Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Sweet, juicy pear paired (pun totally intended) with some warm cinnamon and premium black teas. This is a delicious tea–hot or iced. With premium black teas, freeze-dried pear pieces, cinnamon chips and organic pear and cinnamon flavors.
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
Of the teas that I received in my last shipment from 52Teas, this was the one I looked forward to most. I absolutely love pear but pear flavored teas are not as easy to find as other fruit flavors and I suspect that this is because pear flavor is difficult to nail when it comes to flavoring teas. I know this from first hand experience. One of the teas that I offered as a tea blender/artist is a green pear tea and it was awesome but it took me about six months to get the flavors just right and to liking.
So when I encounter a new pear blend, I ‘m always interested in trying it to see how it turns out. I’ve tried several different pear blends and some have been more successful than others and in my experience as a tea blogger, I have found that the key is to find the right complement to the pear to accentuate the flavor of the fruit. Because if you think about it, the pear is a rather delicate tasting fruit. When 52Teas announced this tea for the week of August 25th, I wondered if cinnamon would be the right complement for my beloved pear.
I brewed this in my Kati tea tumber. Whenever I’m steeping a tea with some spice, I like to use either a small teapot or my tea tumbler because I find that the spices seem to embed themselves into my Breville tea maker when I steep a spiced tea in it and the only thing that can get those spices out of the tea maker is to run a brew cycle with just water and baking soda. This works, but I’d rather not have to do this every time I brew a tea with spices in it. It’s just easier to grab this tumbler or a small teapot to do the job.
I used one bamboo scoop of tea in the tumbler’s basket and poured water heated to 205°F into the cup until full (about 12 ounces, I think). Then I steeped the tea for 3 minutes.
Hmm … well, I can taste the pear, but it isn’t as pear-like as I would like it to be. While the tea is still fresh from the teapot hot, the pear notes are nearly indistinguishable. After allowing the tea cool to a drinkable temperature (about 4 minutes or so), I find that the pear flavor emerges a little bit. The more it cools, the more the pear emerges, but even as I near the end of the cup, I think that this tea is more cinnamon and black tea than it is pear anything. The pear is quite delicate. Even when slurped to aerate the liquid on the palate, the pear is not quite as pear-y as I want from a pear tea, and what pear I do taste is a little on the artificial side.
The black tea is a pleasant enough black tea base. It has a brisk taste and it’s an invigorating tea. It’s a bit on the astringent side and if you oversteep this, I suspect it can become bitter (so don’t do that!) The cinnamon is warm and flavorful, not a candied cinnamon red-hot type flavor, but a warm cinnamon-y note like something I’d sprinkle on my toast in the morning. Flavorful and once the tea has cooled to the point where it’s more like iced tea than hot tea, I find that the cinnamon is an enjoyable accompaniment to the pear notes.
And this does taste better iced than it does hot. When it’s hot … what can I say? Not my favorite pear tea. It’s alright but not something that I’m cheering about or gushing with praise for. But then, I did preface this review by saying that pear flavoring is difficult to nail when it comes to pear flavored teas. The way the tea melds with the tea base and other components really becomes paramount because the tea base and/or components can alter the flavor of the pear and make it taste less like pear.
But, it does taste better as it cools, so I think I’ll be using the rest of my pouch for iced tea. (It’s actually quite tasty iced and that fake-y taste is not there when this is chilled.)
