Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
Here’s a great English Breakfast blended with freeze-dried appples, oranges, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and peaches along with matching organic flavors (and some organic lime flavor), a hint of organic marshmallow flavor (for sweetness), and another hint of organic malt flavor to give it a cereal-like component. Ever have a craving for one of those super sweet kids’ cereals? Missing the magic that’s a multi-colored bowl of yumminess and some Saturday morning cartoons? (Do they still have cartoons on Saturdays?) Anyway, here’s a guilt-free option to tickle your tastebuds.
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
I’m not sure why, exactly, but something about this Fruit Hoops English Breakfast Black Tea from 52Teas really interested me. Granted, I have a fondness for most of 52Teas’ blends, but, something about this particular blend just resonated with me, it spoke to me and said “TRY ME!” So as soon as I got last month’s package of teas, that’s exactly what I did. In fact, within moments of opening last month’s package, I was tearing into this package.
The dry leaf aroma is very fruity and evokes thoughts of opening a box of fruity kid’s cereal … that smell that wafts out of the box: sugary sweet and fruity. This is the kind of tea that will appeal to the kid in you, and I think that’s what Frank had in mind when he crafted this blend.
But even though this tea does taste fruity and sweet … I like that I’m getting a solid base of black tea. It’s brisk and invigorating and somewhat astringent. The base used here is an English Breakfast Blend, and I taste strong notes of malt – a taste that is further accentuated by the addition of malt/cereal flavor to go along with the theme of this tea flavor.
It’s hard to say what other notes I’m tasting with this black tea, because the fruit flavors are present … I can’t really say I’m tasting a fruit note from the tea and say with certainty that this fruit note is coming from the tea and not the flavoring, right? I think that this is probably a blend of Ceylon and Assam (which seems to be the standard English Breakfast) and I do think it would benefit from a Chinese tea (preferably a Fujian black, but they don’t usually put those in English Breakfast teas – but they SHOULD!)
That said, I do like that I’m getting a strong background of black tea flavor, and with all the other flavors going on, I can’t say that I need more from it. It’s quite satisfying: it’s not harsh, it’s not too astringent, and it has a pleasing flavor and body to it.
Fruit flavor wise, I taste lime. I taste raspberry and orange. I taste subtler notes of strawberry and blueberry and even softer notes of apple. The lime and raspberry are the two most prominent flavors. Because of the way the fruit flavors all come together here, it’s a bit more like a fruit salad or … forgive me for being obvious here: a bowl of fruity, sweet kid’s cereal than it is like a medley of individual, true-to-the-fruit flavors. And again, I think that’s what Frank was going for with this cereal … err … tea.
The one thing that I find myself wanting a little bit more of is the marshmallow flavor.
Yeah, I know there isn’t marshmallows in the fruit hoopish cereal, but marshmallows were my favorite part of the kid’s cereal when I was a kid. Yep, I was one of those kids that picked put all the marshmallows from the box of cereal before my brothers and sister could get to the box. Ha!
This is a really tasty tea. I can’t say it’s my favorite from 52Teas but I can say that I’m not disappointed by it. It’s got a whole lot of flavor going on and I like that. It makes my taste buds happy, and it’s making me long for the days when I could turn on the TV and watch this. Ahh … good times indeed.
