Ginger Cola Black Tea

Sipdown! (92 | 189)

Finished off my second (and last) sampler of this one, which I received in a grab bag.

Honestly I think this is one of my favorite teas from 52teas. The balance of the cola, the ginger, and the base tea is just perfect. I feel like I’m tasting some lemon or lime as well, but I don’t see that listed so I guess it’s just the interplay of the flavors. So to me, it ends up tasting like some lovely combination of cola, ginger ale, and Sprite. And yet it also reminds me of root beer barrel candies somehow. I like how the ginger tingles slightly on my tongue, which helps mimic the effervescence of soda.

Yummy! Will have to keep an eye out for more soda-inspired teas in the future.

And it’s another sipdown!

#long time ago internet hiatus sipdown

I love pop/soda/cola-flavored teas, and not long ago finished off a bag of Gourmet Root Beer that was fantastic. I actually had the coveted rare large 50g bag of this tea, still unopened, from 2017, and as I’m trying to finish off all teas in my collection from that year, it got moved over to become my next focus tea for cold/iced brew.

I tend to prefer black teas brewed warm and then iced, so that is how I prepared this batch — I steeped 7g of tea in 2 cups 205F water for three minutes, strained, and then added an additional 2 cups cold water (and two teaspoons liquid sugar to help add to the pop factor) to the mason jar, let it cool on the counter for about 15 minutes, then put it in the fridge to chill overnight.

Mmm! While I don’t think I like this one quite as much as the Gourmet Root Beer, this is still a very solid pop-flavored tea. I’m getting a typical cola flavor (I think adding the bit of sweetener may have helped bring that to the forefront), followed by candied ginger and lime zest. I’m not able to make out notes from the base as distinctly with this one as I could with the root beer tea, either, but it is very smooth and refreshing! I’m definitely going to enjoy going through my bag.

This was one of my favorites from the 2018 12 Teas of Christmas. I love the soda product that inspired this tea and was surprised how well the taste was captured in tea form. The candied ginger adds excellent spice, heat, and sugary sweetness all in one go. The cola flavoring is spot on with out being cloying or artificial. The smell is amazing in the tin and in my mug, and always gets positive feedback from those around me when I brew it.

Thanks so much for sending a bit of this to try, Annie! I must say, this one is one of the less intriguing blends from the Christmas advent. But that was some tough competition from many blends that sounded amazing or were old favorites I wanted reblended. Also, anything with ginger in the name will probably not appeal to me. A few days ago, a Steepsterer wrote a glowing note for this tea, so I wanted to try it sooner rather than later. I’ve also never tried ginger cola. Never heard of it! The dry leaves certainly have the fragrance of soda. However, the ginger wasn’t too bad here, as I was tasting mostly cola. This is the perfect base tea for cola flavors: light but not too light. There isn’t a chocolatey black tea flavoring with the cola… that would be weird. The base tea almost stays in the background, to not interfere with the cola at all. So definitely this is a nice base for the cola. It isn’t my favorite in the advent though.
Steep #1 // 1 1/4 teaspoons for a full mug // 18 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 minute steep

Ok, just a small update on this one… last night I started a session of this, and got really tired before I had steeped it out. Unfortunately, my tea caddy was in the car and I wasn’t about to go and get it at 4 am. So instead, I brewed the tea out and stuck it in iced tea cups (I have two) in the fridge. So this is a review of the tea as iced tea. If you wondered why the steeping paramenters are weird, it’s because I’m reviewing the third steep of this tea session.

Wow, it tastes even more like ginger cola this way. That ginger is definitely prominent, and the cola is very noticeable. I added two splendas to this to give it some jazz and it really brings out the flavor. In fact, the “tea” part of this is barely recognizable. It just tastes like uncarbonated soda. I like that. Seeing as how I really can’t have actual ginger cola, this is a great method for replicating it that I will have to remember. Perhaps I can find a jug around somewhere and brew up an entire pitcher. It would probably take all that I have left though to do that and I don’t like that concept at all, so I doubt I will. But in the meantime, iceing the last cup worth of a session seems like a good plan. I will have to try that from now on. Very tasty.

It smells like China Cola! That’s a cola with added herbs and stuff.

It tastes like a sweet gingery cola. Umm, I can’t think of much else to say about it, but I really like it and wish I had more.

I just finished adding all the teas from the 12Teas of Christmas box to the website, so I decided I deserved a tea break. Well, I don’t know if I actually deserve one but I’m taking one nonetheless.

And this is the tea I grabbed. This was the 4th Tea of Christmas and I was really glad that it got the votes to make it into the box because it’s one of my favorites. Actually, a couple of my all-time favorites made it into the box this year (Foggy Coconut and this one) so it was a happy way to finish up this year in tea.

This tea is a little different from the original because I wasn’t able to get a shipment from China in time, so I had to go with my distributors in the states and they didn’t have the same teas that I used in that original batch. To make up for that, I added a little more Assam to the mix, deciding that the Assam would deliver some malty notes that would work well in the cola’s favor.

And despite the changes, I think that this is still quite good – I’m drinking it warm now but I think this one is much better iced because – cola. I still like it warm but I think I’ll save the remaining amount that I have for my pantry to use as iced tea.

Nice ginger notes – I tried to go a little heavier on the ginger this time but I didn’t want to go too heavy because the cola that I loved so much (that inspired this tea) wasn’t all that heavy on ginger, there was a balance between the two elements of cola and ginger – so I still wanted some sort of balance between the two – but I did hear a few comments saying that there should be more ginger so I also tried to accommodate that.

Overall, I’m very happy with how this turned out. And it’s now on the website!

I’ll give it points for being unique. Definitely had ginger and light citrus and that cola “bitterness.” I didn’t care for this at all hot, and unfortunately I brewed a whole mini-pot so didn’t have any left – I agree with some of the reviews that say it’s better cold. I can’t try that, so I can’t swear to that, but I think that might have been why I didn’t like it. Cola is supposed to be cold! It does what it advertises, though.

4th Day of Christmas Teas

This one is novel. I’m a pretty big fan of those Cola Bottle gummies as well as candied ginger and this teas is both of these things! Definitely prefer it cold steeped, but hot isn’t bad either.