Having sampled all of the Soul Brews available to me, I looked once again to Madison for more kombucha to taste and blather on about. I had intended to dig into the brews of Rude Brew Kombucha but they were no longer on the shelves at the Willy Street Coop or, at least the one on the north side. I would swear I've seen their teas there in the past couple months but there wasn't even an empty bit of shelf space with a sticker giving the prices of the absent brews. Their website is gone as the domain has expired. Does it still exist?
And so I perused the shelves in search of another local kombucha and came upon the teas of Forage which is brewed by our neighbors to the south in Fitchburg, a suburb of Madison.
Forage puts their teas into lovely, colorful cans and taking one from the shelf and laying it in my basket made me feel like I was going to abscond with a bit of summer, as if one can put sunny skies, sweltering heat, and road construction into a can.
I went with their Blackberry Grape for no particular reason. I suspect that it was at either side of the shelf and I decided to start at that end and make my way to the other.
The tea was a hazy light purple. Its aroma smelled tangy sour, at first, and then my nose was greeted by blackberry followed by something I can only characterize as an indistinct fruitiness. I smelled fruit but I couldn't really discern which ones. Finally there was a tad of the floral. Certainly not a bad start.
Taking a sip, I found it had some really nice fizz to it with a light body and not much sweetness. A firm tang was accompanied by a herbal tea taste, a mellow fruitiness, and another tad of the floral. Normally I don't look at the ingredients list until I am done sampling but there are times when I look at it mid-tasting. Such was the case here.
I was not surprised to see hibiscus near the top of the list. So that's where that floral taste comes from. I was, however, surprised to see red wine grape skins & blackberry flavor towards the bottom as well as the fact that genuine blackberries were absent. (Same with lychee - "flavor" only.) Closer to the front of the line were currants, schisandra, and guayusa. What the heck are schisandra, and guayusa?
Schisandra is a climbing vine that Wikipedia says is native to North America and I presume its fruit was used here. Guayusa, on the other hand, is an Amazonian holly tree whose leaves are used to prepare a tea.
The finish was fairly dry in a tanniny way and I was able to taste the lychee flavor. I also tasted herbal tea and a hint of hibiscus in addition to a general fruitiness that lingered.
With all the fruits and the flavors, the two types of tea (black and green), and those exotic berries & leaves, I was rather surprised that everything seemed to be in balance. There wasn't really any single flavor that stood out; instead it made for a nice gestalt. It was also not particularly sweet, which I really appreciated. The fizz was the perfect amount, there was a very nice tanginess to it, and this brew had a tasty fruity-botanical combination. Oh, and there was no SCOBY.
My gripe is, that for a drink that is touted as organic and probiotic, whose maker always uses "pure ingredients", and, in general, is touted as natural and healthy, the use of blackberry flavor and lychee flavor is disappointing. I much prefer that real fruit be used. (Do these flavorings come from Amoretti?) I find is disingenuous to put blackberries on your label when you only use blackberry flavor.
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