Jingle Bells

This SMELLS so GOOD! Yum!

Citrus notes with a creamy undertone. A lot like a creamsicle – with tea! And as good as it smells, it tastes even better. The citrus tones are sweet with just enough tart to keep it interesting but not too much. The creamy yogurt flavor gives it a smooth, rich taste and texture. The black tea is bright but fairly mellow. A nice afternoon tea.

I am not sure if Lupicia changes the recipe for this tea from time to time? Cos the description on my Jingle Bells tea tin says “a black tea scented with refreshing grapes and fruity champagne”, which is completely to the description shown above.

The Jingle Bells tea that I have just brewed does tastes of grapes instead of creamy or citrusy. It in many ways resembles Bonne Nuit, another Lupicia blend with grape and champagne flavours, but the latter is sweeter because it is scented with berries as well. It feels a bit strange to drink Bonne Nuit hot, as if you are drinking a hot fruit cocktail. But I don’t have this problem with Jingle Bells – it’s enjoyable when hot but it will be a nice iced tea too. The grape flavour is kinda like what you get in grape soda drink, but far less artificial and sickly. Kids or kidults will probably like this ;)

Thanks to Cameron B for sending this teabag with the group order! The grape flavor smells and tastes really pleasant! This is a fun blend – I haven’t had something similar before! I’m not really sure how the name fits with the tea, but the grape flavor is authentic, and the black tea matches and mixes with it well. I wouldn’t buy it myself, but it was very nice to try.

I actually drank this over a month ago, but I am putting a note here because Youngest asked me to remind her which teas we drank when she visited at Christmas. We drank tea pretty much non-stop but I didn’t review many of them because I don’t see her often and wanted to spend time with her. Thus it completely slipped my mind that we had a sample of Jingle Bells that came with my order of Carol and Merci Mille Fois.

We both loved this one. The grape flavor is so spot on. I don’t know how they do it, but the fruit flavored teas from Lupicia that I have tried have been amazing. This fairly sparkled and would be absolutely wonderful to serve for a Christmas time tea gathering when we can finally start having gatherings again. I bet it would also make an incredible iced tea, but we only had one sachet to play it.

Ashman was so enamored of the aroma of Carol this morning that I told him we really need to order even more next year since it is limited edition. Now that I think about it, we should order a pouch or two of Jingle Bells as well.

Thanks Cameron for sending me this to try! I’ve been saving it for New Years.
The dry sachet of this smells strongly of grape Hi-Chews deliciousness!
Steeped the tea definitely has a grape Hi-Chew like flavor as well as some floral perfume like notes. I get the champagne as well it has an almost bubbly like quality to it though leaning more towards champagne than soda. I probably steeped it a tad long and would steep it a bit shorter next time.I bet this would be delicious iced as well. This is my first grape tea I’ve tried from Lupicia and I definitely would repurchase this and want to try their other grape teas as well.

Smells like grape juice! Tastes like purple grapes and honey. Lupicia is SO good at fruit flavors, especially grape.

Grape! That’s what I’m tasting! Weird that I couldn’t place it. The flavor was lumped into a generic “Lupicia fruit” category in my brain. Red or purple grape, not green for sure. It’s a really pretty blend from what I can see through the sachet bag, some little flowers in it. The scent is really bold and rich. It took a few sips to get into it and over an initial bitterness. Once past that it’s fairly well balanced. The grape is strong in the sip and lingers long into the finish. I bet this would be good cold steeped as well. It has a good flavor, but I don’t feel like it’s unique to Lupicia. I feel like they have used this flavor in a few other teas, like the California blends. Muscat? Napa Blanc! But that was a green base. This is good, but I don’t feel the need to own it. Super happy to have gotten this sample with my order!

If this tasted like the aroma, I think I would’ve liked it much better. It wasn’t bad. I liked the grapefruit notes but the grape notes were a little candy-ish to me. Maybe it was the perfumey notes. Not sure. I’m still getting used to flavored teas but I favor those that taste more naturally I guess. I’ll try again soon. ^^

Update: Tried it again, and wasn’t as perfumey. I had it grandpa style and it was much tastier. Upped the rating.

Sipdown no. 2 of 2019 (no. 490 total). A sample teabag.

Lupicia sent me this in one of their love letters, and since I’m rather desperate to keep up with the sipdown challenge I looked around for something I could claim to have sipped down. This is definitely the only Jingle Bells in the house, so I say it counts!

The smell out of the packet is strong — and amazing! Very, very fruity. I smell grapefruits and berries, regardless of what Lupicia says. But there’s also definitely champagne.

After steeping, a malty, earthy tea joins the party. The tea is medium-dark amber and clear. I expected it to be darker as a black tea. Hmm.

Maybe I’m just black tea deprived, but this is yum. As I sip, I get more of the grape — which is rather a candy type of grape than a fruity type of grape. But that’s ok, right? I mean, shouldn’t there be a place in the world for a candy grape tea?

I see that Roswell and I are somewhat in the minority here, but I loved this one. I’d definitely drink it again. I’m a little sad I chose it to sip down now.

But when I think of one less tea, I am happy again!

Holiday Tea-son! When I visited Lupicia last November, they gave me some sampler teabags for buying so much tea, and two of them were holiday samplers, Jingle Bells and Soleil Levant, so of course I plan on trying out both this month. I planned to do the Soleil Levant since it’s a green and it’s already rather late, but accidentally grabbed the Jingle Bells and opened the package, so oops. Ah well, at least it’s the weekend. It smells very strongly of grape! Which I’ve never really associated as a holiday flavor, but honestly I’m happy to drink something that isn’t orange, spice, or almond for a change, too, so I’m not really complaining.

Since Lupicia blacks have a tendency toward getting a bit more robust than I tend to care for, I went for a briefer steep of this sachet than usual, bumping down my three minutes to two. It still looked a nice deep reddish brown color, and had a strong grape aroma.

I think the shorter steep was the right choice, since the black tea was still quite potent, but the astringency didn’t come off quite as demanding as usual for a Lupicia black. I think I would’ve had bitterness issues had I went for my usual three minute steep. The tea had a strong grape flavor, and it comes off a bit too much like the fake grape candy/Kool-Aid flavor that I’m not that big of a fan of, but it isn’t overly unpleasant, either. There are some floral background notes that add a bit of sweetness and depth which help temper the grape a bit. I’m not really getting any alcoholic/campagne notes though.

Not a terrible cup, but not a favorite. I preferred the Honey Mead and Niagra Ice Wine teas I sampled last month a lot more than this one as far as grapey-tasting teas.