Cold Brew!
Strained this one this afternoon to sip on; it’s basically just a raspberry/blackberry black tea so I was expecting a very clear berry flavour and maybe a little bit of tartness? That sounded like it’d make for an interesting cold offering.
I found it very, very boring almost immediately though – sure, it had a mixed berry sort of flavour to it but it was really flat/dull and kind of watered down tasting. I’m not exactly sure where the black tea base comes from but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a run of the mill Ceylon; it’s got that sort of generic/mild and relatively flavourless black tea taste (though with a hint of something floral) that makes Ceylon teas such a good canvas for added flavour. It was like sipping at blackberry with all the life sucked out of it though; I knew I had to do something to give this some life.
So, I made it into a “Brambleberry Lemonade” of sorts. I cut a lemon in half and juices the one half straight into my strained cold brew and then I took the other half and sliced it up into wedges which I just dropped into the mix to infuse alongside everything else. Obviously, the flavour of the tea is now really lemon heavy with some tartness – BUT the blackberry and raspberry notes that come through after that wave of lemon suddenly feel like they’ve been given new life! They come off as sweeter, and more pronounced. And the contrast between the two flavours – lemon and berry, is exactly what this needed to feel fresh, and interesting.
Actually worth the time it takes to drink it.
It’s a shame I had to take such drastic steps to get there though; and you can’t really rate a tea on how good it is when you’ve done so much to change it up from its natural state. On its own, this just isn’t a pleasant tea and that counts for A LOT. I’ll try it again though and see if it’s any better as a hot tea.
Hopefully…
