Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups! Day 8 of the Twelve days of Teamas is here and for todays post I’m going to be reviewing Ocharaka Tea Shops’ Cola Ginger Flavoured Black Tea. The reason I chose to have this tea be a part of this series is because I had never come across or tried a cola flavoured black tea (I’ve had a cola flavoured rooibos) but never a black tea and the overall concept really intrigued me. What I’ve noticed throughout this series is that Ocharaka are so inventive with the teas and the flavours they try and create with them and I love them for that. I’m so thankful that through Yunomi I’ve been able to try some of their teas and find out about a Teashop that would have never known about otherwise.Here’s what Yunomi have to say about this blend over on their website: ”Using Japan grown black tea, sommelier Stephane Danton has created a fun cola-flavoured tea accented with bits of dried ginger.”

Ingredients: Black Tea Leaves (Japan Grown), Dried Ginger, Dried Lemon Peels, Sugar Sprinkles, Flavouring.

Tea Tasting Notes

Going into this I’ll be honest I was a bit nervous mostly because in the dry aroma the ginger element of this blend was very strong and I instantly thought that it was going to be too much for me taste wise. Sadly I was right and rather than getting a ginger cola taste from this I just got ginger and an ever so slight bit of lemon. It’s a nice blend but it doesn’t scream cola to me and I was a little bit disappointed by that. All of the other teas that I’ve tried from the Ocharaka Tea Shop have been amazing and because of that I was expecting great things from this blend, they are normally spot on with the flavours they try to replicate but this one just missed the mark for me.

When I took my first sip I instantly thought I must have brewed it for too long so the next day I steeped another cup and followed the steeping instructions over on the Yunomi website (Hot: Tea: 3 grams. Time: 5 minutes. Water: 300 ml, 90C / 194F degrees. Resteep up to 2 times.) and sadly there was no difference between the two cups. Both were far too much for me in terms of ginger and I had to add a little bit of honey to get that strong ginger to calm down. The black tea base is absolutely beautiful, it has an ever so slight astringency to it but its not overly astringent like other black teas I’ve had.

I completely understand what the team over at The Ocharaka Tea Shop were trying to do with this blend but for me it just misses the mark and I’m honestly so sad about that because I wanted this blend to be amazing. For health and medical reasons I can’t have actual cola no matter which version so I really wanted this blend to taste just like it so I could finally have that flavour profile back in my life but sadly that didn’t happen. Yunomi do have some cold brew steeping instructions on their website so maybe I’ll try that out after Christmas and see if I enjoy it more when prepared that way. I would have liked to have been able to try this as a latte and turn it into a cola float flavour profile but I think the lemon might split the milk so I don’t think I’ll risk doing that this time around.

Overall Teacup Rating: 3/5

If you want to find out more about Yunomi or purchase this tea for yourself, you can do both here. As always if you have any questions at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter/Instagram and I’ll answer them all as soon as I can.

Speak to you all again soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley