So I’ve been a bit worried about trying this. I was so excited to try this I could hardly stand it, but after hearing about all about the “chemical taste” “cheap wine taste” “off-taste” etc comments from Steepsterites the past couple weeks, I almost dreaded my order arriving, and finding out if I was one of the unlucky ones too.
The smell is promising so far. It’s overwhelmingly of blueberry, and doesn’t seem to be anything weird. I like my teas fairly strong, so if I’m given a steeping window, I always try it on the strongest first. The website suggested 4-5 minutes, so I went with 5. The liquor is … VERY dark. Haha. Like BLACK. This black tea earned its name, hehe.
Sipping it now, I get a strong blueberry flavor, and a thick sweetness, which I imagine is emulating the ‘cream cheese danish’ part. I’m wishing I tried this before I ate that lasagna though, because I’m not sure if that tang yet is authentically like cream cheese, or if it’s that chemical taste I’ve been hearing about since the tomato sauce is throwing me off.
I’m thinking this one would do better with a four minute steep instead of a five. It has that funny taste that you get when you steep a strong black for too long, almost like you’ve just cooked it a bit.
I tried a second infusion, and either this one does NOT re-steep well at all, or it’s because I killed it with a five minute infusion the first time around.
All in all, it’s promising. Now when I smell the dry leaf after having a cup, I smell the the cream cheesy sweetness in addition to the blueberries. Grabbed some fresh leaf and going try out a four minute infusion this time around, still with boiling water.
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Now that my mouth is rinsed of the lasagne, I’m trying the second cup of this, this time at four minutes judging by what I could discern from the first. Now I can definitely tell that losing that minute has caused less of the actual flavor to come through, but the black tea itself has improved now that it hasn’t been oversteeped. Perhaps five minutes and under boiling will be the magic touch? I want to avoid the using extra leaf route if possible, because extra leaf means less cups, which means this face: :(
Anyway, musings about the perfect parameters aside, this is some serious yum in a cup. The blueberries taste JUICY, and there’s that thick, tangy sweet cream cheese flavor which practically makes my eyes roll back into my head.
I’m going to say something extremely selfish, so you may want to avert your eyes from the following sentence: Why did I not order all seven pouches that were available at the time of ordering!?
This is good. Really good. I’m putting myself on that waiting list on the website. :)
