Cranberry Tea

Just bought this today…thanks to LiberTEAs little Metro-Tea push earlier! LOL

I was looking for something different…that I haven’t tried and could buy quick – locally…this was staring at me. Not sure why but it did.

Upon first sniff you could certainly smell the cranberry! Once I started to steep it lost a lot of it’s scent. It’s medium to dark brown in color.

The Cranberry taste brings more of a bittery-type flavoring to the black VS a more tarty-fruit taste…which is ok by me. I would personally classify this as a medium strength bagged tea. And it’s fairly good! I bought it locally and had a nice chat with the store owner…she’s considering opening up a tea shop within her ‘already-there store’. I hope she does.

Enjoying a cup of this today. I brewed my first cup a bit too strong (using 2 bags instead of just one), and it didn’t work out too well, then I brewed it again with just one bag and it was much more palatable. The cranberry is tart with a nice level of sweetness, and the tart tingles on the tongue in the aftertaste. It’s a really good representation of the cranberry flavor.

I purchased 2 bulk bags of this, 500 tea-bags per foil bag and weighing 1 kg each. The expiration date was May 2015 and I read the reviews here before buying.

This tea smelled like a cross between old curry and dirty socks, I was appalled when I opened the beg.

Being frugal, I decided not to simply throw the tea away or send it back, so I brewed a small cup, put over ice and it wasn’t bad.

I brewed a half gallon using 12 tea-bags, the tea-bags were very small, 2 grams each. bout half the size of a normal tea-bag.

After the tea cooled I tried it over ice and although it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t real good. I then mixed it half and half with some iced herbal teas I have in my fridge at all times. (mostly hibiscus mixes) and it turned out fantastic.

This is a way to give my herbal teas a caffeine kick and it ended up being pretty tasty in the long run.

The smell really turned me off but the tea doesn’t smell after its’ brewed.

I bought this from an Ebay seller, maybe they stored the tea next to something with curry, or maybe the tea was old and they used a fake expiration tag, it was a stick on tag and I couldn’t find any bags that size online that resembled this tea. I could only find the small count boxes of 25 and 100 and some loose teas.

At this point, I would not recommend this tea, with that horrible smell. But, I am hoping it wasn’t the way the tea normally smells and it was an Ebay vendor storage issue.

Alone, the tea was not a hit with me. Mixed half and half with herbal tea, it was delicious.

Until I taste some fresh tea from this company, I can’t say what they are truly like.

I guess that’s what I get for trying to get a bargain. The old adage applies, if it seems to good to be true, it usually is :D Stick with a reputable company like Amazon.com or a well known store and I imagine that it would be much better.