Banana Grapefruit? Nah fam, that sounds awful.
That’s what I thought to myself when I saw the name of this blend. I had completely written it off, and then I went to the DT website and saw that it was a fruity black tea blend. Uh, I love fruity black tea blends. I love banana black teas. I really enjoy grapefruit in tea as well. I put it in my cart with a few (sadly) retiring teas that I wanted to stock up on. I decided to wait it out for the next collection to drop. I’m usually a fan of DT’s iced tea/summer blends because I’m a proud member of #teamhibiscus, so I figured there was a decent chance that something new would come along that I’d want to try.
Welp, before that actually happened, someone in the FB fan group mentioned a 20% off code that worked on even the smallest quantity of tea sold on the website — 2 ounces on the US site, usually you have to buy 4 ounces or more of a specific tea to use these sorts of discounts. So, I bit the bullet. If I hated it, I could easily get through 2 ounces of tea if I made it iced, which is how I’d intended to prepare it anyway.
To my complete (and pleasant) surprise, I really enjoy it. I tried it both hot and iced, just to see if the notes varied vastly. They didn’t. The hot cuppa had a bit more of a pronounced grapefruit flavor to my tastebuds, but otherwise they tasted quite similar. It’s truly a fruit infusion with just a handful of black tea leaves. That’s not a complaint, just an observation. There’s minimal black tea flavor. It just adds some body, serving as a vehicle to carry the other ingredients. The banana note is there, but it’s more creamy, subtle banana flavor than in-your-face banana flavor. The mango really adds to the blend’s tropical juice vibes, and the grapefruit offers a light, zesty citrus note.
It sounds really weird combination of ingredients. But, it’s definitely worth a sample if you like fruity/tropical blends. I’ll be stocking up on this in the coming weeks.
Flavors: Grapefruit, Mango
Ooh, yes! I think this would be great with gin!
Right? Btw, I also had no intention of making this hot until I read your notes, so seems I’ll have to play around with this one. :)