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I debated between this tea and the Sakurambo Vert for quite a while. I know the Vert is probably a better tea objectively, but I already have some cherry greens but no cherry blacks so I thought I’d take a swing at this one. Also, it looks so pretty with those cute little red balls! I’m not exactly sure what they are, but they look nice.

The weird thing about this blend is the little needles in the blend. They look like pine needles, but they can’t be, right? Well, I ate one (as I often do when there’s a mystery ingredient!), and… yup, pine needles. Or something that tastes exactly like a pine needle. I was a little worried at this point, but let it sit in the fridge for about 5 hours—I did a fast cold brew with this one, mostly because the smell was SO strong I wasn’t sure how it would fare after an overnight steep.

Well, as I feared, this tastes like pine needles. It has that tanginess I associate with them, and it’s kind of odd. It’s not overwhelmingly pine-y, but it’s still an undercurrent that ran throughout the whole cup. The cherry was there too, on the tarter side than most blends. It reminds me of the cherry tree down the street from me: my neighbor has a whole bunch of fruit trees, and as kids we’d get overly excited and start eating them before they were ripe. The cherries would be quite tart, with only a hint of sweetness. This is kind of like that, but while it brings back pleasant memories it’s not at all what I was expecting. I think I need to try this one hot, as cold it’s just a little strange.