Georgia Peach from Tiny Bubbles Tea Bar

by CuppaGeek

peachTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black

Where to Buy:  Tiny Bubbles Tea Bar

Tea Description:

This bright Ceylon black tea flavored with sweet peaches is our best seller year round! It has a very juicy, ripe peach flavor with sweet aromas. Delicious both hot or cold. Simply peachy…

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

It is officially iced tea time! I love summer.  I am a “cold” blooded person so when the weather starts getting warmer out- I love it.   Even in 80-90 degree weather you’ll find me with a sweater on .  I get made fun of quite a bit, but I’m told it is all in good fun.

Besides making iced tea, I’m currently addicted to cold brewing tea.  Threw some tea into a pitcher and the next morning-VIOLA! you have amazing tea.  What I have found is that when you cold brew a tea, you can take a tea blend that was ok or so-so to a tea that is full of flavor!

That is the case with this tea for sure.  I brewed this peach flavored black tea as a traditional black tea-212F-3 min.  Took a sip and to be honest, the flavor was ok.  The peach flavor was nice and the black tea base mixed well, but this hot cuppa didn’t give me the “Wow” factor I was looking for. The flavors were subtle and the cuppa didn’t leave much of an impression on me.

Cold brewed this tea and wow- did my opinion on this tea completely change.  This tea reminds me of fresh peaches.  The cold brewing really helped draw out more of the flavor.  The black tea base is slightly astringent but I liked the contrast.  Sweet juicy fresh peaches. So perfect for the summer!

My only thought would be to add a touch of vanilla and this tea would be amazing! A cold brewed peach vanilla iced tea? Yes please!

CuppaGeek

I am a late 30s something mom who loves her family, will be getting married to a wonderful guy and has 4 kids (2 mine-2 his). We have a beautiful life together and I wouldn't change a thing. Tea is a passion that quickly turned into an obsession, very similar to my love for polka dots, the horror genre, and anything that is geeky and fun. I drink all kinds of tea and will try a tea twice to make sure I didn't bumble the first infusion. Besides SororiTea Sisters, I'm also the blogger and genius (I use that word very loosely) behind CuppaGeek, where I review tea, books, and the horror genre.

This post was posted in Black Tea

Sweet Nothings White Tea by Adagio

by scheherazade

SweetNothingsTea Information:

Leaf Type:  White

Where to Buy:  Adagio

Tea Description:

Sweet apricots, peach, lavender and white tea entangle themselves for a delicate fruit and floral tryst. Quietly pleasing, like softly whispered confessions of admiration that keep you wanting more.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This is a white tea from Adagio’s Love Petals collection. It’s a fruit-floral blend, containing sunflower petals and lavender buds on the floral side, and apricot and peach on the fruit side. The base tea is a white peony, composed mostly of brown-black stalks and leaves, but with a few downy silver buds in evidence. It’s not the best looking white peony I’ve ever seen, but appearances can be deceptive.

I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 2.5 minutes in water cooled to around 180 degrees. The resulting liquor is a medium golden-yellow, and the scent is mildly fruity. To taste, the fruit is the primary flavour, and the floral ingredients are mostly absent. I was hoping this would be the case, as (with a few rare exceptions) fruit/floral combinations usually strike me as rather odd. The main flavour I can detect is peach, and it’s a reasonably natural tasting approximation – mildly sweet, with that pulpiness that ripe peaches have. The apricot is present a little, but it’s definitely second fiddle here. As peach and apricot are reasonably similar flavours, however, it hardly seems to matter.

Although I can see lavender buds in the dry mix, they actually make no impact on the overall flavour, or at least not that I can discern. I imagine the sunflower petals are being used to carry the fruit flavours, so perhaps that explains their role in this blend. The white base is also strangely absent from the flavour of this blend. I usually find it possible to detect white teas in flavoured blends, particularly white peony as it can be quite thick tasting, with a floral/dusty flavour all its own. Not so here, which is another point in this blend’s flavour. The peach and apricot are allowed to shine, and shine they do!

