This is the second of the three Renegade Tea Farm teas that I bought and… I have to admit that this tea taught me a lesson. But first, let’s start with the description of the tea:

The Smooth Jazz’s recipe has developed over time together with new jazz tunes. We believe that this year’s batches are something really special. We’re not really into fancy tea descriptions as they often seem to be unrealistic, but this tea really smells like ripe strawberries… We’re not kidding. Also, the taste has the flavour of ripe berries and fruits and a lot of sweetness. You really need to taste it to understand it. And if you don’t feel those tastes, let us know, maybe we have gone crazy with all those tea tastings!

From the Smooth Jazz Product Page

Doesn’t that sound amazing? I’ve never really gotten the notes of specific fruits from straight teas, so I was excited to see if I could get strawberries from this.

First Impressions

The dry leaves were dark with some golden leaves (buds?) mixed in. Personally, I thought the leaves smelled rather unassuming – just a little woody but not much else.

Tasting Notes

Now, this is where I made a mistake. I’ve gotten so used to making my tea gongfu-style (aka short steeps) that I did the same thing for this and promptly got confused. If you use short steeps, you’ll get woody notes and the feeling that there was something more but nothing else.

Luckily, I suspected that there was an issue with the way I brewed my tea, because Renegade Life was just too good. So I sent a message to Renegade Tea Farms on Instagram and learnt that:

1. I was vastly understeeping my tea (think 30s vs the recommended 4 to 5 minutes)
2. They wrote the recommended steeping instructions on the back of the packet (insert Sherlock Holmes’s “You see but you do not observe” here)

So during my second session (or rather, the first proper session with this tea), I used freshly boiling water and a four-minute steep, which produced a dark brown tea liquor that had a very sweet, almost caramel scent. I personally loved the tea so much more the second time, especially now that I got lots of sweet and woody notes and a wonderful lingering aftertaste. I still haven’t gotten the strawberry notes, but I guess it’s more of a me-problem because I have never tasted specific fruits from straight teas.

The second steep looked just as dark as the first (and I used an equally long steep) but it wasn’t very sweet. I mainly got the lovely woody notes and a refreshing, almost minty-feeling aftertaste. I think this was the same aftertaste that lingered in the first steep, but the sweetness got my attention so I didn’t notice how refreshing it was until now.

Because the initial steep time is so long, it should be no surprise that the tea is pretty much done after two steeps. I did try to steep it a third time, but there was pretty much no taste, so I wouldn’t bother with this in future sessions.

Overall, this was a delicious tea! While I love Renegade Life a lot more, this is still good and I can see myself reaching for this frequently, even though I’m not getting the strawberry notes.