Southbrook Berry Blend Tisane from Pluck

Southbrook_Berry_BlendTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Fruit/Herbal Tisane

Where to Buy:  Pluck Tea

Tea Description:

A blend of dried grape skins from Niagara’s Organic and Biodynamic Southbrook Vinyards, layered with hibiscus and berries for a delicious fruit tea.  Enjoy hot or iced.  Caffeine – free

Learn more about August’s Postal Teas shipment here.

Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.

Taster’s Review:

Of the three teas that I received in this month’s box from Postal Teas, this is the tea that I was putting off trying.  I was not looking forward to it.  I can see the hibiscus!  UGH!  And because it’s dried grape skins, berries and hibiscus (all dark red) … it just looks like pure hibiscus!

So, needless to say, I didn’t have high hopes for this blend.  To steep this, I got out my Kati tumbler and added 1 bamboo scoop of the dark, burgundy red leaves into the basket of the tumbler and poured water heated to 195°F into the tumbler and let it infuse for 4 1/2 minutes.  Normally, I’d steep a fruit/berry/herbal tisane like this for 5 – 6 minutes, but because this looked like pure hibiscus to me, I went with slightly less time.

The thing about hibiscus is that the longer you let it steep, the tarter the flavor.  Tarter?  Tartier?  More tart?  In addition to a more tartness, the hibiscus turns the liquid into a thick, almost viscous syrup that is quite tart and not very enjoyable to sip.  At least, not for me.  I guess there are some people that dig that sort of thing.

Anyway, this tastes much better than I anticipated it would.  Because of the short steep time, I don’t have a tisane with an unpleasantly thick texture.  And because of the short steep time, I’m not tasting an overwhelmingly tart, hibiscus-y drink.

I can taste the berries!  I can taste the grape!  In fact, the grape is what I taste most.  This tastes a whole lot like warm grape juice.  I suspect that this tisane would taste really good iced and would go over well with children, and it’s a caffeine free alternative to all those sugary sodas.

The “berries” in this blend, because they meld in such a seamless way with the grape and the hibiscus, it’s difficult to discern what type of berry I’m tasting.  It tastes like a berry/grape medley.  The hibiscus is still there, of course, but it melds with the flavors of grape and berry in such a way that it doesn’t taste “hibiscus-y”.  It tastes like a grape and berry juice that’s both sweet and tart.  I am not one who particularly enjoys tart flavors so I added about half a teaspoon of raw sugar to the cup and this toned down the tartness to a tolerable level for my palate.

This is alright.  It’s not my favorite tisane, but given how much I thought I’d dislike it, it turned out to be much better than I thought it would.

Overall, I enjoyed this month’s box from Postal Teas.  And after perusing Pluck’s selection of teas, I’m finding a whole lot more that I’d love to try.  Hey, Postal Teas, if you’re reading … you should feature Pluck again, soon!

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