Strawberry Champagne

Monthly TTB. I always find these champagne named teas to be a little interesting. I’m not a huge fan of champagne but from the ones I’ve had this one is probably the best yet. It has that brutish taste without the alcohol sting. The strawberry is there but it’s very mild. surprisingly I’m not tasting much of the green tea. Kinda a weak base or something….

Sample from VarieTEA. Thank you!

I wasn’t a big fan of this. The flavors are really mild, and it tastes like it has some kind of artificial sweetener in it. Still, it was nice to try.

Sipdown (123)!

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample! I had originally planned to have this one on NYE, but obviously that didn’t happen. Instead, I enjoyed a mug of it on my way to work on a rather unexceptional day.

Surprisingly this was quite lovely! I guess I didn’t think it would be because of the green base and, to a lesser extent, the peppercorns in the blend (why would you add peppercorn!?) but it came out very succulent and juicy with minimal contributions from the base and no contribution from the peppercorn. The strawberry was very sweet; it reminded me of a borderline overripe strawberry or maybe a strawberry compote. Either way, there was zero tartness/tang. There were also some gentle honey and floral tones which made the flavour more well rounded. I’m not sure exactly how much champagne flavour was present – I think it was hiding a bit with the strawberry flavour, but it certainly contributed a bit of a sparkly/fizzy quality. Not that this was literally carbonated – it just had that sort of special, effervescent quality in the taste.

Personally, I think this one was very, very flavourful and incredibly well executed! Which, of course, makes it that much sadder I wont get to ever drink it again.

EDIT: Today’s word of the day is Principle which is pretty lame in my opinion. Who doesn’t know the word principle? I remember learning it way back in elementary school! So, instead I’m gonna talk about yesterday’s word of the day!

So yesterday’s word was Verdant. And yeah, that’s a word most of us tea drinkers are probably familiar with because of the tea company – but do you all know the actual meaning? I definitely didn’t. Verdant means: Green with growing plants. Which I think makes “Verdant Tea” an even more beautiful company name!

From GCTTB Round 3 Christina

This is my first TTB and there are so many things in there to try! I was feeling lazy when I got this box yesterday so just cold brewed some of this to try today. Mostly I’m getting floral and some fruitiness (not really strawberry but I can’t tell what specifically) and also some pepper? Very refreshing iced tea and perfect for a warm summer evening!

GCTTB Rd 3:

Thank you Christina for the chance to try yet another RiverTea. This one is pleasant enough but a bit on the bland side for my tastes. Also, I am definitely getting a lot of floral notes that are slightly undercut by strawberry juiciness. However, to find those notes, it takes a bit more concentration than I would like to have to use. Still, it was fun to try and now I know this isn’t for me.

And now I try the first tea from my very first RiverTea order!!!

I chose this one because it’s extremely fragrant. You can smell it from outside its cardboard canister (by the way, I agree with everyone else in that RiverTea’s packaging is absolutely lovely). It smells heavily of roses and fruit, and also has a sort of tangy aroma that smells like champagne – I guess that’s where the natural flavouring comes in. The smell definitely matches the name of the tea.

The leaf itself is dark green, almost brown, and looks like a sencha, and mixed in with large chunks of the other ingredients – you can definitely see pink peppercorns, white rosebuds, and huge slices of strawberry.

I followed the steeping instructions – 1 tsp per cup, 80C, 2-3 minutes – and got tea with a very rosy scent and golden colour. The champagne and rose flavours, and perhaps a very very soft hint of the pepper, are noticeable in the taste, but I’m not getting much strawberry. Perhaps it’s really meshed well with the rose. I wonder if adding some sweetener would make the strawberry come out more.

Anyways, I have a huge pile of this to experiment with. It smells so lovely that I can’t wait to try it in other ways.