Winter Solstice

Additional notes: Sip down! Yes, I overleafed (I don’t even know how many teaspoons). But I have to sip down some of these things. I’m still amazed with the ingredients in this lovely. I just could have done without the hibiscus. I even tried to pull most of it out before going in the infuser. Sadly, the flavor is still mostly hibiscus. I miss the creamsicle flavor I noticed last time, and the dry leaf fragrance. It has so much here… why does it still need the hibiscus? It would be such a nice herbal without it.

Also! I looked up the actual winter solstice and it is December 21st! (I guess I do not normally need to know when it is, but it means longer days and I am wishing for a vacation that will never happen… at least the sun will stay up longer… not necessarily ever out from behind the clouds though.)

This is delicious, but you have to like tart flavors. The main flavors are essentially sweet and tart cranberry, pomegranate, and hibiscus flavors with subtle warming spices in the background. It’s very juicy and mouth watering, I’m a big fan of this stuff.

This is the first tea that I’ve tried and just thought NO at the first sip. It might be good hot,I’ll have to try, but cold brewed seemed to bring out the wrong flavors.

The dry smell seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite think of it. After it was done cold brewing, it still had that smell. It didn’t hit me until I tasted it. LICORICE. I don’t remember seeing anything licorice in the ingredients, but perhaps something else has a similar flavor. The flavor is a sorta licorice medicine taste. I gave it to my mom, but she didn’t like it much either. I won’t rate, because it just seems to be a flavor I don’t personally like.

There is a lot going on in this blend and it took a few cups for me to decide how I felt about it because the dominant flavors shift from cup-to-cup. On my first cup I was overwhelmed by how tart it was, yet the next cup I fixed was somewhat spicy, and the cup after that was overly sweet. My tea never tasted the same way twice, which depending on how you look at it, could be either good or bad. If you want variety, then this is a great blend for that, because you’ll never scoop up the same mixture of fruit twice. To get around this I made three cups of tea, then mixed them together in a large pitcher so I had a good blend of tart, spicy, and sweet. The resulting cup of tea was juicy with a hint of spice. It’s not the first thing that necessarily comes to mind when I think of the winter solstice (the longest night of the year,) but it was a pleasant enough cup of tea.

You can read the full review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2014/12/2/tuesday-tea-winter-solstice-fusion-teas.html