First cold brew of the year! Usually, I prepare my SBTs using a hot concentrate, in that I leave the bag in 1/4 litre of boiling water for about 3 minutes, and then top up to 2 litres with cold. I’ve had mixed results with this method, though, so I decided to try this one cold brewed. I left the bag in two litres of water for around 10 hours overnight, and I’m pretty pleased with the result. My only complaint is that the black tea base is a little too prominent, and it’s bordering on bitter, but that sometimes happens with the hot prep method too. Otherwise, this is good – marshmallow is the strongest flavour, but it’s swiftly followed by maple and somehow (somehow) that seems to help round things out. I thought, initially, it was going to be too sweet, but the maple cuts through that and brings it back to a level I’m confortable with. It’s not that the maple isn’t sweet, either, because it is…it’s just a different kind of sweetness. Maybe because it’s got more of a defined flavour than marshmallow has? Maybe because it’s richer? I’m aware that this doesn’t make much sense, but it’s hard to explain. Despite maple and marshmallow being two very sweet things to my mind, they actually seem to work well together and one balances the other out.
Is this my favourite SBT? No. I’d like a base that’s just a bit less obvious, and a touch less sweetness. Maple on its own would have been just fine with me. This is where you need to be if you’ve got a sweet tooth, though. Or maybe that should be needed, since I think Southern Boy Teas are now no more.
