I had not heard of Aronia Berries prior to this lovely tea blend from Saint Fiacre’s Farm. Apparently the berries are so sour when they are fresh off the bush they make your mouth pucker, hence their familiar, less glamorous name, chokeberry. These berries are a new fruit flavor I haven’t encountered in herbal tea before. They are a bit sour, but not quite the same flavor as cranberry or hibiscus. They have a little bit of darker elderberry or raspberry flavor among the tart pop, maybe that is where the “plum” comes in.
What really makes this blend so fantastic is the balance of fruit and spice. The tart berries and juicy hibiscus are counteracted by the sweet licorice root and earthy fennel seed. Coconut and vanilla round out the blend with some comforting bakery-like tastes.
Rich and relaxing, this is a great blend for when you want that wintry mulled wine or cider experience. Always a pleasure to find new, robust flavors in my herbal tea collection.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Saint Fiacre’s Farm
Description:
This tea features Oregon grown aronia berries, plums and cornflowers. A spin off the traditional sugar plum which is a candy that has a hard outer coating of sugar… think along the lines of the Jordan almond or an M&M type candy. A sweeter, desert like tea which comes from the licorice root and organic extracts.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Petal Passion Oolong Tea Blend from ArtfulTea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: ArtfulTea orArtfulTea on Etsy
Tea Description:
This lovely, flavored oolong combines the taste of passion fruit with an intensely tropical fragrance that immediately enchants. Aronia berries, mango cubes and rose petals enhance the exotic flavor of this half-fermented tea. Refreshing hot or iced.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I have very much enjoyed the teas that I’ve tried from ArtfulTea this far, and this Petal Passion Oolong Tea Blend is quite lovely.
The dark Oolong tea leaves look a lot like either an Oriental Beauty or a Formosa Oolong. There are chunks of fruit and pretty pink rose petals tossed in with the tea leaves. It’s a visually appealing blend, and it’s beautifully aromatic with notes of tropical fruit.
And the taste is YUM! The Oolong base is smooth. It has an almost buttery texture to it – not so much of a buttery taste as a texture, but some of this texture seems to translate a little bit to the flavor. I don’t taste a heavy “buttery” quality to it. There are some woodsy notes to the cup.
But mostly what I’m tasting is the lovely tropical fruit notes of this tea. Passion Fruit and mango! It’s sweet and there’s almost a nectar-like flavor to this, as if someone had added freshly pureed fruit to my cup of Oolong! I like that these flavors taste authentic, they don’t have the fake or chemical-ish type of flavor that sometimes accompanies flavored teas. This tea just has a very pleasant tropical flavor to go along with the naturally woodsy, smooth flavors of the Oolong tea.
There are some aronia berries in this tea and they do give the cup a slight astringency. Don’t let that frighten you though, I’m finding the astringency to be rather mild, and I’m experiencing more of a tingly berry tartness than I am a pucker-y astringency. I find this to be an enjoyable contrast to the sweetness of the passion fruit and mango flavors.
Another really lovely blend from ArtfulTea, and I feel like I’m trying it right at the right time – we’ve been experiencing some monsoon-ish weather here in the Pacific Northwest lately, and it’s been uncomfortably hot and humid! Ugh! This tea takes me away – at least, mentally – on a tropical vacation. Unfortunately, my vacation only lasts as long as the cup of tea – but fortunately, this is an Oolong and can be resteeped! Revisiting my tropical island is as easy as resteeping my tea leaves!
