Tea Series Challenge: Day 3

Hello and Welcome to Day 3 of the Tea Series Challenge!

This morning’s tea was Cherry Marzipan which was described as having “Notes of cherry and toasted almond.”  While it’s a green tea, I was hoping it would be a cross between my mother’s Christmas almond cookie bars and my grandmother’s cherry bell cookies.  These are my two favorite Christmas cookies from my childhood and I got really excited to see that it was an option in my tea sampler boxes.  

A quick note before we get to the ratings for today:  I was so excited for the flavors of this tea that I timed the steeping process.  The last thing I wanted was for the tea to be over-bitter. 

Appearance/Color

The tea today looked basically like my tea from Day 1, which makes sense given that they’re both green teas.  So no real surprise there.

Aroma

The tea bag quite definitely tasted like cherry and almond, as did the tea itself during and after steeping.  

Flavor

Here’s where my excitement fell apart a bit.  While both the cherry and almond flavors were definitely present, neither was as strong or intense a flavor as I was hoping for.  There was also, as I should have thought about, a definite green tea flavor which offset the cherry and almond.  I suppose if I had wanted the flavor of the cookies I should have just made them and eaten them.  There was nothing wrong with the flavor profile; it just wasn’t quite what I had built up in my mind.

Body or Mouthfeel

This felt pretty good, but not any different than Day 1.  Again, it’s a green tea so no real surprises.

Astringency/Structure

This tea was fairly light and not too bitter thanks, most likely, to my timed steep today.

Aftertaste/Finish

Somewhat disappointingly the main aftertaste was pretty much just green tea flavoring.  Again, I shouldn’t have been surprised as it is a green tea.

Conclusion

You can probably tell already that, while the tea was good, it didn’t live up to the expectations I had built up while making the tea.  The aroma was promising but the reality of the drink itself did not measure up to that promise.  Had it been an herbal tea, perhaps, I might have experienced more of the flavors I had been hoping for.​