This makes for a pleasant blend on a warm spring day, and I can imagine it would also work well iced. Adagio did well with this one.

scheherazade

Hi! I'm Sarah, and I live in Norfolk in the UK. My tea obsession began when a friend introduced me to Teapigs a good few years ago now. Since then, I've been insatiable. Steepster introduced me to a world of tea I never knew existed, and my goal is now to TRY ALL THE TEAS. Or most of them, anyway. I still have a deep rooted (and probably life-long) preference for black tea. My all-time favourite is Assam, but Ceylon and Darjeeling also occupy a place in my heart. Flavoured black tea can be a beautiful thing, and I like a good chai latte in the winter. I also drink a lot of rooibos/honeybush tea, particularly on an evening. Sometimes they're the best dessert replacements, too. White teas are a staple in summer -- their lightness and delicate nature is something I can always appreciate on a hot day. I'm still warming up to green teas and oolongs. I don't think they'll ever be my favourites, with a few rare exceptions, but I don't hate them anymore. My experience of these teas is still very much a work-in-progress. I'm also beginning to explore pu'erh, both ripened and raw. That's my latest challenge! I'm still searching for the perfect fruit tea. One without hibiscus. That actually tastes of fruit.

This post was posted in White Tea

Just Peachy Tisane from DAVIDsTEA

by Roswell Strange

JustPeachyTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Herbal/Tisane

Where to Buy:  DAVIDsTEA

Tea Description:

It took us years to find the perfect peach iced tea – but this sweet, summery blend is so peachy, it tastes like it’s fresh from the orchard. Now that we’ve finally mastered our favourite summer fruit, we just can’t get enough. And we keep discovering new, delicious ways to try it. It’s amazing mixed up with peach sliced and frozen into ice pops. Or served chilled with a splash of Prosecco. But the best way might just be straight up, with lots of ice and a touch of agave. However you enjoy it, this blend is a real peach.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This is part one of a five part review of the DAVIDsTEA Summer Collection.

Just Peachy Tisane from DAVIDsTEA was around last year, but I didn’t get around to trying it because it just really didn’t interest me: I’m kid of fickle towards peach teas, and at that time I was especially wary of them. However, this year I’ve opened up quite a bit more to trying new things so I gave it a shot! It was popular enough to come back a second year so there’s got to be something good about it.

This review is for my tea soda preparation of the tisane; I did this at home using my standard tea soda method (Infuse the tisane into a simple syrup and then float the simple syrup in a can of club soda), not as one of the in store tea soda’s that DT makes.

Dry, the leaf smells very intensly of sweet peach candy with some apple-y undertones – it’s really fresh and in your face. I also took a small sip of the syrup before it had been diluted with the club soda, and (keeping in mind how concentrated it was) I thought it tasted exactly like a Fuzzy Peach!

Based purely on this tea soda, I would one hundred percent buy more of this: it’s absolutely one of the better tea sodas I’ve ever made – The peach is very strong, fresh, and sticky sweet tasting. I’d describe it as Fuzzy Peaches meet Peach Bellini meets Peach Schnapps. The Peach Schnapps comparison is very high praise; that’s easily my favourite liqueur or, really, kind of alcohol in general. It does a great job of navigating away from overly artificial or cloying territory, as well.

The touch of sweeter but also slightly tart green apples stops this from being totally monotone in flavor, but really that secondary flavour is all this needs – the absence of blackberry doesn’t disappoint me. This is just a simple, fun tisane that’s incredibly hydrating and energetic with the peach candy flavour. I can’t get enough of this one; and just writing about this tisane soda has me craving it again so badly; I’m sure a restock will be in my future – I think the question is just how much I’ll be picking up.

