Blackberry Custard Tart Green Tea

Another one from TreeGal! Thanks so much! I definitely wanted to try some of this from the Christmas advent. I used one teaspoon and there was one full blackberry in there. But somehow the green tea overpowers the flavors, even though I didn’t use too much. Luckily there is some Chun Mee in there too, and it’s not just full gunpowder. I think the gunpowder seems to be too much for these additional flavors. I was only tasting hints of blackberry, sadly no custard or tart. The second cup seemed mostly plain green tea. I was following the steep instructions as well as I could! I don’t know what happened… the name was too promising for this one. The green tea just becomes too bitey and astringent too quickly. I will try a very short steep next time.
Steep #1 // 1 teaspoon for a full mug // 30 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 30 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
2019 sipdowns: 41 (52Teas – Cinnamon Pear (one of my samples of it anyway))

This tea has dessert-related words in the name, so it was an automatic buy from me. While I’m too lazy to time my steeps, I did make sure to keep it short to avoid bitterness, and that worked. It tastes kind of like a fruit-flavored candy. It did get bitter as it sat on my desk, as most green teas seem to, so I was trying to drink it quickly. This is definitely one of the best fruity green teas I have had, though I would not call it custard tart. If it said berry candy green, then that would be very accurate.

5th Day of Christmas Teas

I enjoy all the berry-green flavoured blends from 52teas quite a bit. This one is no different. I had some consistency problems the first two times but the last few cups have been pretty awesome, with lots of custard and blackberries on the sweeter end of the spectrum.

I think this blend uses gunpowder, which I had my doubts about (because vegetal smoke) but it works alright here! This last pot for Christmas Day may be the best yet (I’m so behind on my tea notes for this box).

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Steepsterites!

5th tea of Christmas

I woke up too late to want to drink a green tea this morning (ended up making Black Sunshine from A&D), and then when I got home I almost immediately fell asleep, so I’m drinking this at like 1:30am. and honestly, I drank this too fast, it’s a tasty green tea, but I’m unsure of the custard tart-y flavour? I mostly just tasted the green tea base and blackberry. it’s a very lovely tea.

I’m very excited about the tea for…uh….later today. I will be making it in a few hours when my dumb alarm goes off and I drag myself to work.

(52teas (Anne) 2022: 15)

Yummm, this is so good. This reblend, from the 2021 12 teas of Christmas, tastes much like the original, as far as I can tell. Fantastic slightly smoky, savoury green base with dark berry flavours and some cream. Really, really delicious.

Be careful not to oversteep! I accidentally left the teabag in and the green tea became astringent, as greens unfortunately tend to. The water was only 70 C and the teabag was only in for 6 minutes or so. I have troubles with teas that oversteep, and I’m really quick to judge a tea as bad if it has any hint of bitterness or astringency. I will try to keep this in mind when scoring this blend, as it was my fault for not taking the teabag out a few minutes earlier.

The blackberry flavour is very natural and mellow. There is a touch of something tasty, maybe it is the green tea. I’m not familiar enough with greens to distinguish if it is because of the base or a flavouring added.

There is something similar to milk (slightly creamy), but more like lighter skim or 1% cow’s milk. I’m also getting some vanilla flavour.

Overall, a nice balance of creamy and blackberry, but I don’t like bases that are so finicky. I think this would have been better with a yellow or oolong. I really, really like the blackberry flavouring and if not for the green base, this might have scored in the 90s. It is a very good tea, but probably best appreciated by those who like greens.

I am pushing myself to drink more green and white teas: teas that are usually not the first ones I reach for.

Honestly, I haven’t made up my mind about fruit-flavoured green teas. It seems hard to get the balance of tea and flavour right.

That said, this one, a blend of organic Chun Mee and Gunpowder, is good. The blackberry overlay is mellow. The butter crust is gently there. Nice.

The flavouring disappears by the second steeping and the lovely green remains.