Hello hello! I’m back with another review from the Rare Tea subscription. This time, we’re talking about tisanes – which is pretty much okay with me because I need something non-caffeinated.

From the Rare Tea website, these Nepalese cherry blossoms come from Jun Chiyabari. Jun Chiyabari is a great garden; I had the chance to talk to them for my sustainabiliTEA series and I really like how they are trying to make an impact through their farming methods (SustainabiliTEA Profile here).

First Impressions

The blossoms smell very rich and sweet, it really makes me think of candy. The website description of “marzipan” sounds about right though I normally don’t like it, so I wonder if I’ll like this.

Tasting notes

Rare Tea recommends a longer steep, but I wanted to pay around with the steep times so I started with a shorter 1-minute steep. The tisane smelled suspiciously sweet (pretty much the same as the dry leaves) but thankfully the sweetness was more subtle when I drank it. I am actually getting the “marzipan” note that the website talked about!

The second cup was from a 2-minute steep and it had very strong almond notes. While I like almond, I almost never like it when it’s too strong because it feels artificial to me. I’m not a fan of this cup.

The spent blossoms are a paler colour than the dry version.

Overall thoughts

If you like sweet tisanes, or you like marzipan and almond, you’ll probably really enjoy this. While this wasn’t my favourite cup, I can see this working really well as a blend with some other teas to add some sweet almond notes.