Kurosengoku is called black tea and I suppose it is, except that it doesn't taste like tea and I'm not sure it contains any Camelia Sinensis... Which is how I usually classify something as being tea.
You know, it actually having actual tea in it. So opinion may be divided here.
Anyway, I bought it at an organic cafe in Sapporo and it was just over 100 yen for one tea bag. But most tea bags which are more novel are sold for a similar price so hey, I thought, "Whatever, will try it the once."
Now when I went to make it I realised it's supposed to be boiled like coffee. According to the pictures on the back, anyway. But I didn't have any pot I could or would use on my little stove so I went ahead and made it up like a normal tea bag. The taste was - different...
It tasted like weak watery coffee and something oddly familiar which was not unpleasant yet I did not like...
I did what I always do to tea with a slightly questionable flavour, I went ahead and added milk. Sometimes that vastly improves it, sometimes it does not.
In this case, it didn't help.
I drank it anyway and googled 'kurosengoku black tea'. To my surprise I discovered it is made from a black, smaller and rarer variety of soy bean! That explained the taste! It reminded me a bit of the taste of natto! Anyway if you want something healthy and with a mild, faintly coffee like and nutty soy like taste, get kurosengoku. It was nice. But not what I expected. Actually that is how I could sum up Japan thus far, nice but not always what I expect. Here's a link from someone who travelled in my island of Hokkaido and reviews food and drink rather cheerfully.
