Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Butiki Teas
Tea Description:
This tea was originally custom blended for a customer but it was so unique that we decided to offer it to all of our customers. The base of this tea is an Organic Guranse which originates from the Guranse Estate in Nepal. Tamarind Pop is sweet with notes of caramel, raw cacao, vanilla, and tamarind and finishes with a slight astringency. Add a little brown crystal sugar for a completely different tasting tea. With a little sugar this tea tastes just like a tamarind soda. The tamarind taste is intense and melds with a rich caramel flavor.
Learn more about this tea here.
Read more about how the masterminding of this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Not too long ago, one of the regular visitors on Steepster had mentioned in the forums that she wanted a tamarind flavored tea. Well, Stacy from Butiki Teas read this and the rest is history (read the link for the story on how Tamarind Pop came to be a tea).
And you know, it’s things like this that makes Butiki Teas one of my favorite tea companies. I love that she is “one of us” – she’s a tea drinker who frequents the same haunts as other tea enthusiasts. I like it when a company can shed the “business” and relate to their customers as people, and deal with real people inquiries and requests. And I really like this tea that Stacy came up with for “one of us” – Tamarind Pop.
It is unique in that it is unlike any other tea I’ve yet to taste, and yet, there are similarities. The base of the tea is the Organic Guranse which I reviewed previously, and even if I had not known what the base was before tasting this tea, I would have likely recognized it, because the Guranse is very “front and center” with this tea. It tastes bolder here, though, perhaps the tamarind brings out the tea’s “inner strength”?
Stacy mentioned in her description of this tea (see the above description) that this tea is one tea served straight (with no additions) and another tea when served sweetened. So I tested it.
Unsweetened, this tea has a lovely tamarind flavor. It is sweet and a little sour, and a tart aftertaste. Not a pucker-y kind of tart, and not even that same kind of “berry” tart that I often mention … this is a mellow kind of tartness that sort of just lingers over the palate and encourages this tea drinker to keep sipping.
When sweetened with a spoonful of turbinado sugar, this tea becomes much more like a soda – but better, because it doesn’t have that sickly-syrupy-sticky kind of taste that you might experience with a commercial soda. This tastes more like one of those gourmet soft drinks made with cane sugar.
I confess that I’ve not tried tamarind soda … but I have had a ready-to-drink sparkling Yerba Maté and I really enjoyed that. But if this – what is in my cup at the moment – is what a tamarind soda tastes like, then I must purchase some during my next trip to the supermarket, because I’m liking this a whole lot! It even has a light, sparkling kind of taste that I’d expect to experience with a soda.
This tea is absolutely awesome. This may just be my favorite tea from Butiki Teas yet (and I’ve loved everything I’ve tried from them!) Seriously … you gotta try this!
