Cue Rabs: You can’t a have-a the Mango. slap (There, I did it for you this time. ;-))
This is my first taste of a more recent TeaFrog sample purchase (which accompanied a full order of the Chocolate and Cream and the Assam Banaspaty… yum!)
I was expecting to smell mango when I opened the sample packet but I smelled something that was more like chocolate, or maybe vanilla. You know how those notes can actually be reminiscent of each other depending on concentration. At first I thought I’d picked up the wrong packet by mistake, then it dawned on me that was the yogurt I was smelling. Duh.
Now that I think about it I’m not even really sure what moved me to get this one as I am not a yogurt fan in the least. It has that sour milk, baby puke thing going on for me. Curiosity, I guess.
Having just come off of another fruit tisane experience where I didn’t use enough fruit the first time, I’m using the whole sample packet in my steep. It’s a chunky fruit mix in a palette of browns, burgundies, tans. My second of the evening.
I think I probably was right to use the full packet because the liquor is that deep red color you get from hibiscus in blends, but only if you use enough of the mix. It smells fruity and creamy. I can smell the hibiscus, too.
And it tastes pretty much as it smells, with one small modification. There is more fruit and less cream in the flavor than in the aroma. I’m not tasting mango so much as a generic fruit flavor that seems to have a lot of apple and a lot of strawberry to it. There’s a slight tartness, which I am guessing is from the rose hips.
I don’t know for sure, but I think increasing the yogurt/cream aspect so that it is more of the balance could really make a positive difference in how I perceive this tisane. I wanted it to taste more like it smelled. I can taste the yogurt (as cream and sweet, not sour milk) particularly in the aftertaste and it’s a good combination of flavors, but the fruit and herbs overpower it to some extent and relegate it to showing up primarily in the aftertaste. The idea of a creamy, fruit tisane is very appealing to me, but this one doesn’t lean far enough toward the cream for me. I wonder whether if the mango taste had been more prevalent the cream would have tasted as though it was more present as well. It seems to me it might have, as I got the sense the yogurt was spending most of its creaminess taming the tarter aspects of the flavor.
I have yet to get past your first paragraph because it made me squee :D Thank you!
…and the rest of the note’s great too — especially the baby vomit part. Mmmm…baby vomit…