Roswell Strange

Hello; my name is Kelly. I’m a nearly twenty tea drinker and reviewer living in Saskatchablah, Canada. I started drinking loose leaf fairly casually a little over a year ago, and at some point between then and now that ‘fun little hobby’ turned into a serious, serious obsession. Typically I drink flavoured blends more that straight but one of my mini goals this year is to get that ratio to a more 50/50 level. I do a daily cold brew, and have at least (but usually a lot more) two hot cups of tea every day. Naturally I lean towards black or white blends, but I WILL drink everything; the last half year or so I’ve been challenging myself by further exploring Oolong and Pu’Erh which are the tea types I know the least about overall. My default for preparation is Western Style with zero additives; so unless I mention otherwise you can assume that’s how I’ve prepared my tea!

This post was posted in DAVIDsTEA, Fruit/Herbal Tisane, Tea Company, Type Of Tea

Nosy Bey Black Tea from Dammann Freres

by thelastdodo

NosyBeyTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black

Where to Buy:  Dammann Freres

Tea Description:

Black tea flavoured with vanilla and bush peach. Embellished with pieces of pineapple and sprinkled with flower petals. A successful fusion from sunbathed orchards and vanilla tropical scents.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

One of my favorite flavors in tea used to be peach. When starting my disturbing obsession with tea, I started out with Celestial Seasoning’s Peach Blossom Green Tea. I moved on to other peachy teas, and I think down the road I just had one too many bad peach flavorings that I have been totally turned off by it. I was able to snag a little bit of this in a crazy huge group order hosted by a generous member of Steepster. I heard good things about this tea, and I wanted to give peach a chance!

The scent alone of this tea is pretty magical. The notes of vanilla and peach invade my senses and take over my brain. The rose petals and chunks of pineapple are a bit of a head scratcher, I can’t seem to see the reason for it.

Brewing this up, it produces a strong black tea base with a good supporting cast of  smooth and creamy vanilla and bright fruity peach. Incidentally, that combination tastes exactly like peaches and cream instant oatmeal. Which does not sound like a compliment, but there was an entire year in life where I ate nothing for breakfast except off brand peaches and cream instant oatmeal. Man, that stuff is so good… I still crave it sometimes.

This tea brews up nicely, and the flavor stick its out in the resteepings. I have yet to have tried this tea iced, but I can tell it would be a winner!

thelastdodo

I dream in tea. Hello! My name is Maddi and I love to gongfu and listen to good tunes. I live in Denver, CO with my big dumb malamute and three other people who are not bid dumb malamutes. I like to take boiling hot showers and meditate in my closet. I talk about tea so much that it has become a punch line of sorts with my family and coworkers. Besides my unhealthy obsession with the drink that gives me life, I do yoga frequently, watch Korean Dramas religiously, run as a form of moving meditation, make green smoothies out of any vegetables and fruits within the nearest vicinity, and play video games with my patient and forgiving boyfriend. I also cook for a living and have at least one waffle a day. Likes: Tea, Teaware, All forms of nature, Old movies, People with infectious laughs, Blankets Dislikes: Watching sports, People who don’t tip servers, Slipping on ice, drinking tea for the ‘health benefits’ I tend to only drink loose leaf, although I will have a bagged tea every once in a while in an emergency. I also never sweeten my tea because, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’ I like the following flavors: Smokey Floral Coconut Majority of chai Anything Tropical Vanilla Grassy/Vegetal Citrus Stone fruit/melon Earth/Wood I am not so fond of the following flavors: Hibscus Lavender Strong Bergamot Berries Chocolate Cloves/strong cinnamon

This post was posted in Black Tea, Dammann Frères, Tea Company, Type Of Tea

Rou Gui Oolong from Tao Tea Leaf

by Roswell Strange

Rougui_Wuyi_OolongTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Oolong

Where to Buy:  Tao Tea Leaf

Tea Description:

Rou Gui is treasured for its cinnamon flavour as well as its impressive stamina.   This tea also has the unique ability to keep its distinct flavours after multiple steepings upwards of 7 times.  Rou Gui comes from the historic WuYi mountains in the Chinas Fujian Province. This area is also famous for producing other famous teas like Lapsang Souchong and the famous Da Hong Pao.  Rou Gui has a medium and very smooth body with hints of floral orchid with a lovely honey-like finish.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

I’ve only tried a few different Rou Gui oolongs before, most of them from Nannuoshan, but so far I haven’t found one I dislike – the wide range of flavours experienced with the different infusions very much appeal to me so this Rou Gui oolong from Tao Tea Leaf is just going to further my exploration of the class. To stay consistent with the other Rui Gui I’ve tried I had a Gong Fu session with this one using my gaiwan.

