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Hallieod drank Cuba Libre Black Tea by 52teas

73 tasting notes

Drank this the other day, and was very pleasantly surprised, after my expectations about 52teas had been lowered by Weeping Angel. Thanks for the tea, sil! I was both amused and intrigued by how very cola-ish the cola flavour is – it certainly predominates, but it’s not only that, it’s that it’s so true-cola that I almost felt a faint bit of the fizz of a fresh cola, even while drinking it hot. Didn’t get too much rum, and only the merest hint of lime, but it was still very tasty. Cara agreed, and we thought it’d be excellent iced, as others have said. On a whim, I tried resteeping a smallish cup, sweetening it a bit with brown sugar and sticking it in the fridge. I was surprised at how much flavour remained in the resteeped cup, and it was definitely good iced.

Kind of makes me wonder if it’s worth playing with the Weeping Angel… hmmm, that sounds very odd indeed! I didn’t make a note on that when first tried it, so might try different temps and times, to see if I can’t get it a bit better.

Preparation

Boiling 2 min, 30 sec

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I’ve been drinking tea pretty much all my life, allowing for the fact that there probably was no tea in my baby-bottles. I gave it up twice, once when a then-boyfriend sneered at me for being addicted (okay, I was, but I was also stubborn enough to bear a week of the blinding headaches and overwhelming exhaustion that followed cold-turkey withdrawal), and once on my first pregnancy. Neither experience gave me any reason to believe a life without tea is a good life.

Having spent most of my younger days in Ireland, where tea is everywhere, and mostly it’s decent, I whined my way across the States in the 80s and first half of the 90s. Now back in Dublin, and the tea situation is a bit mixed, but there’s the internet to provide what nearby shops don’t!

I started drinking green and white teas as well as my staple black a good few years ago now, but have recently decided I need to LEARN something more about tea than the little I know.

My likes:
- strong black tea blends; some flavoured blacks, such as Earl Grey and a small (but growing) number of other fruit and flower-flavoured ones; and chai. (For some daft reason, I feel like a tea fraud drinking sweet chai at home, though I’ll happily drink it out.)

- Chinese greens (may update this when I’ve learned enough to be more specific); some flavoured greens, especially if they’re made by the fabulous Yumchaa; Genmaicha; getting to like Sencha, as long as it’s not too bitter.

- White tea, pretty much as long as it’s good quality, I like it. Some flavoured ones are nice, though it’s easy to overpower the more delicate taste of white.

- Rooibos, which I know, I know, isn’t properly ‘tea’. (As above for Yumchaa flavoured rooibos – some of my favourites.)

Dislikes:
- Any black tea made by someone who doesn’t know you need BOILING WATER. (See above about the Whining Years.)

- Hibiscus in fruit-flavoured teas. Looks so pretty! Tastes so awful!

I’m working on trying to like Hojicha, which isn’t going too well yet. Jane Pettigrew describes it as “biscuity”, but unless she’s eaten a lot of cigarette-flavoured biscuits in her time, I don’t get it.

- Aniseed in spiced teas. (Just discovered this one for the dislike list today, in an otherwise-tasty chai. Don’t like the tongue-numbing effect.)

Indecisive, despite being opinionated – okay, very opinionated – so may just add notes rather than rating.