Another of the impulse buys in my last Lupicia order. I have one more caffeinated black after this, and then I’ll be back to having all the black teas in the cupboard tasted and with initial notes.
This is another tea that hasn’t gotten huge ratings here, but that I think is awesome. It might have something to do with the fact that I really love apples. It’s not just the flavor, it’s the way they’ve been part of my life since I was a little kid. Almost every day at school, the lunch my mother packed for me contained an apple. Apples represent mother’s love in my personal symbolism.
This has a strong apple aroma in the packet, which is somewhere between fresh apples and green apple hard candy. After steeping, the aroma loses its candy-like aspect and takes on a more baked one. Sometimes the aroma tends more toward fresh apple, sometimes more toward baked, but both are quite nice. The tea’s aroma comes through as well, adding a bit of heft to the smell and some malty qualities. The tea is clear, though it has some sediment at the bottom of the cup, and it is chestnut colored.
The flavor is more subtle than the aroma, but it’s still definitely apple. I rather like the subtlety. It gives the tea breathing room that allows the base to come through in a nicely balanced way.
What I also love about this is that it isn’t just a vehicle for apple pie flavors (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, etc.) as so many “apple” black teas are. This one is pure apple and tea, which is a nice foil to the pure apple fruit tisanes that I love — for when I want the apple to be the flavor of the tea, not the tea itself.
Really glad I decided to buy this one even though it wasn’t a favorite here.
Flavors: Apple, Apple Candy, Malt
I’ll have to jot this one down to try sometime, I love plain apple teas too!
It’s hard to find them!
My current favorite apple-y tea is Momijigari, also by Lupicia. Unfortunately it’s a seasonal tea… :(