SBT: Maple Marshmallow

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.

Backlog:

Oh yum! Seriously … yum!

I love maple and marshmallow and I love the idea of these two flavors together but I wasn’t too sure about it iced. I’m much more a fan of hot tea and when I saw this tea, I thought, wow, that’d be awesome. Then I thought, why didn’t he make this into a hot tea instead of an iced tea.

But it works as an iced tea too. Quite splendidly, really. This contends with some of the other favorites that I have from SBT: specifically the Lime Cola and the Lime Jello … I actually think I might like this one better.

I bought this to try as a hot tea, so I must confess I just cut the bag open and have been brewing it by the teaspoon. The dry leaf is cut very fine and dusty! I don’t know if that’s the usual thing with SBTs. It smells great through, the marshmallow is heavier than the maple.

I wasn’t super wild about the first steep of this. I did it for three minutes and I think this one might fare better with two or two and a half as the tea got more astringent than I’d like. The flavors were present but dominated by the taste of the black tea. It was drinkable but not wonderful.

I resteeped it for three minutes though and I must say I love this second cup! The flavors really shine through on the second steep, both the maple and marshmallow elements are clear and the maple in particular is a very good quality flavoring.

I think next time I’ll try a shorter steep the first go and definitely remember to resteep this one! Yummy.