It’s taken some time to return to ume flavoured foods after an unfortunate first experience with umeboshi many years ago that left me thinking (incorrectly) that all ume related foods were extremely sour and salty. But unfermented ume doesn’t have that offputting flavour and it even turns out (as we discovered on our trip to Japan in 2018), sweet umeboshi fermented with honey also exists and tastes just fine.

So following on from the boozy umeshu is this more sober Lupicia Plum Barley Tea.

The infusion is in a tea bag containing barley scented with ume (a plum or more accurately, a Japanese apricot).

Steeping one 5 g teabag in 500 mL of cold water for two hours, the infusion was a clear brown colour with a crisp, fruity aroma of ume against a nutty barley background. Served chilled, crisp notes of sweet and tangy ume came through briefly ahead of the nutty and gently bitter notes of the barley tea notes before the plum notes return mid-body and linger together for an immensely refreshing finish with a slight astringency in the aftertaste.

This Lupicia Plum Barley Tea contained 10 x 5 g tea bags. The tea was sourced from Japan, packaged in Japan, and purchased in Kyōto, Japan in 2018.