Raspberry & Dragonfruit Sensation

I quite like this one. It definitely tastes of raspberry, and it’s quite a natural flavour, too. There’s a juiciness, and a fruitiness, and just the slightest tang of sharpness — much like eating a real raspberry. There’s also a whole lot of hibi. I’ve found that the key with this one is not to brew it overlong. That seems to strike the best balance between screamingly-tart-and-sour hibiscus tea with a hint of raspberry, and actually-quite pleasant raspberry tea with a hint of sourness provided by the hibiscus. It’s a crucial difference.

I’m not getting dragonfruit at all. Not that I’ve tried many real dragonfruit in my time, so I guess I can’t really comment. Maybe one, at primary school? Anyway, the raspberry is nice enough. As bagged fruit teas go, this is okay. Not earth shattering, but pleasant enough to drink when time is of the essence.

Sipdown (158)

Well I am finally back in my home (as opposed to my sister’s apartment), unpacked and settled. I brewed this up in a midst of unpacking, doing laundry, and preparing for school (i.e. printing any available syllabuses/powerpoints and organizing my binder). Now, I just need to make my calendar for the semester, fill in my agenda with my assignments, and write my important dates list. If only my professors were as efficient as me seeing as the links for 3/7 courses aren’t even active yet :(. Oh well, I will get down what I can. Then tomorrow I just need to worry about doing the groceries and I can relax the rest of the time (and drink tea :P).

Anyways, as for the tea, this is not really my favourite of the Twinnings that I have tried. It may be my brewing as it was left slightly longer than the 3 minutes I intended to brew it for, but not too long. I am getting some tartness and then a whole bunch of raspberry. Alas, it is not just the berry flavor as there is a herbal note lining the sip that is more leafy/vegetal that is really taking away from the taste as a whole. Also, no dragonfruit to be found. In fairness, that is a very subtle fruit flavor to begin with so I’d imagine it is a hard one to capture alone and yet they tried pairing it with the much bolder raspberry. All in all, this just isn’t a success and I am happy it is merely the one teabag that I picked up from the shop while I was in London.

another from MissB while this one IS a little tart, it’s also very much raspberry. Not my favourite of the bunch, but i’ve been really impressed with how tasty these bagged teas are.

Maybe I’m that biased by store-brand teabags that I didn’t enjoy this one as much as my normal loose leaf tisanes… wow, what a tea snob.

Seriously though, this reminded me of the teabag tisanes you drink at the hair salon. I steeped the teabag for too long, as always, and I’m not noticing much range of flavour in here.

The raw teabag smells tart and berry like with some sweetness but also herbal and somewhat dry.

Rather light with some sweet and sour raspberry tones, not much dragonfruit though I think I can detect it in the after taste. Not as fresh as one would hope but it made a nice enough drink and the fruit tones tasted natural. I wouldn’t buy more of this one.

As soon as I took the box out of its plastic wrapper I was struck by a stunning fruity/berry smell; this is the type of tea that you feel compelled to stick under the nose of anyone nearby and order them to sniff. By the time I had brewed it the whole kitchen smelled divine and the tea itself was a deep, jewel red.

Taste-wise I found this to be a really nice, strong tea that unmistakably captures the full flavour of a raspberry; sweetness backed with a nice tangy note. I can’t comment on whether it contains a hint of dragonfruit (I’m honestly not sure if I’ve even EATEN a dragonfruit before) but I can say this was a tasty tea!

I wouldn’t recommend steeping this tea any longer than I did; mine had developed a note of bitterness that actually kind of worked with the tea but if it was left any longer it would have become overpowering. There was no need for any sugar as it was sweet enough on its own and i stuck to the brewing instructions in respect to not having milk.

EDIT: I just tried making an iced tea with this tea and it turned out wonderfully; it has a nice tea flavour with a light, fruity aftertaste that was ideal in the heat we are currently experiencing.

To make this iced tea I steeped five teabags for five minutes in a liter of 90°C water, added half a cup of sugar and added it to a liter of cold water and some ice cubes. I personally think that next time I might reduce this to a quarter cup of sugar instead; it was slightly too sweet (I’ve never actually tried to make iced tea before and based it off of a recipe I found online)