Blueberry Purple Tea

Edit: SIPDOWN! lol since the rest is going to kittenna haha

YAY for organizing my tea cupboard this weekend. I’ve managed to pull out all the tea that’s nearly at the end of their package so that I can focus on drinking those over the next two weeks as well as trying out a few of the teas in my cupboard that i haven’t yet tried.

This tea falls into the first category – there’s only about enough for another cup of this (well one of MY cups…so that’s like 2). So I had some tonight to get that down a bit more. I’ll likely reorder this at a later date from Stacy as it’s a pretty enjoyable blueberry tea and it has decent re-steeps as well which is always nice.

Backlog:

2nd infusion – this tea MUST be resteeped! It’s even better the second time around… the flavors have become smoother, and are even just a little bit creamy. The tartness of the blueberry has even softened somewhat, leaving a pleasantly sweet berry taste with a soft, silky mouthfeel.

Seeing that I’ve had this since August but still haven’t talked about it yet, I better get down to that. I really enjoyed the Kamba Berry sample Stacy sent me alongside this, and this is no exception.

I haven’t had unflavoured purple tea, so I’m really curious as to how this would taste without the blueberry. The base is incredibly smooth. Almost no astringency, and delicate in flavour; at least, I’m guessing so since the blueberry is so prominent. I also detect a slight earthiness which may be coming from the base. As soon as the water hit the tea leaves, I was hit with a basket of warm blueberry jam.

It’s amazing that I only used one tea measuring spoon for my 16 oz. Nordic mug, as per the instructions, and this is so blueberry-ish. One of my favourite blueberry teas now.

It does, however, make me wish that 52teas’ Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish utilized a subtler base, such as this, because I’m sure you would otherwise be able to detect the subtle creamy and pastry notes a lot more easily.

That said, methinks this particular tea makes an excellent base for flavoured teas, especially fruity flavours. Two thumbs up, yo.

Yummy yummy blueberry muffin tea. Even better than I remember.

So, thanks to Sil I get to give this another shot. The first time I tried it, it was pretty much a bitter mess. This time I can definitely smell blueberry, which is promising – I don’t recall smelling it much at all last time.

Unfortunately, this time, it’s bitter/astringent too. I was all good and followed the instructions to the letter; 1/2 tsp of tea, 8 oz. water, 160F. Ok, I lied a bit – it said to steep for 5 min and I only let it go for 4. But yeah… still not working for me. I think there’s enough left for one more cup, so I might try a 2-minute infusion with that one.

Anyways, I didn’t want to dump the cup, because there was definitely some tasty blueberry flavour lurking in there, so I dumped in some honey (yeah, I seem to be sweetening things a lot today! But that dilute honey I’m using makes it very easy to avoid oversweetening, which is convenient). The honey takes the astringent edge off a bit and makes this much more drinkable, which is nice because the blueberry flavour is pretty tasty. Clearly still going to have to work on figuring this tea out though… not that I think I’d ever order it myself, sadly, because it’s too finicky for me!

This tea is unique and interesting. I can’t say it was what I was expecting it to be but it was nonetheless very delightful.
After a day of sampling many very strongly FLAVORED teas this one came out to be far more natural in its flavors and perhaps I could have easily dismissed it as not being flavorful ENOUGH however this tea has depth and character which is a lot better in my opinion than teas with no depth or character and tons of artificial flavor.
There is a blueberry element to it but subtle on my palate.
The tea base itself is what makes this tea so wonderful and the slight blueberry flavor is just this nice little treat that sneaks up on you now and then.
It seems that there are a lot of varying opinions on this tea but to me that is what makes it more mysterious and enjoyable.
I had a sample of this but I will for sure buy some so I can unfurl more of its mysteries in the near future!

Additional notes: Sipdown of my sample. I just wanted to mention my original note might not have been fair… maybe I don’t know what to expect with a purple tea. The tea isn’t bitter, like I mentioned in my other review, but it is a bit tangy. I guess I just expect it to be smoother with the blueberry flavor. It’s good… but my palate might not be understanding it!

I found this little sample when I was organizing all my teas and was pretty excited to try it. Once I had all my teas put away I made a cup of this and sat down to relax for literally 2 minutes before the little man wondered down the stairs in a post nap sleep daze. But, for those 2 minutes, I enjoyed this tea! Very natural blueberry flavors and the purple tea was kind of interesting. I need to try that on its own sometime so I can discern the flavor a little more, but it was a pleasant afternoon tea! Thanks for including this in one of my orders Stacy!

This actually brews up a deep purple/blue colour with a subtle scent of blueberries.

There is a earthy blueberry taste in there, not too strong, but it’s there. There’s something else over the blueberry that I’ve tasted before but I can’t quite remember what it is.

This is a fascinating tea. I only have a small sample so I may have to pick up some more to experiment and enjoy.

Update: The second steep of this was a success. Almost as flavourful as the first.

WOW. That is all.

Ok, I’ll elaborate. When I set the parcel on the countertop, I smelled blueberry. When I opened the shipment of 5 items + 2 samples, I smelled blueberry. I dug through the box until I located the small packet labelled blueberry and made it IMMEDIATELY. With a fragrance like that, how could you not? I dumped the whole 1/2oz packet into the finum filter and brewed 1 liter. Wish I had not got the water so hot, but nevertheless… I select a bone china mug with blue forget-me-nots on it, because this tea requires something blue. The liquid is even blue—in the purple way that blueberries are.

Second sip. Must say, NONE repeat—NONE of that hideous fake blueberry flavoring. I have a few blueberry plants in the yard, I pick them every July. I know what a blueberry smells like and this is the real deal. This is a beautiful cup I would serve to guests in a heartbeat, and know for a fact they’d still be talking about it tomorrow. HA.

This is a work of art.