Cape Paradise

I chatted with one of the owners at the Savoy Tea Co store about cold brewing and this came highly recommended. “It gets better the longer it brews,” he said. Since I like my teas cold brewed and am apt to leave the jar steeping in the fridge till I get around to drinking it, (which can sometimes be as long as a few days) this sounded like my kind of tea. I put a generous measure in a quart jar of water and tried it after a few hours. It smelled great, very tropical and fruity. Since I’m allergic to pineapple, it’s nice to have a tropical blend without this ingredient for a change.

This tea is very mango-ey. Enough to stand alone as a good, solid, fruity tea. I’m sure it would be great with coconut milk and sweetener (I doubt a splash of rum would hurt it any either), but it’s a tea that doesn’t need “help” to be good, which is the sort I’m most inclined to drink. All by itself this is pleasantly fruity and just the thing if you like mangoes (If you hate mangoes, maybe not so much.) Since the weather here is a bit wintry, I’ve taken a few cups of this cold brew out of the fridge and heated it in the microwave, and can say it’s quite good warm too.

There’s supposed to be rooibos in this one, but I’m not tasting it. I’m not sure I mind, though. The fact that a blend contains rooibos and I can taste ANYTHING ELSE seems a tentative step in the right direction… :)

Good stuff, especially for those of us in the middle of the country experiencing winter and beginning to tire of cold weather. It’s making me dream of tropical vacations.

I think Jamaica in the moonlight. . .

Just getting home from a wonderful day with my awesome aunt, I thought I’d give the tea she had bought me for Christmas a try. At first I wasn’t sure, because mostly I drink herbal teas. But the aroma made my mouth water. i let it steep for the least amount of time it said, and it tastes just like fruit plate, I guess would be the right way to say the taste. I took a little taste when it was done without sugar, and it tasted fine, but I found a small, very small amount of sugar makes all the flavor come out perfectly. Thank you very much Aunt Mswhatsit!!! :D

This one had me at the first whiff (Savoy’s tidy little shop has a scent jar for each tea). Just smelled fruity and springy fresh. Requires a long and patient steep, 7-10 minutes, but what you get is a fruity, juicy concoction that reminds me of apple-peach cobbler. (Yes, mangoes are not peaches, but the two are awfully similar in my sensory vocabulary.)

I foresee a jar of this, chilled, in the near future.