Blackcurrant Breeze

Those free Twinings samples they were giving to everyone from way back last year have finally arrived. I’d almost forgotten about them!

This one has a sweet blackcurrant scent, and brews up to a dark tea that is surprisingly smooth as well as brisk. I wasn’t expecting much from the filter bag, but it’s decent. It would make a nice iced tea given the berry-like blackcurrant flavor. The sweetness seems slightly artificial, but other than that it was a pretty good, unassuming fruity black tea.

My tea. I first had it 27 years ago. Damn I’m old.

But it takes me back to where I grew up sitting on my mums red velvet couch watching Star Trek while my parents played dungeons and dragons with their friends.

It isn’t a loose tea, it is a bag, it is Twinnings and it is comfort. It also helps me beat the Alliance when I play World of Warcraft and yes I called my character Cassis after this tea.

مي خوري،مي گيره

Better iced, I think. Or at least, that’s how I like it. Its not a great flavored tea, but compared the most of the stuff at the supermarket it doesn’t taste too fake, and that’s already pretty remarkable. I think, this is one of the better Twinings teas on the market.

I love, love, love this tea! This is my go-to tea first thing in the morning at work, so I drink it four times a week with two packets of raw sugar. Hot or room-temp, I will drink every last drop of this tea. I can’t really say I’ve ever had black currants (at least not in a way where I could distinguish and describe their specific flavor), but this tea definitely doesn’t taste like your average berry-flavored tea. The fruitiness is subtle and this tea has that lovely Twinings black tea base.

Like the sweet aroma

This is not a high-quality tea, but it is the only kind of black tea that I like to drink without milk. It needs to be sweetened, in my opinion (and I always sweeten tea) and it takes only a little milk at most. If you oversteep you get more bitterness and less fruit.

looks askance at photo Is this the only Twinings blackcurrant black tea? I’ve only had this at Eric’s – twice – three times – and his box doesn’t look like this. Perhaps it dates from 2008.

Anyhow! This does what it says on the package. It’s like a nice Assam (not too robust) with a shot of Ribena, only not as sweet as I imagine that to be. No acidity as there can be with fruit-flavoured teas (but when is blackcurrant ever acidic?). I don’t know how other people do it but with flavoured black teas I usually steep for a minute max the first go-round, or the flavouring doesn’t last until the second steeping.

This is the tea I drink most often in the cold months. It’s a great black tea and the fruity currant reminds me of spring and summer when the weather and the world outside is a bit barren and imposing.

Before I studied in the UK for a semester, blackcurrents weren’t even on my radar. I discovered that basically everything purple that would be grape-flavored in the US is blackcurrent-flavored in the UK — even the Skittles.

I miss blackcurrent juice and blackcurrent sweets, but at least I can get blackcurrent tea! It’s a perfectly nice fruity black tea. I generally throw a sugarcube or two in mine.