Bad Tea Chronicles: Tea Forte's Black Cherry

Oh, how I wanted this tea to be good.   And oh, how I was disappointed.

Tea Forte's Black Cherry black tea bills itself as a combo of black cherry and vanilla flavors, with a hint of licorice root.   It's a failure on pretty much all levels.

The aroma is off-putting, like Robitussin cough syrup.  I had hoped that the cough medicine aroma was limited to the tea in the bag (this wouldn't be the first tea that tasted awful in the bag but was pleasant when brewed), but no such luck.  It's a big, nasty cup of hot Robitussin.   But, I drink bad tea so that you don't have to.  

The flavor is barely black cherry.  It's a sort of mildly sweet black with a hint of something almost sticky.  The combination of the cough medicine aroma and the slightly unpleasant flavor makes for an outright unpleasant drink.

I'm going to try some experiments with sweetener or icing or blending with other things, because I have a whole tin of this dreck.  I'll report back if anything is useful.

Alys' Tea Party Blend: EqualiTEA

EqualiTEA is one of the blends I created to benefit the ACLU.  I'm fairly satisfied with it, although it is essential that you use two teaspoons of this tisane and brew for 5 minutes if you want to get a proper flavor out of it.

It has come out as a minty tea, with a light hint of watermelon and strawberry sweetness.  It's not a heavily flavored tea.  It's soothing and relaxing, a nice late night treat.  I wouldn't want to add sweetener -- I'd just add another teaspoon of the tisane.

I think this would make an excellent iced tea if brewed strongly enough.  Unfortunately, I'm out of my sample.  Time to order more (and get another nice Joan of Arc tin!).

Tea tasting: Adagio's Spiced Apple Chai

I am terribly disappointed in Adagio's Spiced Apple Chai.  I was hoping for an apple tea with chai spices, sort of like a spicy apple pie.  What I got was a chai tea that smelled like apples but contained no apple taste at all.   Even adding honey or sugar did not produce anything more than the vaguest hint of fruity apple sweetness.

It's a good enough chai tea, but I don't buy something billed as "spiced apple chai" unless I want an apple flavor.  If the tea tasted anything like its aroma, it would be perfect.  That aroma just adds to my disappointment in the flavor.

I wonder what this tea would be like combined with apple cider, but I could probably achieve the same effect with any chai tea combined with apple cider.