Cotton Candy

I’ve had a couple of glasses of this iced tea today (cold-brewed), and it is very yum. I must admit that I do prefer the original cotton candy, but this Southern Boy version is good too. Interestingly, I notice a chocolate-y tone to this toward the finish. Sweet, cotton candy-ish, and then caramel and chocolate. Quite a treat.

Frank, if you’re reading this … now would be a good time for one of those blow-out type of specials that you occasionally offer. How about like 40% off orders over $80. (see, I’m going to have to resubscribe within the next couple of weeks or so) If you do, I’ll add more of the Southern Boy teas to my subscription. :)

Anyway, this is very refreshing and delicious. Better than any soda!

I don’t make much iced tea. This became ever more apparent as I tried to brew up this new teabag from 52teas’ spin-off brand, Southern Boy Teas.

The instructions say to steep the teabag in 16 oz of water. I had to look up what 16 oz was, and it turns out it’s 2 cups. Okay, now what do I have in the house that can hold this gigantic teabag and 2 cups of water and is preferably made out of glass, not plastic? Searching…searching…mixing bowl? I guess that’ll work. I suppose this is why people have teapots.

Now I just have to measure 2 cups…AHHHHH!!!! Okay, the mixing bowl idea was not a great one. I just spilled boiling hot water on my foot. *Sigh. I was smart enough to put a dishwashing glove on my hand, so that was protected. Damn you, cute peep toe shoes!! There’s also quite a bit of water on my counter…ugh.

I’m okay. No permanent damage. Now I need something to pull this gigantic teabag out of the bowl…hmm…searching…grilling tongs? And now all I need is a pitcher. I have one of those! But it’s made out of flimsy plastic and there’s no lid…hmm, that’s okay. I’ll just make a lid out of plastic wrap and a rubber band.

Jeez, this is a lot of work! And I made quite a mess too. I do not recommend that you follow my brewing strategy. This barely worked out. I was able to pour the steeped tea from the mixing bowl into the pitcher without further incident. Now I just have to wait a couple hours for the tea to cool in the fridge.

Finally, I can try it! I carefully poured myself a glass and added ice. First sip…oooh wow! This is cotton candy all right! Yum! Super delicious! Totally worth burning my foot for! :P I wanted to add a little sweetener ‘cause I’m a sweet tooth addict. I think I added a little too much so I balanced it out with more tea. :D This is sooo good, but it honestly doesn’t even need the added sugar. It’s definitely sweeter now, but the cotton candy flavor was just as apparent without it, if not more so. Delish!!

Our AC is on the fritz and I think this tea is keeping me sane. It is just an amazing iced tea. A perfect rich tea and then you get that cotton candy finish, and it just makes you happy. Does me anyway. The teabags make it easy too. I just put the teabag in my 2quart pitcher, pour in a bit of boiling water from my tea kettle, and three minutes later, top it off with cool water and pluck the tea bag out for round two later. (Second steep is just as awesome as the first.

My brother actually decided he wanted a glass of this! It’s kind of hilarious though because he said it tasted bitter at first, and I know it is not bitter at all. And he wanted a lot of agave in it…jeez.

I gave some to my grandma too and she said it tasted like cherry.

This probably isn’t my favorite, I prefer the regular 52teas Cotton Candy. But it’s still good, I just like the stronger cotton candy flavor. This one has more of a caramelized sugar aftertaste to it than cotton candy to me, and agave doesn’t make it pop like it does to the bubblegum SBT.

That’s not to say I won’t drink this up anyway, it’s still an awesome flavor, especially since I had no idea my brother would ever touch iced tea hahaha.

This tea is quite amazing. It’s also kind of strange. Let me explain.

Missy made a batch of this in one of our 64 oz Takeya pitchers (which I’ve highly recommended elsewhere, and will recommend again!) yesterday. The normal method of brewing it hot for three minutes in a pitcher full of hot water, adding some sugar, and tossing it in the fridge. Today, we drink!

I take a drink of it today, and WOW does it taste like cotton candy! Not just sugar, but honest to goodness spun sugar, with a little bit of caramelized sugar flavor in there. Behind that, way in the distance, I could taste a little bit of the tea base.

However, once it warmed up a smidge, still well under room temperature, but no longer fridge cold, the cotton candy toned down a bit and that smooth tea base had a chance to shine a little more. I don’t know if that trend would continue the warmer it got, and I never really tried the Cotton Candy black tea.

So anyway, that’s what I’d say. If you want super-in-your-face cotton candy flavor, do yourself a favor and put a mug in the freezer, and pour this tea into it. If you want a more melded experience with the black tea, pour it into a normal cup and wait until it’s ~50 degrees before you drink (anecdotal, made up number based on the fact that my fridge sits at about 40 degrees).

And that’s in Fahrenheit! So no getting confused and heating your iced tea to a sweaty 50 centigrade, blech!

Ok, so I was impressed with SBT: Razzleberry, so I ordered the other flavours to try. The plan was to brew this one up last night, then let chill in the fridge and enjoy today. All went as planned with a few detours. I boiled the water and measured it out then poured it into the pitcher. Then I ripped open the package. But when I ripped open the package, I accidentally also ripped open the tea bag inside. I panicked and just threw the whole ripped tea bag into a strainer and then into the pitcher. But the tea bag was all crumpled up in the strainer and the water wasn’t high enough to cover all the tea in the strainer. So I fished out the strainer and just put the ripped tea bag into the water. By then I don’t know how long the tea kinda steeped for. So I steeped it for 3 more minutes. Then I tried to fish out the ripped tea bag without dumping out the tea contents, but as you guessed, that didn’t work. So then I strained the tea into a different container. Had to wash out a bunch of tea out of the iced tea pitcher. Pour the tea back into the pitcher. Then added cold water and put into the fridge. So needless to say, I did not have high hopes due to my performance on this tea.

