more like cherry lollipop cherry. It doesn’t need to be sweetened, and it’s an okay cold brew. I don’t think I’d want a pitcher of it any time soon, but 12 ounces was just fine.

I do want to note, though, that it has the same aftertaste that Teavana’s Sweet Cranberry Black has that makes me think of plastic and play-doh. So that was kind of a bummer.

Steep Information:
Amount: 3 tsp
Water: 500ml + filtered water at 175&defF
Tool: Breville One-Touch Tea Maker BTM800XL (green, medium)
Steep Time: 3 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: fake cherry and vegetation, MilitiaJim was getting chocolate and cherry coke
Steeped Tea Smell: vegetal, hints of something else
Flavor: vegetal, slightly astringent
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: slightly bitter
Liquor: translucent pale green-yellow

I won these teas in a contest that was run by Dan on Steepster that was great fun, and got me tea prizes!

Post-Steep Additives: honey, gave it a honey after taste and didn’t really affect the taste

A notch below spring cherry from the republic of tea but better than soem of the other cherry greens I have tried.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/06/georgia-tea-company-loose-leaf-green.html

Tea #1 from Traveling Tea Box C.

I thought I’d give this a shot since I don’t have much experience with green teas other than I don’t like them in general. But maybe this would be one I’d like.
Brewed according to instructions on bag. I think it was like 3 or 4 min @ 180* or something similar.
This…I definitely didn’t like. It tasted like undercooked veggies, or mown grass, or something similar. The notes I took last night about it I didn’t really get into what sort of green it was, other than it was green mostly because I didn’t want to keep drinking it to figure it out. Lol. I didn’t get any sort of cherry out of this at all unfortunately. Even adding Truvia to it didn’t help. It just made it sweetened green water.
Maybe I didn’t brew it correctly. Or add enough leaf to get the cherry flavor or something. But mostly I think I’m just not a green tea person still. One day maybe, but certainly not now.

One thing to note – it completely contaminated my ingenuitea and my porcelain cup and made the next tea (Upton’s Vanilla Black) have that green veggie taste/smell. Mostly smell. I thought I’d scrubbed both my mug and steeper well enough, but apparently not. Lol. It took soaking it with baking soda, then scrubbing it again with soap after to finally get rid of the smell. Just thought I’d point that out incase someone else uses a plastic anything with this.

Tea #8 from Traveling Tea Box C

Holy bubblegum! This reminded me of unappealing cherry candy… and I LOVE cherries. The flavor is tastes artificial and has a strange aftertaste that lingers. The sencha base was a bit harsh, and I didn’t much enjoy it. While I’d never want to drink this again, I didn’t hate it enough to dump the cup, so it earns a few points for that.

Eighth tea sampled from TTB -C

Back to really nasty tea experiences again. Not having a lot of luck with this box so far, but I’m having fun exploring new faces that I didn’t know i could make at my tea (^o^).

Oh wow, this tea is awful! cherry? where? its not even sweet imo. It doesn’t even taste like sencha or any green tea. The closest it comes to tasting like a green anything would be maybe, as shadowfall suggested, mowed grass with addition that it has been sitting in the mower bag for a few months getting musty and moldy.

I used 1tsp in an 8oz mug, steeped for 2.5 min at 170deg, so it can’t be that I over leafed or burnt it. . .

I made a decision when I woke up today that I was going to break into my green teas. I’ve ordered so many of them lately, but just haven’t been in the mood for them. My recent order from Georgia Tea Company was sitting unopened on the table so I thought I would start with those. I only ordered sample sizes and I have to say they were quite generous portions, but I wish they were packaged differently. They arrived in cute fold over paper bags which stacked well in the shipping box, then the samples were packaged in plastic that I had to cut open. I don’t mind the plastic since I put all of my tea in tins, but I wish they were in resealable bags. They were also lacking brewing temperature on the packaging, I didn’t see it listed on the website either so I just went with my standard green tea temp.

This is quite heavy on the cherry flavor and very sweet, you defiately don’t need to add any form of sweetner to this one. Since it was 53 when I woke up I decided it was a hot tea day, a rare occurrence this time of year, but I think this would be really good iced. If it ever decides to warm up again I’ll make a batch.

TTBC2 #3

This is a nice, although pretty uneventful, green tea tweaked slightly by the pleasant sourness of a cherry. I guess it’s a cherry, because I couldn’t quite tell just from the taste. I think it smells more like it than tastes like it. The base (a sencha?) is not bitter, but then is not much of anything else.

As the tea cools down the “cherry” flavor starts to taste a little powdery, kind of like cough medicine that some people mentioned in their reviews. I didn’t really detect that when the tea was hotter.

Either way, a nice afternoon cup, nothing I would crave or need to have in my cupboard on hand, but I’m glad I could try it!