Confession: I don’t eat jelly beans. I haven’t had one in years and didn’t care for them growing up, probably because of the texture. I just wasn’t into them. But I really want to do every prompt so I tried to imagine a hypothetical jelly bean that I would enjoy. All I could come up with was blackcurrant.
Then I realized that a few years ago we got some jelly babies because of Doctor Who and there were blackcurrant flavored ones and I liked them! So that justifies using this tea as my jelly bean tea!
Blackcurrant is not a common flavor here in the US and years ago we had very little in the way of international markets. You could buy Ribena but it was expensive and we never did, mostly because of not really knowing what it was. Blackcurrants, I read, were a host for a fungus that afflicts white pines, iirc, and white pines were very important to the furniture industry so blackcurrant bushes were actually outlawed for many years. Might still be for all I know.
In Ireland, I noticed that the children’s medicines that were likely to be grape or bubblegum flavored here in the US were blackcurrant flavored there. Lucky kids.
The tea is easy enough on my stomach for mornings, and strong enough to go with breakfast. I add no milk or sugar, and sometimes makes sweet iced tea with this. It is a very large bag at a very good price, so I will likely replace it when it is gone.
As for the name, it definitely induces nostalgia for those early mornings in Ireland walking to the café with Youngest for tea and scones, and for the pitchers of blackcurrant water served in pubs and restaurants.
Some reviews on amazon refer to this as a strawberry tea. It has strawberry leaves in it but I do not detect strawberry flavor. I have had plain strawberry leaf tea and it does not taste at all like strawberries. Also, it makes you burp. Well, it made me burp. But the important thing is that it tasted nothing like strawberries. I thought the strawberry leaves imparted a sweetness and that is all.
It is possible that there is strawberry flavor added that other people are detecting but I do not. I am not a super taster like some of you amazing folks, though! This is just black tea and blackcurrant to me.
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Interesting. Never knew that blackcurrants were outlawed in the past in the US.
Valhallow – they are crediting with saving many lives in England in WW2 because it was almost impossible to get fresh fruits into the country from elsewhere. It was their main source of vitamin C. Towns encouraged widespread planting of blackcurrant bushes and many are open to public harvesting even now.
Blackcurrant, wonderful and typical “European” flavour. I hope it wil be more and more available in the US.
Martin – the federal ban was lifted in the 1960’s but many states still have bans. I believe as time goes on we will see more of them! I love the taste!
Interesting. Never knew that blackcurrants were outlawed in the past in the US.
Valhallow – they are crediting with saving many lives in England in WW2 because it was almost impossible to get fresh fruits into the country from elsewhere. It was their main source of vitamin C. Towns encouraged widespread planting of blackcurrant bushes and many are open to public harvesting even now.
Blackcurrant, wonderful and typical “European” flavour. I hope it wil be more and more available in the US.
Martin – the federal ban was lifted in the 1960’s but many states still have bans. I believe as time goes on we will see more of them! I love the taste!