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Hallieod drank Berry Berry Nice by Yumchaa

73 tasting notes

I had the ends of a bag of this, and a new one of Yumchaa’s Raspberry Vanilla, and after a few nights of alternate enjoying, decided it was time for a proper taste test, before all the Berry Berry Nice was gone. It was totally scientific! Well, actually, it was nothing of the sort. I put the teas straight into two cups and infused for the same amount of time, then divided those two cups into two more, so Cara and I could each taste properly. Naturally, we ended up with different preferences, but Berry Berry Nice is my winner.

With that mix of fruits, I’ve very little hope of distinguishing each flavour note, but despite Yumchaa’s description of it as a “tart treat”, I don’t find it tart at all. Both it and Raspberry Vanilla have vanilla and rose petals (though BBN has vanilla “pieces” while RV has “pods” — ??) and I’d have thought the combined fruits in BBN were at least as tart as raspberry, but I find it a smoother, less tangy tea nonetheless.

It’s all gone now, and I will definitely be ordering more of this favourite. It happily serves as a winter, nighttime drink, as well as the summery one the “drink while wearing sunglasses” suggests.

Preparation

205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec

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I’ve been drinking tea pretty much all my life, allowing for the fact that there probably was no tea in my baby-bottles. I gave it up twice, once when a then-boyfriend sneered at me for being addicted (okay, I was, but I was also stubborn enough to bear a week of the blinding headaches and overwhelming exhaustion that followed cold-turkey withdrawal), and once on my first pregnancy. Neither experience gave me any reason to believe a life without tea is a good life.

Having spent most of my younger days in Ireland, where tea is everywhere, and mostly it’s decent, I whined my way across the States in the 80s and first half of the 90s. Now back in Dublin, and the tea situation is a bit mixed, but there’s the internet to provide what nearby shops don’t!

I started drinking green and white teas as well as my staple black a good few years ago now, but have recently decided I need to LEARN something more about tea than the little I know.

My likes:
- strong black tea blends; some flavoured blacks, such as Earl Grey and a small (but growing) number of other fruit and flower-flavoured ones; and chai. (For some daft reason, I feel like a tea fraud drinking sweet chai at home, though I’ll happily drink it out.)

- Chinese greens (may update this when I’ve learned enough to be more specific); some flavoured greens, especially if they’re made by the fabulous Yumchaa; Genmaicha; getting to like Sencha, as long as it’s not too bitter.

- White tea, pretty much as long as it’s good quality, I like it. Some flavoured ones are nice, though it’s easy to overpower the more delicate taste of white.

- Rooibos, which I know, I know, isn’t properly ‘tea’. (As above for Yumchaa flavoured rooibos – some of my favourites.)

Dislikes:
- Any black tea made by someone who doesn’t know you need BOILING WATER. (See above about the Whining Years.)

- Hibiscus in fruit-flavoured teas. Looks so pretty! Tastes so awful!

I’m working on trying to like Hojicha, which isn’t going too well yet. Jane Pettigrew describes it as “biscuity”, but unless she’s eaten a lot of cigarette-flavoured biscuits in her time, I don’t get it.

- Aniseed in spiced teas. (Just discovered this one for the dislike list today, in an otherwise-tasty chai. Don’t like the tongue-numbing effect.)

Indecisive, despite being opinionated – okay, very opinionated – so may just add notes rather than rating.