Té de Frutas

SIPDOWN! So i won’t make it to 205 but at least i can get under 210 this weekend. Not that it will mean much because there is tea on the way! hahaha. This is one of my older teas, so i’m glad to be finishing it all up. I’d pick this up again if i’m ever around a Lupicia store again :)

Sipdown #7, ending the day at 311 teas, I think. They may not be entirely accurate, actually, because there were a few teas I restocked from Butiki, but I’ll settle out the numbers at the end of the month.

This was a generous sample from Sil, a nice fruity blend, also a decaf, which allowed me to drink one more cup of black tea into the evening. Thanks Sil!

I can’t honestly say that I recall the last time I had a decaffeinated tea, and I generally don’t bother, but when Sil opened up the bag of this for me to sniff, the amazingly delicious smell of fresh lychee was impossible to pass up! So here we are.

Brewed up, the tea retains this incredibly fruity aroma, which is packed with lychee goodness. I’ve had a lychee before, DavidsTea’s Lychee Black, but I don’t recall it having such a real fruit aroma. I’ll have to re-check my tasting notes, but I don’t think I particularly liked it. Anyhow, this tea. Can’t get over how delicious it smells. Flavourwise, however, it does leave a little something to be desired, and that’s primarily in the base. I suspect it has to do with the decaffeination, but the base just isn’t as good as it could be. Or perhaps, more to the point, I think I’d prefer this with a white or green base that’s more vegetal.

Either way, the flavour is bang on fruity lychee, so if you are fond of such things, I suggest you give it a shot! Thanks for giving me a sample of this one Sil!

This tea packs a wallop when you open the package….your nose will be very happy and hopeful. There is lychee in this tea as well as other fruity notes. But alas, when you step this, you’ll wish you used more tea. When you taste this tea, you get a blast of fruit, but not a lot of tea. On a final note, it’s now 4 hours later, and I’m still burping that fruity smell…. Bleah.

lol ok

After I angrily tossed my last cup down the drain, I had to redeem the night by trying another new (to me) tea. I chose Té de Frutas! I’ve never had a decaffeinated tea before. I don’t know why truthfully since even the slightest bit of caffeine heightens my anxiety and elevates my heart rate in a not-so-cute manner(, but will that ever stop me from drinking vanilla lattes etc, nah), so when I received this in my 福袋, I admit I was sort of wary.

lol yeah. My fears were proven wrong, and I am now wondering when I will meet a Lupicia tea I’ll actually dislike? It’s a black tea with nice fruity undertones. I’ve never had a lychee berry before, so I am not sure what taste I am looking for, but the peaches and strawberries come out well. This should probably be my new nighttime tea, ah.

Lupicia is so good at creating delicious smelling teas. I just can’t resist trying them out. This one smells like a lychee fruit party to end all parties. Unfortunately, when I made it hot, it had that flavor that I can only define as “decaf”…

Good news is, it’s great cold-brewed! The lychee and strawberry flavors really come through for a tasty tea. Rating is for cold-brewed, only.

Does anyone else know what I mean by “decaf” taste? It’s sort of a weird texture/perfume taste. Am I imagining things?

This is one of the few decafs I have in my collection, and I must say that on second tasting I’m somewhat less impressed with it. It might just be the decaf base. Aside from the delicious fruitiness of the peaches, lychee, and strawberry, it tastes a little bland. Maybe I just need more leaves per cupful?

Anyway, it’s not something I’d drink without at least a little sweetening to help it along; the tea flavor by itself just isn’t good enough to carry the thing. I’m assuming it’s just something to be expected for decaf teas.

BUT I’ve had it loads of time as an iced tea. It’s great iced, and is a comforting cupful for those late nights when you need to have something hot but not caffeinated. Just not something I’m overly excited about.

A sad sipdown on one of my favourite blends. This fruity/floral has delicious lychee and rose notes with stone fruits and a smooth decaf black tea base. I’m going to miss this one.

The long and the short of it is: Lupicia also gives good decaf flavored black tea.

Really good, that is. It’s not often that I drink a decaf tea that I can’t tell is decaf. I can’t tell with this one. There’s none of that papery weirdness that makes me visualize coffee filters.

The fruit smell in the tin is quite intense and heavy on the lychee. Followed by strawberry. The peach doesn’t make much of a show.

The tea is a sort of standard black “tea” color, with some redness to the brown/orange, and clear.

The aroma is sweet and fruity, less heavy on the lychee, more heavy on the strawberry, with a hint of peach. The flavor manages to mix them all pretty much equally.

I oversteeped this by A LOT, because I had a brain fart and steeped it as a tisane, i.e., for 7 minutes, and then I was in the middle of a conversation and forgot to take the finum filter out of the cup. Even so, it wasn’t bitter.

I’m looking forward to tasting it after a normal steeping time. It’s pretty exceptional as decafs go, to my taste.

This is a relatively nice tea. I am not really sure what fruits I taste. It comes off tasting just a bit artificial even though I don’t think there are any artificial flavors in there. It is good.

I brewed this one time in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 3 minutes.