Pumphrey's- Sencha Wild Cherry

An experience nicer than going to the supermarket is visiting a loose leaf tea dealer, who weighs out your selection for you. My local dealer is currently Pumphrey's, in the Grainger Market in Newcastle.

Picture from the Pumphrey's website

Wanting to expand my horizons, I brought Sencha Wild cherry. I wanted to try a green tea, but went with a flavoured blend as I had tried pure green in the past and found it a bit bitter.
Despite the name of "Wild Cherry", the main flavourings are cranberries and rose petals. The marketing picture is true to life, there is a number of juicy dried cranberries in the blend, although they do tend to rise to the top of the tin so you have to mix it up first.

I put one tea spoon in my new Bitossi tea glass that I brought from the Twinings website. I have been admiring them for a while, so decided to splash out. In the future I hope to find some flowering teas as they would look fabulous in this.

 Water was added, between 80 and 90 degrees. If you use boiling water, it scalds the leaves. Not good. Infusion time is about 2 minutes, you really shouldn't overbrew a green tea.

You can see the leaves are a good size, and a lovely fresh shade of green. The tea brews to a pale greeny gold. The scent is not strong but there is a hint of sweetness to it. 

The tea still has the slightly bitter edge that comes with green teas, but the cranberry and rose makes it more palatable. It's not a strong fruity flavour, but enough to know that it's there, and so that neither flavour is overpowering. They balance out nicely.

I felt rather virtuous drinking this, as green tea is known for it's health properties. It was quite refreshing, and I would drink it again. I don't think it will replace black tea in my affections, but it is good to have alternatives.

Pumphrey's Sencha Wild Cherry info here