Black Cherry

Picked up Tea Forte’s Noir collection today on a whim—mostly because Peach Brule sounded delicious. Haven’t actually heard of this company before so I just kind of had to hope for the best.

First up to try is Black Cherry. I liked this a lot better than DAVIDs’ Black Cherry, that’s for sure! The cherry flavour is subtle in this but noticeable. The base is basic and unimpressive, but not unpleasant (though the very last sip had an astringency I didn’t get through the rest of the cup). Considering all that’s packed into this tea I expected something a bit more complex, but this is pretty much as advertised—black cherry. Not a rebuy, but I can get through the second bag.

I like this blend more than most of Tea Forte’s Noir line. The fruit flavors are nice and subtle, but there’s a strange aftertaste I can’t quite place.

This tea left me feeling apathetic. The scent was off putting due to the whiff of cough syrup I got upon brewing. But I digress,the tea just tastes like black tea with a scant trace of cherry, vanilla and licorice. If I had done a blind taste test, the only way I could detect the flavors would be through the scent, not the flavor.

Part of the “Noir” gift set by Tea Forte – I think these were just repackaged things from their normal tea line. Nevertheless, if you’re going to try a bunch of new teas I think samples are the way to go. Teas are from the Jamguri tea garden in Northern India.

The dry leaf smells really bad here, medicinal and cough syrup-y. So I wasn’t really looking forward to trying the cup. I am finding this isn’t too bad, though the cherry flavor is pretty light. It’s only slightly cough syrup-y. Also this tea has licorice in it, so take note of that, licorice haters. :) I think this would be a nice one to try as an iced tea. And I do like the black tea base here. So overall it’s not bad.

I wonder if these were reformulated recently, but I am not going to create a new entry.

Has a subtle black cherry flavor…not a dominant flavor, but nicely balanced. The aroma is not overly powerful and you actually have to get quite close to the mug in order to get the scent.

This has a slight tinge of cough syrup no matter what I do. May try to mix it with others once some shipments come through.

More leaf, longer steeping time.

What I’m getting is watery liquorice and nothing else. I don’t know if I got an old tin and that’s why I’m not getting much of the base, but the liquorice gives it a coughsyrupy mouth-feel almost. I didn’t think it’d be this prominent in the blend—I figured it was there as a touch of sweetness and to better round out the ‘cherry’ taste. Don’t know if it’s just me, so I won’t rate this.

Heck, with 50 grams I’d probably consider trading it off so other people could see what they think of it.

At first whiff, this has a bit of that dreaded cherry cough syrup aroma, which fortunately isn’t present once you taste it. It’s a very strong black tea, and the vanilla and other notes help mellow that out a bit. The cherry, again, isn’t really there, more of a subdued sweet almond.

With all the Tea Forte flavored teas I’ve tried, the flavor in the actual name of the tea is consistently the weakest one, once the tea is actually brewed. Maybe they just pick the most appealing-sounding one?