Apricots can be a bit of a hit and miss when it comes to flavour. Sometimes, these small, golden orange fruits with velvety skin and flesh can be bright and sweet, while other times they taste just like textured water. This Lupicia Apricot Barley Tea is a hit, though.

The tisane comes in a tea bag of barley scented with apricot. One tea bag is recommended to make 500 mL either as a cold infusion for 1-2 hours or a hot infusion for 2-3 minutes.

Infusing one 5 g tea bag in 500 mL of cold water in the fridge for 1.5 hours, the infusion was a clear golden brown colour with a sweet and musky aroma of dried apricots. Served chilled, sweet notes of apricot came through bright and fresh at the head of each sip before the nuttiness of the barley tea builds in the body. No bitterness came through from the barley, allowing the musky sweetness to return with a refreshing faint tartness in the finish that recalled something between a plum and a peach. The infusion has a clean mouthfeel with slight musky apricot notes lingering in the aftertaste.

This Lupicia Apricot Barley Tea contained 10 tea bags. It was sourced from Japan, packaged in Japan, and purchased in Kanazawa, Japan in 2015.