178/365
I made this one up as an iced latte last night, following Bluebird’s recommended recipe. It worked in flavour terms, more or less, but adding coconut milk to something warm-ish that also contains hibiscus wasn’t the best idea. It curdled – not so that it was undrinkable, but enough to give it an odd, distracting texture.
The main flavour was coconut, and while some of that obviously comes from the coconut milk, a significant amount also came from the tea (I know, because I tried a bit before I added the milk.) The oolong comes out second, and while that sounds odd, it actually worked better than I expected because it added something that really did remind me of rice. It’s a nicely creamy oolong, like the one found in Bluebird’s Coconut Milk blend, with just the tiniest hint of vegetal greenness around the edges. The strawberry is the least prominent of the flavours, which made me a little sad. It’s not quite jammy, but heading in that direction. It probably needed to be a little sweeter to really create that effect successfully, and as it stands it’s tempered a little too much by the tart sourness of the hibiscus.
This one’s a bit of an odd duck, in some ways. It’s like it’s pretending to be a fruit blend, but it has a base of oolong and white tea. It has all the ingredients you’d expect of a fruit blend, though, including those staple contenders apple, hibiscus and rosehip. The oolong works, but the white tea is totally lost.
I liked the flavour of my latte; creamy coconut with an edge of strawberry is a nice thing, and it does remind me of rice pudding & jam. I think next time I’ll probably cold brew, but I’m happy enough with how this turned out.
