Blackberry Maple Oolong

I absolutely love the maple used in 52teas blends. This tastes best at room temperature. The maple is so clear and authentic. I also get a bit of a berry note. My only criticism is that I would have preferred a different tea base because I feel like the oolong didn’t contribute much. It led the drink to be a bit thinner than I’d prefer. Still, with milk and sugar, this was a real treat.

ashmanra’s monthly sipdown challenge
June 2023 → a lingering holiday/advent tea

A leftover tea from the 52Teas advent last year. Oolongs are often hit or miss for me. I really enjoy the ones with a deep toasty flavor. This one was lighter than I was hoping, but the maple flavor really came through. It wasn’t for me, but James loved it!

6th Tea of Christmas 2022

This is a nice breakfast combo! Either the maple-blackberry flavouring or oolong base is contributing to a toasty, dark sugar-malt note that I quite like. As the cup cools, a greener oolong note of floral-butter come out. It’s pure syrupy berry goodness that would go great on top of waffles or pancakes!

I’m sad that there’s no maple cheesecake oolong but this is more than a consolation prize :)

Steep Count: 3

12 Teas of Christmas: Day 6

As a maple fiend, I approve this tea! I was really excited to see the name when I opened it up, and even more excited to drink it. It’s such a sweet, dessert-y, breakfast-y delight. The blackberries are abundant and juicily flavorful, and they really complement the maple. To my taste buds, this particular maple flavoring sits somewhere between pure maple syrup and artificial maple pancake syrup. I do find the scent a tad cloying after a bit, but not enough to really put me off this tea.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and I appreciated that I could taste more of the oolong on the second steep.

The 6th Tea of Christmas from our 12 Teas of Christmas Box. (We’re already half way through the countdown!)

The last few months, I have been on a bit of a maple craze (if that hasn’t been obvious with the teas that I’ve created thus far – with at least one more, maybe 2 to be announced) – plus the lindt lindor truffle that I included with the 12 Teas of Christmas as well as the subscription packages for November/December have been the limited edition maple truffle – suffice to say that I’ve been wanting everything maple over the last few months & I’m actually surprised that I didn’t make more maple-y teas. I’m not saying I didn’t want to make more – I just didn’t.

Anyway, this tea: I had originally planned to make the Maple Cheesecake Oolong tea but I didn’t have the right base available to me at the time of blending (the shipment was on back order) so I had to think quick & I decided that rather than making yet another maple cheesecake variation that I would make a different maple oolong altogether, so instead of going the cheesecake route, I added one of my favorite berries to work with: Blackberries.

I love how this one turned out. The blackberry notes are well pronounced, but not at the detriment of the maple. I like the way these two flavors work together. Usually, when I see a berry & maple combination, it’s blueberry & maple & to be honest, I had considered making this one a blueberry maple – but since I had just recently made a blueberry tea (BooBerry in October) – I went with blackberry. I’m not sorry because this is so good. It turned out better than I expected & I had high hopes.

Adventaggedon Day Nineteen – 4/6

This was definitely my second favourite tea of the day. I don’t always love 52Tea’s maple flavouring, but their blackberry is spectacular and when I opened up the sample bag I was immediately intrigued by how the two weaved together in a sweet and almost “sticky” smelling way. Sticky in a good way.

Steeped up, I think the best way I could describe the taste would be something like homemade blackberry pancakes just drenched in maple syrup. It’s almost equal parts jammy and more sweet and baked. Really quite a rich and indulgent fruit blend, and one of the sweeter blends I’ve had from 52Teas in recent memory. I liked it a lot!

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmXZOHku6m1/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqbEUcJg0zo