Black Tea Merlot

Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Floral, Grapes, Licorice, Malt, Plum, Powdered Sugar, Red Wine, Black Currant
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Jason
Average preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec 9 oz / 275 ml

From Our Community

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4 Own it Own it

21 Tasting Notes View all

  • “I had 3 cups of this so far today. I wanted to drink a bit last night of actual WINE or BEER or SOMETHING because it was a doo-zee of a day but I didn’t, so, I started today with this one…and LOTS...” Read full tasting note
    98
  • “This was in my December AMODA Tea box and it pretty much made me delightfully happy because I’ve been wanting to try these out but there’s a hefty price to them that just hasn’t left me inclined to...” Read full tasting note
    82
  • “A very nice and unexpected tea. I have tried many wine flavored teas but this one somehow rises above the others. Unlike those other wine flavored teas I have had – this one is not artificially...” Read full tasting note
    97
  • “Tried once more, just not a fan of this one. Thanks for the sample, Azzrian! Forgot that before. I think I am just weird about plum flavors. Though I believe I steeped this for less time today, so...” Read full tasting note

From Vintage TeaWorks

Inspired by Merlot, we blended natural 
ingredients to create a black tea blend that is velvety and robust. The 
hints of black currant, plums, licorice and violets make drinking this 
tea quite a sensual experience. (2.5 oz. / 70.9g – about 25 cups)

About Merlot – Merlot has gotten a bad wrap in the past few years, but it is still an ace in our book. This medium to full-bodied red wine has a soft and sensual side that makes it a delight to sip. Its tannins are often described as velvety and the wines are often compared to plum, violets, black currants, prunes, and tobacco.

Tea and Food Pairings – Pair our Black Tea Merlot with Indian inspired cuisine, Latin
 American fare or start the day strong with this robust blend.

Ingredients – Black tea, black currant fruit, licorice pieces, blue malva petals, natural flavorings.

About Vintage TeaWorks View company

Company description not available.

21 Tasting Notes

98
6768 tasting notes

I had 3 cups of this so far today. I wanted to drink a bit last night of actual WINE or BEER or SOMETHING because it was a doo-zee of a day but I didn’t, so, I started today with this one…and LOTS of it! LOL :)

Sil

Gah! I really need to try these soon!

Ellyn

I was just looking at their website. The teas look AMAZING!

Ruby Woo Scarlett

Haha awesome concept, and I don’t even like wine :D

Geoffrey Norman

I’m curious about their wine tea line. Heard they made quite the splash at World Tea East this year.

mrmopar

i think i am going to have to get this one. sound very interesting.

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82
15019 tasting notes

This was in my December AMODA Tea box and it pretty much made me delightfully happy because I’ve been wanting to try these out but there’s a hefty price to them that just hasn’t left me inclined to order something that i don’t know if i’ll love. wow that sentence just hurt my head. punctuation much? yeaaaah…

so anyway, first off, this is a really pretty tea. I love the purple flowers in it. And man did this smell like wine! Now i prefer white wine over red, but I have been known to enjoy a good red wine from time to time. This tea smelled exactly like the last little bit that’s always left in the bottle no matter how long you hold it upside down heh.

How does it taste? Like grapes…but with a hint of…spice? hmm not sure if that makes sense.i can taste the currants and the brew is smooth. This tea makes me want to try some of the others to see how they compare. I don’t think i’d drink this everyday but I’d absolutely drink this from time to time.

IllBeMother221B

Try it with something chocolate!

Sil

oooh sounds like a plan. I have a bunch left so i’ll try that next brew :)

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97
807 tasting notes

A very nice and unexpected tea.
I have tried many wine flavored teas but this one somehow rises above the others.
Unlike those other wine flavored teas I have had – this one is not artificially flavored and you sure can taste the difference!
Thank you LiberTEAS for sending me a sample of this!
There is a deep base that is quite excellent, the mixture of the black currant and licorice are perfection and combine to create something quite unique and tasty! Note, I dislike licorice with a passion yet the licorice tastes nothing as you would expect in this masterful blend!
This is my first tea ever from Vintage TeaWorks and I do hope to try more in the near future!
ETA: Only downside to this one is that it did not re-steep very well for me.

Kittenna

I’m finding that my most loathed tea ingredients (anise/fennel/licorice) can actually work quite well in some blends, it just requires a delicate hand! I’m thinking of Butterbeer and some Verdant blends here.

Azzrian

Agreed! Now only if I found that the same happened with lemongrass!
I think that when lemongrass is used it is usually a main ingredient whereas licorice / anise seem to be more backdrops and complimenting flavors.

Kittenna

I think the key is definitely having the ingredients as supporting flavours. Often I think they are made to feature rather prominently in a tea, which is too much. I’m not the biggest fan of strong lemongrass flavours in tea (although I love it in thai food!) but have had some teas where it works quite well.

Azzrian

thats funny as I don’t mind it at all in food yet I can’t stand it in tea. Perhaps I could find that I do like it okay in tea but I just don’t want to risk the tea funds to figure that out!
:)

Sil

I really want to try the teas from vintage tea works. They sound really intererestin

Azzrian

I was surprised when I got a sample of it today from LiberTEAS – just the day before yesterday I came across them on Facebook and had never heard of them before! I thought it looked right up my alley! I will have to consider an order with them soon!

JacquelineM

This company is on my to-try list, too :)

Azzrian

I don’t know if 6 months ago when I first started drinking loose leaf that I could have appreciated the wonderful qualities of this one. What I love is how much I have evolved as a tea drinker and how I can pick up on the different flavors in tea now. Had someone handed me this back then and said it has wine notes I would have looked at them like they were crazy. However after having ice wine tea and muscat I really understand the more complex flavors in this tea.

