FrankenTea

I certainly had fun coming up with a way to list this here on Steepster… I like the analogy of using assorted teas to create some kind of Frankenstein’s Monster of tea.

Side note: I will hunt you down and punch you in the face if you make the mistake of calling the monster itself Frankenstein: Frankenstein is the scientist! It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people mix that up.

Anyway, I’m getting tired of trying to find new ways to use up the leaf I have from my DAVIDsTEA Earl of Lemon, DAVIDsTEA Goji Pop, and my McQuarrie’s Ontario Ice Wine so I figured why not try and kill three birds with one stone and throw some of each leaf into a teaball and steep myself a random mishmash of tea. I fully expected to hate it, but figured it’d use up some of everything so I might as well TRY it and then if I had to dump it I could feel somewhat justified in doing so.

Preparation was kinda tricky: I had to balance the steeping requirements of three different teas. Fortunately, I didn’t care a whole lot so I more so went with simplicities sake. I used a somewhat heaping 1/2 tsp. for each tea – bringing me up to around 1/2 tsp. for the total amount of leaf used.

Temperature wise, I used closer to what would normally be used for the Ontario Ice Wine since it’s the most sensitive to temperature (approx. 80 degrees celsius) – and then I left this to steep in my 10 0z. mug for around 8 minutes (closer to the steep time of Goji Pop). The liquor turned about the same colour as gingerale.

Well, colour me shocked… Because this isn’t so much a “monster” of a tea but a miracle of one. Somehow this has worked out to be DELICIOUS! It’s like the best aspects of each blend somehow are the only present flavours. There’s a gentle sweetness and tartness from the Goji Pop that marries nearly perfectly with the bergamot and light lemon flavours from Earl of Lemon, and then as the tartness fades there are these really gentle berry notes from the Ontario Ice Wine. And somehow the white bases from Earl of Lemon and Ontario Ice Wine work quite nicely together. The aftertaste is a lightly “red berry” kind of fruitiness with very gentle lingering bergamot.

Damn I am a happy camper! I suddenly feel like MAYBE it wont be so hard to drink down the rest of these blends. If someone sold a tea just like this one I’d certainly buy it. It’s gentle but still flavourful and none of the things I greatly hated about each blend come through. There’s also no astringency or bitterness despite this being a long steep time for the white teas – and it feels quite refreshing.

For this FrankTea blend, my rating would be around an 85-88.