Sakurambo

(still wow.)

Lupicia is probably one of my favorite tea bag companies because they do not sacrifice the quality of the leaf because of the packaging. I wanted something strong but fruity. The first thing that I noticed was the red cherries. I enjoyed the smell but I must agree with the other posts that the competing flavors was a bit too much for me. The first few sips were enjoyable but after that I think that my tastebuds were a bit confused.

The tea overall was okay but I feel like it could have been a more simple blend.

I’m having trouble with this tea. The rosemary and “cherries” (pink peppercorns, not a cherry fruit at all) give it a strong medicinal scent and flavor. Plain, it is tough for me to sip. I’ll try it with milk, then milk and sugar, and see if it fares any better. My husband likes it, so there’s that; to my palate, it feels very unbalanced. Unfortunately, I don’t know yet what it’s missing.

This is an interesting flavored tea. It’s not really fruity, but it is fruit flavored. (I hope that makes some kind of sense!) I’m interested in trying this one iced. I think that the green version would be worth a try as well. The tea has a kind of sour tang. I didn’t taste any bitterness, but I thought this one definitely needed a little bit of sweetener.

This is a wonderful tea all around. I am about to brew a nice big pot to go with my breakfast. Anything I do not finish will be tucked into the fridge to enjoy as iced tea later.
The color is wonderful, the smell is wonderful, even the raw tea is just glorious to look at. This is a favorite of mine and always, always gets a very approving response out of my guests.

I think the thing with getting the most out of this Sakurambo is not steeping it for too long… I did about 3 minutes, and it tastes like how the new Kozyndan piece looks.

1 tbsp for 300 ml

Confession: I know that the little red things are pink peppercorns (which I do like) but I really, really want to picture them as tiny cherries. I just can’t unsee it.

This is one of the best-smelling teas I’ve ever had, both dry and brewed. It’s tart, delicious cherries down to the pits. Not the juicy sweet kind, but the little sour kind. Which I am more than okay with. Unfortunately, I am not super into the inclusion of rosemary. While the taste is also rather cherry, I just feel like the rosemary is dulling it down and drawing it away from that vibrant tart cherry I smell before I sip. It’s more than drinkable and it gets less grassy as it cools, but I just can’t help feeling wistful about what this tea would be like without rosemary.

It was okay, but only after I added a good amount of milk. The flavor is very strong and bitter otherwise.

I was afraid to try this tea. I’ve smelled a green Sakura of a lesser quality and thought it smelled really bizarre and intense. So after a failed cuppa this morning ( I only usually allow myself one cup of caffeine a day, as doctors have said NONE) I decided to tempt fate and go with something I probably wouldn’t like and wouldn’t drink the whole cup.

Foiled again.

This is a tea that you probably want to steep exactly as directed on the package. I was lucky to get the tea bags in my 2014 Happy Bag, so I didn’t have to worry about the perfect scoop. When reading the instructions, the ingredients were listed: Black tea (vietnam, china, india) pink pepper, rosemary, flavorings. Now I add milk and honey to all tea….it’s the only way I can move my hypersensitivity to bitter (aka tannins) away from my tongue. I was sure that adding milk and honey to something with pepper and rosemary would be a complete fail. wrong. surprisingly wrong! I am really quite surprised by the PLEASANTNESS of this tea!! The cherry is tart, not like a life saver/cough syrup/gummy bear. It it not sour. The rosemary and pepper lay behind the cherry to give it depth and complexity. The black tea blend is perfect to float the above flavors on. This is the first tea that I’ve actually felt had a complexity to it similar to wine. The mug is almost gone and I still can’t believe I like it. It probably won’t be an every day tea for me, but I’ll have to keep it around as I can already tell I’m going to have cravings for it on the odd day when the world just isn’t complex enough for me already.