Korpokkur

My favorite flavored black tea on earth, hands down. It’s a bright, buoyant black tea base (maybe a bit of darjeeling in there? I’m not sure), blended with real lavender flowers and the leaves of an indigenous Japanese berry plant, the haskap (also called honeyberry or blue honeysuckle). There’s some haskap-berry flavoring in there, too.

The haskap leaves give the tea just a touch of tartness, reminiscent of raspberry-leaf tisane, which combines with the lavender to help offset the berry sweetness. It smells very fruity and sweet when dry in the bag, but brews to a more subtle, fruit-and-herbal flavor. A dollop of cream and sugar really brings the haskap berry flavor to the fore, if you prefer that.

Unfortunately, it’s an exclusive “tourist” blend only sold in a few Lupicia shops in Hokkaido, Japan, my old stomping grounds in my JET days. (This is why it’s named after the Korpokkur, a sort of gnome or fairy creature from the local Ainu mythology.) I do appreciate that exclusivity is a big marketing trend in Japanese culture, but it’s a little frustrating when you’re back in the States with no access. I ended up buying about five bags on our last trip over to visit friends, and seriously amusing the cashier.

I am pretty much addicted to this stuff now.
I have to admit that I didn’t like this tea at first. It was heavily perfumed and smelled very, very, sweet – I was taken aback. Add to this the fact that the label was in Japanese and I had no idea what I was supposed to be smelling or drinking. However, having shoved it to the back of my cupboard for a few months, I decided to pull it out and try again. There is much to be appreciated in this tea, though I have to guess at the make up of the blend. The aroma is complex, at first floral but underpinned by fruit. A very tropical scent. The tropical fruits come across more strongly in the taste of the tea itself, which balances the sweetness with the soft tannins of the base tea.