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1220 tasting notes

Tried once more, just not a fan of this one.

Thanks for the sample, Azzrian! Forgot that before.

I think I am just weird about plum flavors. Though I believe I steeped this for less time today, so I am actually kind of getting black currant too, but the plum and grape is not suitable for my tastes.

fermataleaf

Woah… that line seems fantastic. My shopping list keeps getting bigger DX

Azzrian

Glad you at least got to try it and you are very welcome :)

momo

I like the puerh cabernet one the most so far :D

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88
4843 tasting notes

Even though it’s 2:41 pm here, it’s still very morning-ish to me, because we were up late and I still feel sluggish. I need black tea!

I don’t know if this will do the trick, but, it’s black tea, and it’s what I had sitting on my tea counter waiting for me to try. So, I grabbed it and am hopeful that it will help bring me to a better state of wakefulness.

The aroma is amazing from the moment I first open the canister. It smells very much like wine. Very grape-y, but with a distinct note of fermentation. Brewed, the tea smells very nice also, like black tea with a hint of fermented grape. Hints of floral seem to dance across the surface as well.

Wow! This is nice. It is certainly “velvety and robust” … it has a lovely black tea base that is strong and deliciously smooth. The merlot flavoring is sweet and has a very intriguing depth of “dark fruits”: grape, currant, and plum. It also has a hint of licorice in this, not a strong flavor (for those of you who do not like licorice, I don’t think that the flavor here would disturb your enjoyment of this tea), instead, it is more like a distant flavor that seems to enhance the overall wine-like experience.

Very enjoyable, indeed, and I do feel a bit more alert than I did when I started this tasting note!

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3294 tasting notes

Sil Sample Sipdown
I’ve been hanging on to the last bit of this for awhile, & today was the day. This is my after breakfast tea, kind of a morning dessert, if you will, & I’m enjoying it, to be sure.

The dry leaf is lovely, with little flowers & kind of a purple-red cast to the leaf. Steeped, it is a nice fruity tasting blend. I’ve never drank Merlot, so I have no idea what it tastes like, but this makes for a tasty cup.

This is the first tea I’ve tried from Vintage TeaWorks, & if it is representative of their other teas, I hope to give them a try someday too. Thanks Sil :)

TeaEqualsBliss

Oh how I love this one! The others are GRAND as well!

Terri HarpLady

Good to know, T=B :)

Sil

YAY! glad you liked it. my ONLY problem with the teaworks was the large sizes when i haven’t tried them before. heh

Terri HarpLady

What, no sample sizes?

Sil

nopers…they package them in tubes like wine bottles – 3oz+ for the tea heh

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91
421 tasting notes

Now I’ve never been a huge red wine fan. My tastes run to the sweeter side of things. So I wasn’t super sure how I would feel about this one. But I got up very late this morning (after being out super late last night). I figured this would be a bit of a hair of the dog after all the wines last night. I was correct.

My first reaction after opening the container this tea arrived in was holy grapes! Yet I saw no grapes. What I did see were beautiful blue malva petals and some lovely black tea. So I set the kettle and waited and enjoyed the grape smell as I waited. This scent amplified as I poured the water over the leaves. It really began to smell like Merlot! While I let it steep I tossed a chocolate muffin top in the toaster oven because a) I was hungry and b) hello red wine + chocolate tends to = awesome. I was not mistaken!

This tea was smooth, yet slightly tart and full of flavor. I must admit the currant and licorice (not a licorice fan usually) played very well together. Everything worked well together…so well that my muffin top is gone and I need a refill on my tea!

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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86
175 tasting notes

This is probably my favorite Vintage Teaworks tea. Nice and smooth, a hint of licorice, and just slightly sweet.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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82
333 tasting notes

Thanks beelicious for this lovely sample. I’ve been holding off on trying it for a while—it seems too strong to drink late in the day, but too fruity for a breakfast tea (and besides, I’m usually not awake enough to fully appreciate my first cup of the day). Today I was finally able to try it in the early afternoon, so hooray!

The blend has a rich, dark-berries aroma that does immediately remind me of a full-bodied, fruity red wine. The part about Merlot getting a bad rap in the official description makes me laugh—having lived in wine country for many years, this is true to some extent, but it doesn’t stop us from enjoying it!

The taste of this tea is similarly richly fruity, not quite wine-like but definitely wine-inspired. The flavors are “tannic” as suggested by the description, making me think of blackcurrants and grape skins. There’s also an interesting sweetness that is candy-like, but refreshing instead of cloying. I finally identified it as liquorice, and while it’s not a common ingredient in tea blends, it has a nice effect here, making the tea seem less heavy as a reuslt. Overall, it’s a one-of-a-kind and enjoyable blend!

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75
3986 tasting notes

This sample came from Blodeuyn. She was kind enough to send me samples of three different teas from this company, which I’ve been curious about since I stumbled upon their website a couple of months ago. The leaves are very small and dark, and there are several colors of flower petal/buds mixed in with them. Dry, this tea smells very sweet and almost candy-like with grape and plum notes. It also has a weird powdered sugar scent to it that I do not enjoy. I steeped a teaspoon of leaf for 4 minutes at 200 degrees.

The brewed aroma is also sweet and fruity with some malt and definite wine-y characteristics. However, it still has that weird powdered sugar/chalky scent. Meh, that scent carries over into the taste as well, which is too bad. It reminds me of those berry-flavored Tums. The other flavors are quite nice here, the winey grape and the plum along with a touch of licorice and floral. I would enjoy this one a lot if it weren’t for the weird chalky flavor…

Flavors: Floral, Grapes, Licorice, Malt, Plum, Powdered Sugar, Red Wine

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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