Hello everyone!

I want to share my newest creation, and discuss the development process that I went through to get here with you. It is a minty, cucumber-infused green tea with cream and honey that doesn't require a steep. I was inspired to make this recipe after single flavor testing CAP Cucumber; it is a very pleasant and natural cucumber flavor, and I immediately thought would pair well with green tea. So I ordered all of the Flavorah teas and began working on it. The first iteration of the recipe was much more simple than the finished product. It was something along the lines of:

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|FLV Cream|2%| |:-|:-| |CAP Cucumber|5%| |FLV Green Tea|2%| |FA Honey|1%|

There were some major issues with this version, and I quickly realized it wouldn't be as straightforward as I was hoping. The first problem I had was the floral quality of FLV Green Tea on it's own, it isn't nearly as lavender steeped as their Black Tea, but it's in the same tea house. The second obstacle was the dryness brought by the combination of tea and cream, which wasn't something I considered when starting. The third issue I had with this prototype was the honey, it was a little bit too potent and stuck out heavily. So after about 6 attempts at balancing this by itself I decided to expand. The second major iteration was something like this:

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|FLV Cream|1%| |:-|:-| |CAP Cucumber|4%| |CAP Sweet Cream|1%| |FLV Green Tea|1%| |FLV Eisai Tea|.5%| |FA Honey|.5%|

This was the point where I rapidly learned the inherent difficulty of adjusting multiple aspects of a recipe at the same time. If I had just worked by adding one thing or adjusting one percentage at a time I would have most likely finished this much sooner. However, I'm still happily making mistakes in mixing and that's part of the process. So, the first issue I had with this mix was the dairy. I was initially concerned that lowering the Cream by half would make it disappear from the recipe, and decided to "get ahead" of that issue with a relatively small amount of another cream. The second problem was the persistent dryness, that was only exacerbated by the addition of Eisai Tea. The Eisai was also dominating the green tea pretty heavily since I cut that in half too. Lastly, the honey had all but disappeared from the top note at .5%, so I decided to slow down and start adjusting things step by step. I'll save you the numerous adjustments that followed, and we'll skip to the final rendition:

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|FLV Cream|1%| |:-|:-| |CAP Cucumber|3%| |FLV Eisai Tea|.5%| |FLV Green Tea|1.5%| |FA Honey|.75%| |FLV Lemon Tea|.25%| |INW Natural Mint|.5%| |CAP Super Sweet|.5%|

I know this looks unnecessarily complicated at first, but I will discuss the reasoning behind all of the flavors and why they're essential to the recipe. FLV Cream adds the cream note I was searching for to the recipe, it softens the tea and thickens it up perfectly. CAP Cucumber is the reason I started down this path, and at 3% it blends perfectly into the profile. FLV Eisai Tea, while still causing a bit of powdery quality, cuts down the floral part of the green tea and brightens up the entirety of the recipe. FLV Green Tea is a very accurate green tea flavor, it still has a floral side to it but I wouldn't choose any other green tea for this mission.

FA Honey is the best honey flavor I have tried out of six for an authentic honey taste without any major off notes or floral qualities. Yes, I am aware that there is only .25% FLV Lemon Tea in this recipe, but it does wonders even sitting that low. I tried it higher at first, and it has a tendency to bend things into hot tea with lemon territory. I decided to add it because it cuts through the dryness of the tea and cream flavors with some wetness and a citrus note. The last thing I added to this recipe was the natural mint. I was considering sharing it with everyone earlier, but I still felt like the recipe was lacking something to make me really love it. I ordered the natural mint to try Black Blossom Tea by u/kindground, and after testing it I knew it was the missing touch.

This recipe does benefit from some sweetener, but I will leave that part up to you. Choose whatever you normally use and it should work well in this context to complete the honey part. Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this, and I hope you give it a try if you're able!