Fruites del bosc

Happy Valentines Day to all!

Another tea from the first round of the EU travelling tea box. I’m at my parents house now for 4 or 5 days and I grabbed a load of random samples to bring with me, but also made sure I have some nice unflavoured tea too should the mood arise.

I’m off out in a bit for a lovely Valentines dinner at my favourite local vegetarian restaurant. Plus out of the blue this morning I received a cheque for £200 from the tax company because I overpaid in 2009, since I packed my business in this year it’s a very welcomed surprise. And on valentines day too.

Anyway back to the tea, serving this one with a cheese scone.

Once steeped the tea is a lovely red colour and has a sweet, perfumed berry aroma.

This tastes sweet and sugary, like candied fruit pieces, but it’s also somewhat perfumed. The fruit tastes like a mixture of berries and apple and though it is sweet it also has some sour notes.

It’s a nice tea but nothing out of the ordinary, I don’t think I will remember this one above any other generic fruit blend. But it’s always nice to try new teas.

I’m cheating just a bit – I had this before, but as an after-dinner tea to accompany raspberry sorbet. It turned the whole thing into the most berryful of orgies, so I didn’t bother with a tasting note.

I still find flavoured black teas slightly overwhelming at times. There’s just so much of everything. Then again, black teas get away with things a green tea never could. This makes them so much harder for me to analyze using scent alone.

In the case of Fruites del bosc, the forest fruits in question are very present in the nose; the berry aroma is deep and rich and tart, which is nice enough, but there’s just so much of it.

In a green tea, or an infusion of some kind, this kind of berry would probably end up tasting like a mouth/noseful of chemicals when steeped. The black tea, on the other hand, rounds off the flavouring nicely. The base tea is very present scent wise in the cup, but the taste is more subdued. The individual berry notes are mostly lost, and the end result is a somewhat generic, impersonal berry. I would have enjoyed some more character, and maybe a little less tartness.

And, I guess, an element of surprise. This tea is exactly what it says it is, and though it may seem unfair to detract points for honesty, I do love a good trickster.

[Gifted by my friend T, who got it for me in Barcelona in August 2013.]

Queued post, written March 26th 2014

I found myself really wanting something black and raspberry flavoured, so I went rummaging through the ENORMOUS AMOUNTS of teas I haven’t tried yet. It’s got way out of hand. I’ve decided I’m not allowed to get new stuff until I’ve produced posts about a significant amount of them. Preferably all.

I didn’t have anything that was definitely raspberry black. I’ve got some raspberry herbals, but that’s not what I’m after. I want black. There are a great many number of blends with names that tell me nothing about what’s in them, and it’s very possible that some of those are raspberry-y, but I didn’t want to go and look up a hundred samples only to find none of them had raspberry. I remembered this one, however, that Anna shared with me, and I could remember that the name means forest fruits from when I had received it and looked it up. I decided that it was the closest thing I got to a raspberry black and went with it.

I have to say it smells more blackberry-y than raspberry-y, but that’s okay. I think it’ll satisfy this sudden raspberry lust just as well. I don’t often get these very specific ideas of what I want very often. Usually it’s just in the realm of ‘I fancy something flavoured, what have we got…?’

Oh yes, this shall do nicely. Again, it’s more blackberry-y and black currant-y than raspberry-y, but it’s close enough. It’s quite sweet and not too forcefully flavoured. Still tastes like tea, tea being the dominant flavour. That is the balance I prefer in flavoured teas. Flavoured, but not too much so. I’m enjoying this very much.

(Not surprisingly, and confirming the hypothesis we’ve made of being taste opposites rather than taste twins when it comes to black teas, Anna didn’t much care for this one. I’ve started to take a mediocre rating from Anna as a sign that I might be interested.)

This is a sample Anna so kindly sent me. I wonder if it´s another of those german blends which cross Europe and show up a bit everywhere in every small tea shop, or if it´s something specifically spanish.

This is kind of a generic black tea with red fruits (and little bits of herbs? strawberry leaves?), and while I am interested in trying it (trying everything), it´s pretty much a dud with me. I prepared it more or less like normal, and while it brewed I was doing a couple other things, I poured it and absentmindedly sipped. For a few seconds I could not remember which tea this was and was thinking it was some tisane, but no. It´s got a really really weak body, and a kind of tartness astringency I do not like, plus the berry flavour is a chewing-gum berry flavour (I´m trying to call it artifical, I guess). It does not have much fillers, so i do not understand how it came out so well, wimpish.

Thank you very much for the intention anyway Anna – this is interesting, seriously, and helps me to appreciate more other teas (like for example Dammann´s, yes Dammann´s !, 4 Fruits Rouges tea which is a so much better at all levels version of this. Dammann, all is forgiven!)7

Edit – and it cooled down, and it´s even worse, bumping down the rating (Anna, sorry! I think it is not your puppy I am kicking, but still feeling guilty)