Gongfu!
I’ve really enjoyed getting into fresh fruit and tea pairings during my Gongfu sessions as of late, and so during my most recent trip to the grocery store I picked up a whole slew of fun and more “exotic”/unusual fruits – including the pink muscatel grapes I was enjoying with this session. To be honest, I had no idea if they would actually pair well with the tea – so I was very delightfully surprised when they worked as well as they did and actually, coincidentally, mirrored some of the notes I was picking up in the tea on its own!
I found the tea incredibly smooth and forgiving (in terms of water temp and steep time); it was thick with an almost syrupy mouthfeel and lots of very bright, sweet notes. The most interesting and, perhaps most consistent, was a bordering on “prosecco” tastes wine-y/boozy note that was delicious. The tea was also fruity in a way that very loosely reminded me of overripe green melon, and had a delicious floral (honeysuckle) undertone and finish. Such a tasty aged/compressed white tea offering! I’m so happy about that, because I’ve also really enjoyed the other white tea (Honey Jar) that I’ve tried from Kuura so this makes me feel very excited about Lolly Water, which I also have a sample of…
The pink muscatel grapes are also very floral and very sweet – so they just complimented the existing flavours in the tea in a very good way; almost drawing out more floral elements from the tea and making both seem sweeter.
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/BxQ2qnUn2H-/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRtMj9cummw
I love unusual fruits, but I haven’t tried much tea and fruits pairing. However, a few years ago I accidentally discovered an awesome combination of mango and hojicha (in particular, gyokuro karigane hojicha). Since then, I often drink it when I have mango at home.
Ooh! That sounds awesome! I have some unripe mangoes I’ve been waiting to eat, and I’ll definitely remember to try them with some Hojicha.