Once I saw that this tea had whole cranberries in it, I went gimme and added it to the cart. Moar cranberries!

The ingredients for this include black tea, vanilla pieces, freeze-dried cranberries, and cinnamon chips. And yup, the dry leaf delivers; the spoonful that I took a huge cranberry inside it.

The dry tea smells sweet but muted: although I can smell the fruitiness of the cranberry and the sweetness of the vanilla and cinnamon, it doesn’t have the vibrant bounce I expected. The smell was a cross between cough syrup (unfortunate, I know) and those Campino fruit-and-cream candies.

Luckily, the tea seemed more promising after brewing it up. I took 1.5 teaspoons, let it steep in just-boiled water for 3 minutes, let it sit for 10 minutes to cool, added some agave nectar, and was greeted with a tall dark cup of gorgeousness:

I smelled cranberry juice and vanilla, but underneath all of that, like a big beautiful mattress of deliciousness, was CHOCOLATE. It smelled like dark chocolate covered cranberries!

And it TASTED like dark chocolate coverered cranberries too! The base tea comes through rich and thick, like dark chocolate, and the vanilla pieces here give it an amazing depth and fullness of flavour; this tea has such a thick, full mouthfeel that I felt like a chipmunk with big, fat, pinchy cheeks crammed with tea.

Seriously. Chocolate covered cranberries. I was not expecting that.

Full review at: http://booksandtea.ca/2016/03/another-52teas-roundup/

Fjellrev

Oh, this sounds like such a tasty combination.

Christina / BooksandTea

It appears to be sold out on the 52Teas site, but “Boston” from H&S sounds like it might be similar: black tea, cranberry, and almond.

Fjellrev

I love Boston!

Christina / BooksandTea

There’s a site that sells H&S teas in Canada, but they only do Boston in 100g tins. Way too much to buy at once. If they had like, 20g samples, maybe even 50g tins, I’d consider it.

Evol Ving Ness

I am up for splitting a tin of Boston if anyone is game.

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Comments

Fjellrev

Oh, this sounds like such a tasty combination.

Christina / BooksandTea

It appears to be sold out on the 52Teas site, but “Boston” from H&S sounds like it might be similar: black tea, cranberry, and almond.

Fjellrev

I love Boston!

Christina / BooksandTea

There’s a site that sells H&S teas in Canada, but they only do Boston in 100g tins. Way too much to buy at once. If they had like, 20g samples, maybe even 50g tins, I’d consider it.

Evol Ving Ness

I am up for splitting a tin of Boston if anyone is game.

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Bio

Updated March 2016:

I’m a writer and editor who’s fallen in love with loose-leaf tea. I’ve also set up a site for tea reviews at http://www.booksandtea.ca – an excellent excuse to keep on buying and trying new blends. There will always be more to discover!

In the meantime, since joining Steepster in January 2014, I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on my likes and dislikes

Likes: Raw/Sheng pu’erh, sobacha, fruit flavours, masala chais, jasmine, mint, citrus, ginger, Ceylons, Chinese blacks, rooibos.

Dislikes (or at least generally disinclined towards): Hibiscus, rosehip, chamomile, licorice, lavender, really vegetal green teas, shu/ripe pu’erh.

Things I generally decide on a case-by-case basis: Oolong, white teas.

Still need to do my research on: matcha

I rarely score teas anymore, but if I do, here’s the system I follow:

100-85: A winner!
84-70: Pretty good. This is a nice, everyday kind of tea.
69-60: Decent, but not up to snuff.
59-50: Not great. Better treated as an experiment.
49-0: I didn’t like this, and I’m going to avoid it in the future. Blech.

Location

Toronto, ON, Canada

Website

http://www.booksandtea.ca

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