Tea Forte Advent Calendar: Day 4 - Cherry Marzipan


 A Green Tea today, so I was far more excited than the last two days of herbals.  I'm not sure though if I've actually ever had a Tea Forte green tea.  I think that before this advent calendar, I had only purchased black blends from them.  I mention this because green tea varies DRASTICALLY depending on where it is sourced from and how it is processed.  When it comes to green tea, I tend to favor Japanese companies over any others because their processing style sits better on my palate, but on occasion, I admit that I have been pleasantly surprised by non Japanese green blends - just not often.


The write up gave me hope that even if this green tea varietal was on the grassy side, that the cherry and almond might either hide that grassy-ness, or work with it to create something interesting.


The color, of course, was on the light green side.

My first sip was all grass and cherry.  My second sip was far more balanced.  The green tea was still a bit too grassy on the end note for my tastes, but the almond took much of the sharpness out of the grass in the mid note.


The shortbread of the day was salted caramel shortbread and was SOOOOO tasty.  When I sipped the tea after that first bite of the shortbread, I was unprepared for how much the tea changed.  Suddenly, the top note was FULL of the tart side of the cherry taste profile, but was balanced by the sugar in the cookie.  The caramel brought the toasty-ness of he almond out in the mid-note, and the butter softened the grass in the end note, though the after taste was still more grassy than I would like.

In short, today's shortbread paired with the tea in fascinating ways.


Final thoughts:  While I enjoyed the cup, I wouldn't purchase this blend on its own merits.  To much grass in the green tea.

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