The leaves for this are very dark, almost charcoal or black, and decently large. The smell of the dry leaf is very roasty with some fruity sweetness layered underneath. It’s perhaps a touch peachy? I did a ten second wash with this one; as the water hit the leaves my kitchen was instantly filled with a very robust, borderline earthy and roasty smell.

Infusion One: 10 Seconds – This is surprisingly sweet right off the bat despite quite strong toasted barley notes. It’s a little nutty and definitely has some stonefruit notes as well; like dried peach drizzled with honey. There’s maybe some cinnamon too, but not much. These notes comprise the start of the sip and the body. The finish tastes of corn chips and flax to me with a very intense  presence of raisins in the finish. I’m usually quite anti-raisin but I actually like the way it tastes here. The taste of the raisin lingers in your mouth for a very long time after swallowing; minutes.  For the most part it’s very smooth though it did leave my front two teeth feeling very dry. Leaves are barely opened up at all and smell quite roasty with cinnamon notes and something maybe vaguely like coffee grounds?

Infusion Two: 15 Seconds – Still tastes strongly of roasted barley but it a bit more nutty and has woody notes at the start as well as much more defined cinnamon notes. The body is comprised mostly of rich peach and raisin notes. The honey notes have also gotten stronger, and are tightly tying in with the raisin. Some floral notes have begun creeping in as well. I’m almost reminded of a roasted trail mix with dried fruit/raisins mixed in. This subtle transition of flavours is keeping true to what I’ve observed with other Rou Gui. The leaves smell subtly fruitier.

Infusion Three: 30 Seconds – Ooh! This was not a good pour; I spilled tea everywhere. The flavour is really starting to turn. I’m observing a dramatic decrease in roasted flavour. Definitely strong peach/raisin notes; the strongest so far. The peach is less so a dried peach flavour now, and closer to something fresh. Significantly more floral with more defined floral notes like orchid. Almost seems buttery. Leaves are almost completely opened up and smell sweet like honey and quite floral. There’s absolutely no dry feeling on my teeth from this infusion.

Infusion Four: 40 Seconds – There’s essentially no barley, nut or roasted flavour left. The liquor tastes quite floral with strong raisin and honey notes. The peach has faded quite a lot which is actually kind of disappointing; now that the focus is more on the taste of the raisin I’m losing interest. Also, it’s definitely very buttery. This is the lightest and most watery infusion yet. I’m sure I could probably get a decent fifth infusion but for my own personal tastes the leaves may very well be spent. They are, however, fully opened and smell sweet like honey and flowers.

This is definitely similar to the other Rou Gui/Cassia Teas I’ve tried but unique in its own right too – I definitely experience some more unique notes with the first steep like corn chips and flax, and I don’t remember really tasting raisin with the others I’ve tried. It’s definitely something I’d serve to other people and I would totally drink it again myself.

Roswell Strange

Hello; my name is Kelly. I’m a nearly twenty tea drinker and reviewer living in Saskatchablah, Canada. I started drinking loose leaf fairly casually a little over a year ago, and at some point between then and now that ‘fun little hobby’ turned into a serious, serious obsession. Typically I drink flavoured blends more that straight but one of my mini goals this year is to get that ratio to a more 50/50 level. I do a daily cold brew, and have at least (but usually a lot more) two hot cups of tea every day. Naturally I lean towards black or white blends, but I WILL drink everything; the last half year or so I’ve been challenging myself by further exploring Oolong and Pu’Erh which are the tea types I know the least about overall. My default for preparation is Western Style with zero additives; so unless I mention otherwise you can assume that’s how I’ve prepared my tea!

This post was posted in Oolong