Jingle Bells

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.

Smells so much like grapes right out of the bag! Reminds me of grape-flavored candy.

Nice fruity smell…sweet, grape taste. It’s nice but not something I’d buy a lot of. I didn’t add any sugar to it but it tasted like there might be some candy in the mix.

Grape. Yup lots of grape! really sweet, like a candy. I adore this when hot. Seriously. It was so good! but then it cooled and I started to notice that bubblegum note. Ugh. I really don’t like that as it is so standard and boring. Oh well. I had a few good sips at the very least!

As soon as I ripped open the bag a sweet fruity fragrance hit me in the face. Slightly floral but mainly fruity. Kinda fake fruity fruity though which I dock points for.

Smells and tastes just like grape medicine, yuck.

I just learned that I don’t like champagne teas…