Cardamom and lemon is one of my favourite combinations to put in pancakes. A teaspoon of cardamom and a squeeze of lemon juice. Last time I actually had real lemons, so I used the zest and juice of half a lemon. It was gooooood.
So therefore, I have fairly high expectations of this blend. I’m not certain about the green base but on the other hand, I’m always sceptical of anything that isn’t on a black base really. And I also don’t really think that this would work out very well on a black base, if I’m honest. So I’m going to trust that Frank knows what he’s doing here.
I must admit that as usual I forgot to smell the dry leaves. I might as well stop saying it as it should be fairly obvious that I’m having a rather hard time making a habit of doing this first. After steeping, however, the tea seems to be primarily lemon-y with something spicy underneath somewhere. This feels like a good balance to me, having the lemon out in front. Husband sometimes cooks with cardamom pods which are great in the dish where he uses them, but like pepper corns rather strong if accidentally chewed. I can’t immediately pick up anything of the base, but even so I feel a lot more confident about the choice of type. This definitely wouldn’t have worked as well on a black base.
So the aroma being spot on, how about the flavour? Here I’m getting a load of cardamom with the lemon a little more to the background. It’s still a good balance, though. It doesn’t seem too strong and spicy at all and it rather reminds me of pancakes. That pancake black blend that 52teas does; I tried that from the Christmas box last year and wasn’t impressed. THIS one, this is a pancake tea for me, because see first paragraph.
Once it starts cooling and developing a bit, the lemon comes out in spades and it takes on the same characteristics as was found in the aroma. Good. While both the aroma and the inital sip felt very well balanced to me, I do prefer this lemon first one.
Finally something out of the Christmas box that really struck my Happy Button.
I liked this too!