Sakurambo

Forgot to log this earlier, oops.

Monday nights are when I gather around with friends to watch Future MTV Classic Series™ Teen Wolf. This week, however, I had watch alone due to conflicting schedules. Terribly sad, but not gonna lie, it was super relaxing being about to just sit in, make some tea and watch a television program you hate as much as you love alone — and Sakurambo makes a great drink for that. It remains brilliantly fruity and smooth. I never have had to sweeten it, which I take that as a symbol of its quality. Basically, to say the same about every Lupicia I’ve tried: — it’s totally worth trying. You’ll be hooked.

This is a great flavored tea. It doesn’t need to steep long as the tea as well as the cherries are pretty strong, but I love the smell and taste. It is actually quite “peppery,” in my opinion.

bizarre but amazing. really difficult tea to describe but i love it.

This tea wasn’t a big hit with any of my friends and family but oh boy do I love it. It was the first loose leaf tea (aside from jasmine tea) that I tried. There’s a spice to it that no other tea can compare with, and yet it’s sweet. Now, before you read on, you should know one very important piece of information: I hate cherries. I loathe them, in fact. Ever since I was a kid and I bit into one and ended up with half a worm in my mouth, I just haven’t eaten one until very recently when I discovered I actually don’t like the taste of cherry at all really.
But I love this tea. If cherries tasted like this, with that extra kick, that extra spice, you can bet I’d have developed the first case of some unusual condition caused by overeating cherries. Yes, those ARE peppercorns. I recognized them immediately since I’ve seen them very often at the specialty grocery store I used to frequent. And let me tell you, their presence in this tea is sublime. The key is to not oversteep it. This tea gets bitter fast. I really have to keep an eye on this one but I don’t mind because the end result is so worth it.
I really wish Lupicia shipped to Canada because I’ve been out of this tea for a while. I do hope that I can find some during my trip to Tokyo in April!

This tea can be delicious or taste bitter. The recommended time is from 2.5 to 3 minutes. I personally have brewed it for different times and I find that brewing this for 2 minutes is best because it doesnt have a strong slightly bitter taste. Yes, it is 30 seconds short of the recommended time but it makes a big difference. When I sampled this tea at a Lupicia store, they had this tea chilled like an ice tea and it was the best chilled tea ever so this tea is really good as iced tea.

Tastes too powerful with too many competing flavours. Might work better iced?

A strong, vegetal fruity note is the first thing I noticed about this, slightly weaker than in the Sakurambo Vert version, but still prominent next to a leafy aroma. Something about it brings to mind freshly cut grass, but in a pleasant way, like a freshly mown grass on an organic fruit farm. There are cute red peppercorns and alleged rosemary mixed in the leaves, though my batch seems to have a minimal amount.

The flavour of this is not particularly “cherry,” it’s fruity but this more suggests a green, slightly under-ripe fruit. Refreshing and astringent but not a classic juicy red cherry taste. It’s very refreshing and a lovely tea overall but I would not have guessed cherry was the blender’s intention if I’d tasted it blind.

If you’re looking for a good black with astringent notes of mystery fruit, you couldn’t do much better than this. Very smooth and enjoyable. I’ve bought this again and again, but just beware that it’s not really as described if you’re thinking of a classic sweet cherry.

I want to begin this note with a big thank you to Mastress Alita.

Last year I did my first advent in many years, and I had a blast trying teas and seeing everyone’s reviews of their own advents, and many people had matching advents.

Mastress Alita’s Sipdown Challenges gives me the same feeling. It took me a while to figure out where the Sipdown Challenges were because I am like that sometimes. Ha ha! But I really get a kick out of it, and it makes me look at my stash differently and I am having an absolute blast checking things off each month.

Many, many thanks to you, Mastress Alita, for making this bright spot for us!

Now on to the tea…I have had this once before and it was a sample sachet then, too, but I am thinking I may order this sometime. I exercised tremendous restraint and saved some for Ashman, and if he loves it, it will go on the Lupicia rotation to order sometime.

With food, it tastes like a fruity flavored tea and you can probably peg it as cherry. By itself, the cherry comes out as more distinctly cherry. Thankfully, it is fruity and not candy or cough syrup cherry. You can really taste the rosemary as well and I like how different it is! The pink peppercorns are eye-catching, and lend a little warmth without being spicy. This is a real win for me, so if this other cup makes it until evening, we will see how Ashman feels about it and I will update with his opinion.

Really liked this sachet sample. I looooove the tart cherry. I was impressed with how natural it was with the rosemary. Kept coming back to it. Soo good.

So this is old. Judging by the ziploc baggie it’s in, and the amount I had, it was likely a shared purchase (possibly a happy bag?) from years ago. Doesn’t look like I previously wrote a note, though. Oh well. I iced a large pitcher of this the other day, and was pleasantly surprised – the dry tea doesn’t smell fantastic (vaguely fruity, not really cherry), nor did the brewed tea, but with a bit of sweetener, it was actually fairly tasty. However – I strongly picked up mango, not cherry. It’s possible it picked up some flavour from another Lupicia tea, but I think it might be more related to age. Regardless, not giving it a rating – the bit I had of it unsweetened was pretty mediocre, and I like teas to stand alone without sweetener. Due to age, this one didn’t even have a fair chance!