But it turned out awesome! You can taste the black tea base, but there is a strong cotton candy flavour on top of the black tea. Without sugar, it was a dull cotton candy flavour, but still good. I am not a super sweet tea type of person so I thought it was ok that way. But just for iced tea authenticity I added some white sugar. With the sugar it is way more cotton candy type flavour. Not exactly what pink cotton candy tastes like, but it tastes very similar to other cotton candy flavoured things (candy, gum, drinks, etc.) that I have had before.

I kept what was left of the broken tea bag, and will be re-steeping.

Steeped in 16 oz boiling water for 3-ish minutes, added 2 quarts cold water.

Edit: Made a resteep. It steeped well but not as good as the first time – just not as strong. I resteeped in 16 oz boiling water but added only 1 quart cold water this time.

Arrived home today to 3 boxes of tea. With more stuff on the way. Oy vey. I suppose I could have mentioned earlier that I am (sadly) back at home now. :(

Anyways, one such box was from 52teas, because I splurged and went for the grab bag sale, and picked up some additional SBT tea bags so I could try almost all of the flavours (the rest were purchased a while back and are en route from Amanda! And I say almost all, because I have zero interest in RadioactiviTEA :P)

Figured I’d give this one a shot tonight, seeing as it’s the only one I bought two of, based on the rave reviews.

Brewed one giant teabag up in 2 cups of water in a pyrex measuring cup at approx. boiling for 3 minutes. So my “concentrate” needs to be diluted 1 part tea:3 parts water. I tried a bit tonight (probably the wrong proportion), and I must say that I’m definitely getting more cotton candy flavour (even lukewarm) than I got with the actual tea. It smells like spun sugar. It tastes like spun sugar. Delicious strawberry spun sugar. With a nice black tea background that’s neither bitter nor astringent. Nor too strong. This is truly a treat. I can see myself drinking through this rather quickly. I think the cup I made for myself might have been about a 1:3 mix, so I might stick with that instead of 1:4.

I stuck the teabag in the fridge so I can give it a second round tomorrow, because 2 bags is probably not enough to have purchased…

ETA: Had some more today and inexplicably didn’t like it as much. Must be a mood/tastebud thing. How annoying.

These teas are just bloody awesome really, aren’t they? I don’t know why I held off buying some last year. It was plenty hot enough in my old office to merit iced tea, although I suppose I just wasn’t up to the tea tea-buying tricks I’ve developed these days.

Anyway, back to the point. I first tried the normal version of Cotton Candy in last year’s 12 Teas of Christmas sampler. I loved it. Given my success with Neapolitan Ice Cream recently, I decided to try another of the SBTs “converted” from a normal tea. (I’m not sure what it means when you start calling such oddly flavoured teas normal, but I guess it hardly matters at this point. You know what I’m on about.)

This one is another stunner. If anything, the cotton candy flavouring comes out more clearly here than it does in its original counterpart. It’s delicious — sweet, sugary, airy cotton candy goodness. It smells strongly of cotton candy, it tastes strongly of cotton candy. Once again, the black base is detectabe, but it just seems to enhance and support the flavouring rather than mask it in any way.

I have no idea how Frank achieves these extrodinary flavouring feats. What I do know is that, as iced tea goes, these are unbeatable. Yum yum yum is about the most coherent thing I can say about this right now. Please excuse me while I go and drink some more.

Perfect for summer sweetness!

I made a pitcher of iced tea with this one, added some sugar and Oh my goodness does it hit the mark for cotton candy. Smells and tastes like a pink fluffy cloud of cotton candy to me. The black tea base is good too, not too strong which is nice because cotton candy is a very delicate flavor to me.
Had I never found Steepster I would have never imagined cotton candy tea was out in this world. Woot! I have cotton candy matcha too!

I only bought one each of this one and Rainbow Sherbet, but I may get more of this one. I am DEFINITELY getting more Earl Grey Iced, or are we supposed to call it “Sorry, Captain”? And pink lemonade, more pink lemonade flavor!

I made a gallon this morning and I am watching the level of the dispenser drop rapidly and steadily. Hubby is working in the chicken pen (which they don’t stay in, they free range but you still have to do some maintenance) and it is HOT and sticky. He said he likes this one better than Rainbow Sherbet, which he did like, just not as much as this one, and I think Pink Lemonade flavor is still his favorite of this year’s batch.

If I bought these one at a time, I wouldn’t feel so free to make them so often, but when you buy ten at a time it really comes into line with the price of soda, which isn’t good for you and makes your teeth feel icky. Buying ten at a time, they come down to 1.99 per gallon of really delicious tea. (Autocorrect just changed delicious to devious. Frank? Is there something you’d like to tell us? >grin<) That is cheaper than soda unless you happen to hit a big sale. And more enjoyable. And healthier.

Thank you, Frank! It is so easy to make, and you really put a lot of thought and care into your blends. We appreciate it!