A dedicated pot for making iced tea is amazing. I never thought it would make my life so much more convenient but it had and luckily it arrived before Christmas so I could spend the holiday period hydrating with ice cold teas! This is English Tea Shop Summer Crunch, a black tea flavoured with apple and melon with cool mint.
Steeping one 8-gram tea bag for 20 minutes in 900 mL of cold water, the infusion was a transparent golden brown colour with a fruity aroma. This fruitiness came through as sweet, but cooling, melon notes – akin to honeydew – in the head before a crisp apple flavour spiced lightly with cinnamon builds in the body with undertones of mint that become most pronounced in the finish to leave a cooling mouthfeel. The black tea came through as a sweetness in the background and as a slight astringency along with the cinnamon in the aftertaste. The summer flavours of melon and cooling mint make this an enjoyable iced tea during a heatwave and a spoonful of honey would go well for those who prefer a sweeter tea.
The packaging recommends steeping for 3-5 minutes in hot water or 8-10 minutes in cold water. I avoid making this tea with hot water as it extracts a stronger black tea flavour that overwhelms the delicate apple and melon notes. For steeping in cold water, though, I found that 8-10 minutes was insufficient – there were notes of melon and apple and mint, but the tea tasted very weak like a watery infusion with no black tea flavour.
This English Tea Shop Summer Crunch contained 10 tea bags. The tea originated in the United Kingdom and was purchased in Shibuya, Tōkyō, Japan in 2014.