Concord Grape Jelly

Homemade Advent Calendar from AJRimmer: Day 7

Drank this one last night and subsequently stayed up waaay too late. Oops! It wasn’t as grape-y as I’d hoped, more a tart berry on top of a somewhat grassy and slightly bitter base. Maybe I can coax a little more grape out of the remaining leaves!

Sipdown! (20 | 175)

I didn’t love this one. To me, it’s not grapey at all, which isn’t a surprise given there is no grape flavor (there are a few raisins, but raisins don’t taste like grape).

The initial color was interesting and bluish when I first poured in the water, either from the blueberries or the mallow, but it was quickly overtaken by the more pinkish hue of the hibiscus. As for the taste… I actually enjoy Deb’s strawberry flavoring in certain teas, but I feel like the addition of the hibiscus here makes it taste like a generic tart-ish fruity tea, and the more syrupy/jammy strawberry doesn’t really go well with it? It ends up a bit weak and a bit vague IMO.

Luckily I have other grape teas to fulfill my grapey cravings! :P

This was a sample and now a tea that I definitely need to restock on when I’m not on a buying ban. It is a bit more berry-forward than grape but its super yummy.

Another one of the new teas that I enjoyed more than I expected. I sometimes like real concord grape things (like the jelly I made last year), but I tend to find artificial grape (freezies, popsicles, juice boxes) to be too sweet and cloying. This tea is surprisingly balanced, and tastes much more like real concord grape juice, with complexity and depth, and clearly isn’t just loaded up with artificial grape flavour. It also smelled really delicious – I think I could be content to just sit and sniff it for a while. Haha. (Sidenote, my son likes to steal my empty tea pouches (fruity/herbal teas) and sniff them. He calls them his “sniff bags”. I feel like this is a habit I may want to break before he tells too many people about it, ahaha.)

If you’re on the fence about this one – give it a shot. I’m hoping my second cup is as good as the first!

Cold Brew!

This is definitely refreshing and the inclusion of so many mallow blossoms (which steep slightly purple) did an absolutely spectacular job of channeling the nostalgia of the purple Smucker’s grape jelly that I used to enjoy on a good PB&J growing up! The taste leaves a bit to be desired; it still tastes great and even has a strong jammy quality to the fruit notes. However, in my opinion, this is all blueberry and no grape. Now, I do LOVE a good blueberry tea and Deb’s blueberry flavouring in particular pushes all the right buttons for me – but there’s certainly a difference between wanting that throwback grape flavour and getting something else instead…

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CpszrzQuRV9/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drDFT1vcSm0