Lupicia

It’s still warm enough that I’m drinking iced tea in the afternoon, and I’ve been enjoying this one cold brewed. I typically don’t find the flavor overwhelming in Lupicia blends, but the mango really pops in this particular tea… it really does have a very fresh and juicy note that tastes great as an ice-cold tea. The oolong base adds a very complementary “green” note and a touch of florality and mineral water. Extremely thirst-quenching!

2024 sipdown no. 53

Lupicia really knocked it out of the park with this tea. The blueberry has never been more real <3. The black currant falls more to the background, but adds complexity and a subtle hint of tartness. I adore this tea, actually. Goodness, now I’ll have to make a list towards a Lupicia cart.

Thank you so much for sharing Cameron :)

A nice fruity green by Lupicia. They mention it’s “berries” but I get more of a strawberry whiff as opposed to a more classical red berry taste. I also get a vanilla finishing note, but it’s very mild.

It’s a nice all-round choice for a fruity green with a relatively natural tasting strawberry, but I feel as though I’ve tasted this one before, particularly from Lupicia. I prefer their Paradise Green for a similar but more complex flavour profile. This is a nice choice for guests or as a safe gift, but it’s not particularly inspiring. For a brew called Tokio, I’d like something a little more….memorable?

This tea has been my morning cuppa on those mornings cool enough for hot tea. It has that same strong CTC base that most of Lupicia’s black teas have, which is malty and tends toward astringency even with a shorter steep. The flavoring surprisingly holds up pretty well given Lupicia tends to be a bit lighter-handed and their black base is really strong; the chocolate is similar to that from the “Chocolate and Strawberry Pu’erh” I just finished off, lacking that “liquor” taste and instead adding a sort of fudgy quality to the black tea without tasting particularly chocolately. The orange stands out a lot more; I like it a lot more than I usually find orange flavorings, but my main issue is it has a sort of bitter quality to it that really makes the astringency of the base stand out. I get a sort of coating, drying sensation on my tongue. It’s not bad (at least prepared hot, but I found the tea downright unpleasant once the cup had gone cold), but I definitely prefer Lupicia’s chocolate+strawberry or chocolate+raspberry to this.

Not one of my favorite Lupicia offerings. Perhaps the age is effecting it at this point, but it’s missing some of the authenticity that always impresses me with Lupicia fruit flavors.

I’m jealous of all of you that are already getting fall weather… it is still decidedly summer here, though it has finally cooled down a bit first thing in the morning, at least enough so that I’ve been craving a hot cuppa tea to start the day, before then switching to whatever I have coldbrewing in the fridge (lately that has been Lupicia’s “Happiness” and “Kotobuki”).

I’m not a big pu’erh fan, but I do tend to like most flavored offerings, and this is no exception. The pu’erh base is quite earthy but tastes a lot “cleaner” than I tend to find pu’erh, which often tastes a bit dirt/mud-like to me. Steeped strongly, the black tea in the blend comes out more and smooths the flavor a bit more by adding some subtle smokiness, but that also gives the tea a slight astringency. As far as the flavor, it isn’t really strong in typical Lupicia fashion, but it is present; the chocolate doesn’t have that weird liquor note and is more of a fudgy/nutty flavor that blends nicely with the base notes, and the strawberry is that light candy-esque strawberry flavor found in Lupicia’s other strawberry teas. It’s really satisfying (especially during a rare summer rainstorm) and gives me a lot more alert energy than I typically get from caffeinated teas.

Cold Brew!

This tea has really stuck in my head since I first tried it, so I made it again for today’s cold brew. Wow is it good! Very refreshing and flavourful without at all feeling heavy. I do think the cherry blossom notes come out a little bit less with this method, but the trade off was that the strawberry was less artificial/candy like than when I’d tried it hot. Also, even without as much cherry blossom, the strawberry flavouring itself has a bit of a floral undertone. Truly very delicious with either prep method, though!

I love when my local T&T imports limited edition blends from Lupicia, so when I saw this one there over the weekend I had to grab it. It’s just so tricky to get Lupicia here in Canada!

I steeped it up basically as soon as I got home from grocery shopping and the thing that really caught me off guard was how intense and fresh smelling the strawberry flavouring in the blend was. Not fresh in the sense of freshly picked strawberries, either. More fresh as in freshly blended where the slight alcohol edge from the carrier of the flavouring hasn’t totally aired out yet.

It made a very wonderful cup when steeped though. Potent, aromatic notes of sakura with a slight saline edge – though not as much as the “straight” sakura black tea blend I also have from Lupicia. In both blends the cherry blossom leaves are salted. The straberry is pretty strong. Maybe a little more than the cherry blossom itself, though very complimentary. It reminds me more of a strawberry candy than real strawberries. Maybe with a very subtle creamy floral undertone. Full bodied black base and just a little tannic.

