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I approached this tea with a mixture of hope and trepidation: my favourite fruit flavoured teas are all from Lupicia, but so is the Sakura Vert (a similar tea made with cherry leaves) that is close to the top of the list of the most undrinkable teas I’ve ever tried. The Sakura Vert was so awful that I only got through a few sips and then had to pour the rest down the sink.

But yay, this tea has a lot more in common with some of Lupicia’s other fruit teas. Clearly, they do much better with cherry fruit rather than cherry leaves!

The leaves brew up into a nice warm light yellow liquor. The cherry is particularly noticeable in the scent, so you breathe it in with each sip, but that’s not to say it’s absent from the flavour of the tea itself. As with some of Lupicia’s other fruit teas, the balance between the fruit flavour and the flavour of the tea is really, really well done. It’s neither too much nor too little, and you’re left with an aftertaste that isn’t astringent but more pleasantly sour – more than a little reminiscent of sour cherries, so that’s definitely a plus.

Of all Lupicia’s fruit teas that I’ve tried, this tea reminds me more of their Kotobuki than any other. This tea doesn’t have quite that “full” sort of texture in the mouth that the Kotobuki has, but there’s still quite a lot of similarity in the way in which the fruit flavour makes its presence felt in the overall taste.