By Richard Thomas

Rating: A-

Japan has its own idiosyncratic varietals of oak used by their whisky industry. Mizunara has become familiar with erudite enthusiasts, as the wood’s characteristic sandalwood notes have found a fan following and it sees more use outside of Japan.

The odd thing is that even among those of us who study Japanese whisky (but don’t actually live in Japan), their use of cherrywood has gone largely unnoticed. I say that is odd because cherry trees have been identified with Japan much longer than anime, Toyota, sushi, katanas and Hello Kitty. The subject of Japanese woods does not come up often in conversation, even among my colleagues, but when it does come up I never hear what is to me an obvious question: why not cherrywood?

The answer is it is in use, and outside Japan to boot. Every Japanese distillery has a cherrywood finished whisky, most recently Suntory. Over in Ireland, both Teeling Whiskey Company and Irish Distillers with their experimental Method And Madness series have done whiskeys aged in cherrywood. Where fashioning casks from cherrywood is too expensive, smoking grain with the wood is an alternative.

Upton Tea Imports has done both. They ground some of those cherrywood whisky barrels into chips and used the chips to smoke Japanese black tea for six to eight hours.

The Tea
This isn’t a strong cup of morning brew, but more in the teatime, pick-me-up vein of afternoon teas. It mixes a mild tannic streak with a note akin to a berry-driven red wine and a current that is half-smoke, half-ash. This is quite distinct from the oak whisky barrel smoked tea I tried last month, and somewhat better in that it is more approachable for folks who aren’t absolute smokeheads. The smoky side here is strong, but moderate enough that folks who appreciate a current of smoke in their barbecue, chili or street corn, but are turned off by something like Islay single malts, will appreciate it.

The Price
A 30 gram packet is $38.50, which comes out to $2.89 per cup.

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B+

Bourbon barrel coffee has been a thing for several years now, which suited bourbon-lovers cum coffee drinkers just fine. The problem with that bad, watery coffee turned my palate off so badly when I was younger that I’ve never been able to overcome the “ick” ever since. I find coffee notes in things like beer and ice cream are fine, but I detest the real thing. Almost by default, I became a tea drinker, and with my predilections I became the kind of tea nut who made a point of going to places like Darjeeling and the Cameron Highlands.

That put me inadvertently on the crest of a wave, because tea consumption in the US has risen by 20% since the turn of the century. Just as there has been a Bourbon Boom, there has been a Tea Surge. Even so, there are few options for enjoying a whiskey-tweaked tea product, just a (depressingly) few whiskey cocktails utilizing tea and the old sailor’s standby of putting a little whiskey in the teapot.

Until now, that is, because I was recently introduced to Upton Tea Imports, who have a Japanese black tea that has received six to eight hours of smoking using chips from a ground up Japanese whisky barrel. I suppose you could say both halves of my heart rejoiced.

The Tea
I found my brew to have a solid current of smoke, coupled to a balanced pairing of a floral note and stone fruit sweetness. It’s the sort of thing a fan of smoky whiskeys should enjoy, especially if they have discovered an especial love for the recently emerged practice of American single malt smoked using peat from the Pacific Northwest.

The Price
A 30g package costs $38.50, or $2.89/cup.