Very happy with this purchase!

Another from Cameron B!  Thanks again!  Lupicia never fails — the scent of the leaf here was very faint, but of course steeping it, the Lupicia magic happens and it’s full red apple!  Also a hint of champagne.  So good.  (And of course, Lupicia also has a fantastic GREEN apple flavor…)

Lupicia calls it a “Toasty and pleasantly astringent Chinese oolong scented with mango and passion fruit.” That’s pretty accurate- it’s very highly scented, but the aroma and flavour are quite natural and the astringency works well with the base tea. This is a very common type of tea (black/oolong with a tropical note) for Lupicia, but this is one of the best in the class. If you like a well-balanced, fruity oolong, look no further.

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So this is a pear and bergamot oolong, which sounds good to me in theory. But I find that the bergamot overpowers the pear, and the combination of the bergamot with the floral notes of the oolong is just a bit too perfumey/flowery for me. I do taste a bit of crisp pear in the finish, but since Lupicia does such amazing fruity oolongs, I was hoping for more of a fruit presence here.

Ah well, I should be relieved not to love this, since I assume it’ll never be available again. :P

I’ve been enjoying this orange-flavored oolong mostly as a coldbrew due to the blazing temperatures, but have tried a stray warm cup here and there as well. I often find orange-flavored teas either a very artificial sort of flavor, or super pithy due to orange peel, but this tea manages to be neither. It’s a more subtle sort of citrus, but still has a noticable tang at the end of the sip. The oolong base is very green and smooth, with a touch of florality which, mixed with the orange, gives an “orange blossom” sort of vibe. It’s a nice choice for someone looking for a citrus tea that isn’t overbearing, and very refreshing as an iced tea.

With the unending triple-digit heat here, I’ve mostly been exclusively drinking cold brew or iced tea, but I wanted to try at least one hot cup of this tea before the leaf is out.

I love green apple, and never seem to find enough things with that flavor for my liking. This tea has a really lovely green apple flavor, and the sencha Lupicia uses as a base always appeals to me, falling on the grassy and buttery side rather than the oceanic side, which blends well with the apple flavor. My biggest complaint is that the soft, pillowy approach to fruit flavoring Lupicia uses is just not strong enough for me in this case… I just want moar green apple! I want to be slapped across the face with it, rather than a soft and subtle background note.

Makes a very nice coldbrew! I’ve tried preparing it cold a few different ways but didn’t find any noteworthy differences when brewing it hot and then icing over just coldbrewing the leaf, nor with adding sweetener (it tastes nice with a bit of honey, but is fine without). Makes a good guzzle-tea.

I believe I found this on the US Lupicia website once and pounced on it, but have never seen it reappear since that time.

Like a lot of Lupicia’s fruity blacks, the base is very strong and leans on the tempermental side, where a little too much leaf or a slightly longer steep than anticipated can really bring out a metallic and bitter/tannic aftertaste. Under ideal conditions, it is still quite dark and malty, with an autumn leaf note and a bit of drying at the back of the tongue after the sip. The strawberry aroma smells lovely from the bag and the cup; it is the same sweet/candy-like strawberry flavor Lupicia uses in other teas, though the candy notes are a bit more subdued in this particular tea since it isn’t paired with a vanilla/cream flavor like many of their other strawberry teas. The most disappointing part of this tea is I bought it for the rhubarb, but I don’t taste it much at all. There is a little bit of a tart note to the cup and the strawberry isn’t as sweet, which I suppose could be the doing of the rhubarb, but it isn’t very pronounced to me… perhaps if I was drinking Lupicia’s plain Strawberry black tea side-by-side I might notice the difference more. I suppose on the plus side I won’t have to be too upset that this doesn’t seem to be a flavor they carry often, as any of Lupicia’s other strawberry teas would hit about the same for me.

A Mother’s Day gift from Superanna! Many thanks! <3

I enjoy rose in tea, and not so long ago had a lot of rose teas on shelf. Right now I just have this one and St Valentine’s Blend from Czar Nikolas II. I finished Harney’s Rose Scented and Fortnum’s Rose Pouchong. I do have a couple of blends, like Yume, that are “rose and…”.

Of my rose teas, this one was really on point today. I wanted a good plain black tea and I don’t have any with heft on shelf right now, at least not the kind of heft I was thinking of. I didn’t want a ton of flavoring this time with my lunch and this one seemed to be a good choice.

The rose is a deep, dusky one with a little peppery note. The black tea base was so wonderful and was a really solid foundation with lots of low notes. I would compare it this way – Rose Scented and St Valentine’s would be like a bottle of essential oil was spilled right by you. This one is more like drinking black tea near a bouquet of luscious, fresh roses.

