Everything’s better with a cherry on top. A Shirley temple, a Manhattan and chocolate fudge sundaes, in particular, with their puffy whip cream pillow. Plus, I know I've painted my way through many a want with a “pretty please with a cherry on top”. Perhaps that is why life is just a bowl of cherries after all. But the frustrating beauty of the cherry is that replicating it’s buoyant red perk is tough and falls to the bottom of the barrel in the flavouring bar. For that reason, I’m easily drawn in to try cherry offerings with the hope that this time, it will be different. Presenting cherry with a white peony seems to recall the classic pairing of the sundae with the bright cheer of the cherry juxtaposing the purity of the whipped cream. Thus, the gentle white tea landscape could perhaps draw out the sweetness of the cherry flavours without competing for its perch. So Boston Tea Company's Sweet Cherry White offered luscious promise. The Boston Tea Company website describes the tea as, " Sweet cherry is balanced with sweet-tart cranberry and raspberry and blened with tender, young Chinese white tea. Appropriately enjoyed at any time of the day, naturally sweet ans delicate, Sweet Cherry White is naturally low in caffeine and rich in antioxidants. Cherry White is naturally low in caffeine and rich in antioxidants. (http://www.bostontea.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=BTC&Product_Code=11630&Category_Code=BLT). Do you think they might want you to know the tea might be low in caffeine or rich in antioxidants? So my ice cream parlour dreams were somewhat dashed by both the spelling mistakes in the blending and the 'sweet and delicate' along with the lack of cherries in the mix but I've been surprised before by what comes from tea ingredients and spelling oversights so I was still eager to pluck this cherry from the tree and find the cherry in this tea.
So if you close your eyes and whisper "sweet cherry white", the vision of red cherry opulence is rather burst when one looks at the tea. A khacki brown mix of broken leaves with an occasional silvery bud reveal light orange coloured dried rose petals. After re-reading the description on the website, I hunted for the cranberries and raspberries mentioned. I did find the brownish black berry pieces but they aren't as vibrant as I was expecting. With the assortment of leaf colours and petals, it is a poetic looking mix but it certainly doesn’t bring cherry to mind. Sadly, neither does it’s fragrance. As lovely as the smell is with powdery rosy notes atop a touch of cocoa nibs, nectar and light orchid florals from the white tea, there is no cherry on top.
Hiding as it may be, I was game to see if this tea may still come up to roll three cherries in the next spin. The Boston Tea company suggests brewing 2 grams of tea per cup, which turned out to be about 2 teaspoons, although they don’t offer any temperature or time guidelines. Thus, I tried to turn this tea around with 165 – 170 °F water for 2 minutes. The dark straw coloured infusion smelled similar to the leaves with soft rose and hay fragrance. The aroma proved telling. The tea itself was a wonderfully refreshing medium bodied brew, teasing with mild rose and carnation notes amidst a very neutral backdrop of sprouts or cooked cucumber tones. A touch of rose remains in the aftertaste as the tea lifts off the tongue with a vibrant finish. What..oh yes, this was a cherry tea? While the lightly sweet brew was satisfying in body, its character was very subtle so much so that I had a hard time finding much fruitiness in the taste, let alone cherries. Only if I concentrated could I trace out what might be some berry fruitiness but the overall taste is primarily neutral with only hints of floral stem flavours. Brewing for 3 minutes with 3 teaspoons of tea brought a bit more flavour out of the leaves although the cup still remained rather nondescript and only mildly rosy which proved disappointed considering the sweet fullness and structure of the tea was quite enjoyable.
Upon re-steeping the leaves, considerable body remains in the brew which has a fainter floral scent and light reedy flavours in the second cup whereas the third still has a nice yellowish colour with very little fragrance. Plus, there is no bitterness in any of the brews with only a shade of astringency appearing after the second infusion.
So life may be a bowl full of cherries but this tea is not. The refreshing verve of the tea's body makes it playful and easy to drink but if hoping for some cherry in one's tea, one might better look to another orchard.

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