Product Information:
Where to Buy: Kickstand
Product Description:
The Organic French Plum Indian Black Tea is a scented-blended tea. This type of black tea is scented with the essence of French plums plucked at their peak.
About Kickstand Tea Concentrate:
You can serve it Hot or Cold, mixed with milk, sugar, alcohol or even adding it to a ice cream or cake mix. Prepare it to your taste, the possibilities are endless.
Taster’s Review:
Before I get started on the product review for this French Plum Indian Black Tea Cold-Brewed Concentrate from Kickstand, I have about how I had heard about this product. I occasionally buy from Fab and as a result I get their emails all the time, and Kickstand cold-brew tea and coffee concentrates were being offered on Fab this week, and I was thinking about ordering some of this tea concentrate to give it a try. That SAME day, I go to the post office, and in my PO Box, waiting for me, is a sample bottle of this tea concentrate, their new “for summer” scented tea to review. Wow! Talk about being in-sync with a tea company!
The bottles of this tea concentrate are very attractive – they’re packaged in dark amber bottles that are reminiscent of “medicine man” type of bottles. They hold 32 ounces of cold-brewed tea concentrate which is to be diluted with a ratio of one part water to one part tea concentrate, and then poured over ice. So, you can make one glass of iced tea, or a whole pitcher if you want.
Since I had a pitcher handy, I decided to just go ahead and prepare the whole bottle of concentrate (that way, I don’t have everyone asking me, “hey, mom, what’s in that bottle in the fridge?”) And the 32 ounce bottle dilutes into a half-gallon pitcher just perfectly (duh, right?). However, this produces a rather strong glass of iced tea if you don’t pour it over ice … so I recommend doing so. And if you prefer not to add ice (or if your iced tea is cold from being in the fridge) you might want to add a little more water to dilute it further, because it’s rather strong.
Since I had just diluted the tea, I went ahead and poured the iced tea over ice, and while my first couple of sips (before the ice started to melt) was strong, now that the ice has melted, I find this to be just right. Strong … but not unappealingly so. The tea is robust. It’s very refreshing and brisk! It has a sweetness to it and a hint of malty undertones. Very flavorful! The concentrate has a citric acid added to it … which I am guessing is meant to help preserve the tea, and this adds a pleasing citrus tone to the tea (like someone squeezed a lemon wedge in my iced tea).
And then there is the very appealing plum note. It is tangy and sweet. It isn’t quite like the flavor of plum that I’m used to (like the plums that I usually purchase in the produce section of my grocery store), instead, it’s more of a savory plum note with a certain sweet-tart taste that I find very enjoyable.
On a side note, I noticed that after pouring the whole bottle of tea concentrate into my pitcher, there were “floaters” that looked a lot like citrus pulp. I don’t know if that’s what it is. I strained the tea into my glass so that I would avoid getting the floaters in my tea, but I didn’t examine these floaters further.
I really like this product! I especially like that the concentrate is NOT sweetened … so often concentrates like this are so overly sweet that you just can’t taste the tea. I like that this product allows me to decide whether or not I want sweetener. I also like that it’s organic! I’m really glad I got a chance to try it.