It isn’t that there isn’t enough rose flavor. Rather it is an aroma you get when you sniff the tea cup, not when you walk in the room. I do like the other teas (Harney and Czar) but this one seems more refined. Ranking the rose teas I would probably go with this on top, the Fortnum Rose Pouchong, then Rose Scented by Harney, and then Czar Nikolas St Valentine’s, although the Czar is much cheaper and makes a wonderful base for black tea and rose ice cream. All are good!

I recently finished off (and quite enjoyed) the black tea version of this tea. Now I’m working through the green tea version, and honestly, the flavoring itself is pretty spot-on to the black version: a light and subtle cherry flavor lacking of syrupy or medicinal qualities, with this really fresh pine note from the rosemary. The green tea base can be a bit biting unless I go pretty light on the leaf, but in the right amount it has a very lovely vegetal and buttery flavor, definitely my preference in a sencha over more seaweedy/oceanic sencha. The fresh green flavor of the base goes really well with the soft fruitiness and clean pine notes. I enjoyed it warm, but have really been enjoying it coldbrewed, 5g to a liter of water left in the fridge to steep overnight.

I’m getting used to a new kettle and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I had the glass Breville kettle with variable temp settings and it was on the counter with a bar of hanging ceramic mugs behind it. I’ve had that set up for years, but the other morning I managed to tap the spout of the kettle into one of the mugs when picking it up and it broke off the lip of the kettle. Those kettles are not cheap! I decided to go for some random $35 kettle off Amazon that is mostly doing the trick, but I’m still mourning the loss of my Breville and wondering what to do with the base. It seems like a waste to trash it. I’ll get over it some day!

This smells intoxicatingly fruity in the bag! It looses a little bit of that punch when steeped. I added oat milk to my cup which made it a creamy strawberry dessert tea. Strawberry is the most present and identifiable flavor. It’s a mellow strawberry as opposed to some of the really bright and bold strawberry teas they have. I’m finding this to be a comforting cup this morning!

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Another one from Lupicia. This is nice enough, but not even close to being as tasty as Jingle Bells. I think that one has some extra sparkling wine something something flavor though. The grape here is nice – juicy and sweet, like my favorite Japanese jelly pouches. I think I just don’t love it as much with a grassy green base. Luckily, I also still have Jingle Bells around here somewhere. :)

This is a sample sipdown. I have received – and had – Ratatam before so I don’t know why there is no note on it from me. This time I had two samples sitting around so I made it for breakfast for me and the Ashman to share.

It is a decent black breakfast tea, a little brisk but not too much, and sometimes you need some briskness with food to clear the palate. But the vanilla is pretty subtle. It is so subtle that if I hadn’t read that it was there I would not have known that it was there.

Maybe drinking it as a stand alone cup or adding milk would make the vanilla more noticeable, but it made an acceptable breakfast tea. If you are looking for a good vanilla black where you really taste vanilla without searching, there are better ones out there. Expect a decent breakfast tea with faint vanilla notes and you will be happy.

This might be one of the oldest teas in my cupboard at this point! I’ve had it a few times and wasn’t impressed. It tasted flat and alkaline beneath the fruit flavors. I couldn’t get back to sleep at 3am this morning and while cleaning the kitchen decided to dump the rest of the tea in a mason jar and cold steep a concentrate overnight. This morning I’m mixing it with oat milk and it’s delightful! It’s so interesting how finding the right preparation can make an otherwise unenjoyable tea! It’s bright and fruity… I’m getting a mango apricot flavor. The oak milk is making it sweet and creamy. It’s so bright and refreshing! I’m really glad I found a way to enjoy this tea, but it isn’t one I’d buy again knowing how little I’d turn to it over a 10 year period.

This is an interesting combination, I’m not sure if if I’ve ever come across it before. The tea contains pieces of dried yuzu and the citrus note is quite strong. However, when brewed, the chocolate is more much prominent than the yuzu. It is present but certainly takes a back seat to the gourmand note. I also get a slight note of brown sugar. Overall, a nice take on a standard dessert tea. It’d go nicely with cake or fruit tarts.

The base is the typical Lupicia black tea, well-balanced and bright but can turn very astringent quickly if overbrewed.

I give it points for the uniqueness and overall drinkability but wish the yuzu were more prominent.

This was a Mother’s Day gift from Superanna. Many thanks for a new “must have” tea!

On Sunday, I noticed the cherry first and there was an undercurrent of berry with a candy-like note to the berry flavor that I couldn’t pin down. I think it was the raspberry! It was so good I ordered more last night because it is a seasonal tea and I don’t to spend almost a year without it!

I made it again today to see if it was really as magical as we thought or was it the moment?
Today the salted cherry leaf was more noticeable than before, maybe because this time I know it is there and looked for it. But really, it was more prominent and it gives the tea real presence so you can drink it at breakfast even though both Nilgiri and Darjeeling are lighter black teas. This might even be Sakura Premium with flavors added.

Very good, and will probably be gone long before it comes available again.