A tropical mistake

You know what tastes terrible with tea? Pineapple. I had fresh pineapple this summer (learned how to prepare a whole pineapple while I was at it) and I sat down with a fresh cuppa. First I took a sip of tea, and then a bite of tasty tropical fruit. It was a very tasty mix until I had another sip of tea. The juice of the pineapple had coated my tongue with its sweet acidic juice. Mixing that with milky tea, well, I should have known better. It was terrible. Blech. There was no way I could have finished that cup of tea, though I did eat the rest of the pineapple.

If you are a tea drinker who happens to be on vacation in Hawaii or the Caribbean, and fresh pineapple is being served, please learn from my mistake. Pineapple is much too acidic to be mixed with milk tea. Although, if you don't drink your tea with milk, or drink herbal tisanes, then just ignore this lesson.

Of course, fresh and flavoured are two entirely different things. At this very moment (of my writing this, not you reading this) I am drinking pineapple flavoured black tea. With cream. Truly! And since the cup is half empty, you can assume it is a better mix than fresh pineapple and milk tea. I was hesitant about adding milk to this tea, much like I was hesitant in adding milk to that disastrous peach tea. But tea isn't tea unless it has a dairy product in it, so I took the chance and was glad when I didn't see any curdles floating on the surface.

The taste...is odd. No bad, but not great. It tastes fruity and sweet, but doesn't taste like pineapple until the tea reaches the back of my tongue. Then it has that same harsh sweetness, the sugary acidic bite. But that makes sense since the bitter receptors are at the back. Now that I am finished the tea, it has left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Reminds me of the time when I ate fresh pineapple with tea.

I am glad I only had one of these teas to try, because I doubt I’d have any more. It would, as most acidic teas would, make a much better herbal tea than it does a milky black tea. In fact, this would make a great herbal tea, or fantastic iced tea. Just don't offer any to me.

I got this tea from a friend, so while I know what little boutique shop sells the Serengeti Tea Company around here, you might not find a little boutique shop that sells it around you. Their website lists some Canadian locations, (but oddly not the store I know my tea came from,) or you could buy it in bulk from the online store - and hopefully like it.

I do, however, must say that they have pretty cool tube-like tea bags.