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Having just survived 5 hours of flight delays and a solid 1-2 more spent waiting to deplane, I have settled back in to my apartment from a July 4th trip to Chicago enough to investigate my treasures. Chicago is home to many wonders, but I found its strengths lie more in tea services and tearooms than in bulk shops. Though I regret that I did not have a chance to stop in to the Smashing Pumpkins-owned tearoom nor to visit the Russian Teatime restaurant to enjoy a samovar, I did get to swing by The Coffee and Tea Exchange and load my cargo pants pockets with samples like some sort of strangely gaited packhorse. And, in my typical fashion, I will test the waters with my least anticipated acquisition.

Ok. Well. The vision was to steep this for 3 minutes. Foolishly I responded to the call of nature right before the timer went off, and as we all know, nature loves to yap. So really we’re looking at a solid 6-7 minutes. Luckily this doesn’t seem to have been catastrophic for this tea. From the aroma I get a sweet, lemon-bar character of citrus on a muddled, mixed-berry bed. Tartly accented but not sour, this is a pretty balanced and fruity cup that sidesteps the raw aggression of an assertive lemonade. I think this tea could just as easily be billed as a “Fruit Tart” blend or a Berry Lemon Bar reflective of the warm and sugared fruit notes that impart a baked, jammy character to it that I just don’t anticipate from “Raspberry Lemonade”.