Queen's Choice

Sipdown!

Drank the last of this paired with eggnog. I did like the fruity strawberry/mixed fruit flavour, but couldn’t shake the bitterness. Probably wouldn’t buy again.

Got this at the Toronto Tea Festival. The Riston rep made it very clear that this tea was a best seller. They didn’t have it as a sample, so I bought it purely on the reputation he said this tea had. When I got home and logged it in my Steepster ‘cupboard’ I was very disheartened to see that the reviews were all negative, so it makes me wonder what the reputation was based on!
He did suggest I have the tea with milk and sugar. So based on the reviews stating it had a bitter taste, I brewed it very quickly so as to avoid that and added milk and sugar. It turned out quite nice actually! Like a lightly brewed English breakfast with a hint of strawberry. The strawberry does taste a bit like strawberry flavouring, but it’s not horrible.

Creeping astringency but not very pronounced. Black and green tea flavours are blended nicely. A more pronounced black tea taste would go better with the lighter strawberry flavour. Overall, a bit thin tasting and dilute.

Thank you for sharing Sil but this tastes kind of like what I’d imagine strawberry potpourri or strawberry perfume to taste like. Not my favourite but I am always happy when I can try new things. Maybe this may be better iced?

So i finally got around to trying this one the other day, expecting the worst lol However, it’s actually not that bad. This is not quite the same tea that we had at the tea festival in my opinion but i’m wondering if that’s because they added sugar or something to it. Brewed as a GREEN tea, this works out nicely with a strawberry flavour that comes through. If the others brewed this as a black then i for sure see how this would have turned bitter and foul.

However, that being said, this isn’t the lovely tea that we had at the tea festival. That was one light and fruity and delicious. this one is..ok.

Yep. This tastes bitter to me too. I don’t dig it so I’m dumping the last half out of my cup and filling it up with Whispering Pine’s North Winds! (which was waiting in reserve in my timolino!)

Thanks Sil for letting me try it out! It sounded like it SHOULD be good.
(170)

So, this is the first tea I pulled from the blends sent to me by the lovely Sil in our swap. I picked out three I wanted, and gave her free reign on sending whatever else and this is one of the things she sent. It’s something I’d have never picked for myself so I was hoping I’d be pleasantly surprised.

It seems a lot like the Prince of Wales blend I had from The Metropolitan Tea Company, just with strawberry flavour instead of currant. I didn’t particularly care for PoW but this smells pretty good so I was being open minded. I cold brewed it, and strained it this morning for work.

Unfortunately; this is foul. Basically it tastes like seaweed, rotten strawberry, and sludge. I literally gagged after my first sip. So, of course I dumped it. Sadly it’s not a sipdown; but I only have enough left for one small hot cup so I’m skeptically hopeful that the hot cup will be a bit better.

I’m gonna call it though: I’m thinking this just wont be for me.