017/365
I’m considering buying some more August Uncommon blends, now that I’m apparently back on a tea-buying bender. I feel like I’ve bought all the tea in the last two weeks. I’ve certainly made up for lost time!
The description for this one mentions tangerine, and I don’t get that at all. What I can taste is strawberry; sweet and juicy, and really flavour accurate. It tastes to me like a strawberry that’s maybe just a touch over-ripe, when they go soft and pinkish in patches, and become even sweeter and more strawberry-like than they were to begin with. The end of the sip brings a light lemon flavour, with just a hint of orange peel. It’s a semi-pithy flavour, rather than juicy, but it’s a good contrast with the super-sweet strawberry. There’s a slight earthiness in the aftertaste that I’m guessing might be the silver linden.
I was intrigued by the inclusion of thyme, but it’s actually totally lost as far as I can taste. That’s a shame, because I was hoping it would cross a kind of sweet/savoury divide. As it stands, this one mostly strikes me as a sweet dessert tea, and I would have liked more “forest”. It’s definitely a case of a description making promises the actual tea can’t deliver, although somehow it’s close. That’s maybe the most infuriating thing of all.
I noticed from reading other notes that people found the sencha to be fairly prominent, and I don’t get that at all. I feel like I have a low tolerance for green tea when it’s obviously getting in that way of the flavouring, or clouding my appreciation of what the blend is supposed to be delivering. I don’t find that to be the case here – it’s just a smooth, sweet backdrop for the equally smooth, sweet flavours – a green meadow on a sunny day, to keep with August’s imagery. I was a lot more conservative with my brew time than they recommend, though. If I’d left it for 5 minutes, as the pouch instructs, I feel it might be a different story. I don’t typically give my greens more than 3 minutes, particularly on first steep.
I like the flavour of this one, but I feel like it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I guess based on the few I’ve tried, I’ve become used to August Uncommon blends delivering something fairly unique, and this one really just isn’t. It’s a pleasant, easy drink though, and so I can’t really complain.
