Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Tea Information:
Trust us, this tea tastes SO much better than it looks 🙂 Peaches may not scream Christmas, but figs are certainly quite festive! Mission and golden figs taste amazing in this blend with a beautiful, sophisticated and fragrant dark oolong. A very uncommon blend that has a stunning flavour that subtly builds with each sip.
This tea is available from Amoda Tea.
It’s also part of Amoda Tea’s Holiday Box!
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda Tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I just received my January box from Amoda and I haven’t yet finished reviewing the teas that I got from the Holiday Box – I better get busy!
I was pretty excited about this one (really, I was excited about all the teas in the Holiday Box! It’s a scrumptious collection of teas! I love the flavor combination of fig and dark Oolong – these two flavors really work well together. And because darker Oolongs tend to have a peach-like flavor and figs have a similar profile to a peach, it would seem to be the natural choice for an additional flavor for this blend.
And what can I say? YUM! This is really tasty. As Amoda says in the description above – it definitely does taste better than it looks. It’s not the most attractive tea I’ve ever seen, but it is very tasty.
The Oolong is the star of this tea – it’s a mellow tasting, lightly smoky, earthy Oolong with a smooth, silky texture.
The flavors start out really delicate. My first few sips, I was tasting mostly just Oolong and I found myself wondering: “where’s the fig? where’s the peach?” But after about three or four sips, I started to pick up on subtle notes of fig. The peach developed even more slowly, but after a few more sips, I could pick up on the peach.
I like that the Oolong is really front and center with this tea. It’s a really delicious Oolong!
The fig notes arrive slowly but when they do, they’re sweet and really lovely. I love figs and there is something so comforting to me about a fig tea – especially when served warm. It evokes memories of a happy time in my childhood when I would pick figs from a fig orchard and eat them right after picking them. They were still warm from the afternoon sunshine and really, there’s no better way to eat a fig!
And I’d argue that there’s no better way to eat a peach! Freshly picked from the tree and still warm from the sun. Mmm! This tea manages to capture both of those flavorful memories very well.
This is a really happy tea – it makes me happy to drink it and it brings back so many warm and happy memories. If you are looking for a really good fig tea – you should try this one. And because it’s an Oolong, you can get a few flavorful infusions out of it!
Peaches & Cream Iced Green Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Premium Organic green tea with organic flavors.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about how to subscribe to Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
I had high hopes for this particular flavor of iced tea from Southern Boy Teas. The idea of a Peaches & Cream iced green tea sounded oh so yummy!
Unfortunately, I don’t get a strong peach or cream flavor from this one. Not while it’s cold, anyway. I found that after the tea came to room temperature, rather than cold, right out of the fridge, the flavors developed a little bit.
Which was kind of a disappointment, because hey, let’s face it, we drink iced tea because we’re looking for a chilled beverage, right?
The green tea is a light tasting green tea with soft buttery notes. These buttery notes do accentuate the cream flavor, but only slightly. Slight vegetal tones to the green tea. It’s a light and fresh tasting green tea – enjoyable.
As I mentioned earlier, I found the peach to be very difficult to discern when the tea is served cold. I keep the glass of iced tea sitting out on the counter for about fifteen or twenty minutes for the temperature to get out of the “chilly” and a little closer to “room temperature” before I drink it now, because it’s at this temperature that it tastes best. The cream notes are a little easier to discern than the peach, it’s a soft, vanilla-y note and it’s nice.
It’s a pleasant enough iced tea but I enjoyed several other green iced teas from Southern Boy Teas much more than I enjoyed this one. Good … but not great.
To brew: I used the “hot brew” method, heating 1 quart of freshly filtered water to 170°F and steeping for 1 1/2 minutes. Then I poured the brewed tea into my tea pitcher and resteeped the pouch again, 1 quart of water, 170°F and 2 minutes. Then I combined the two quarts of brewed tea together and chilled them in refrigerator until cold.
Peach Apricot Tea from Culinary Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Culinary Teas
Tea Description:
A flavory and tasty combination of mellow peaches with deep full flavored apricots. Try a cup for yourself and discover what makes this one of our most special flavored teas.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I love peaches and apricots. I can’t think of any two fruits that say “summer” to me more than peach and apricot. My grandmother had a very prolific apricot tree in her backyard when I was young, and not only did it provide the family with lots of juicy apricots in the mid-to-late summer weeks, but it also was our favorite climbing tree! I remember climbing that tree and sitting in it while eating a fresh, tree-ripened apricot. YUM!
My grandmother also had a peach tree, but it wasn’t as prolific as the apricot, so instead of peach cobbler, she’d make apricot-peach cobbler and this was one of my favorite desserts. This tea brings all those delicious dessert memories back! And it tastes a little like the filling of the cobbler – liquefied – and then added to a pleasant, medium-bodied Ceylon tea.
The dry leaf is beautiful: dark brown tea leaves mixed with bright yellowish-orange petals and pieces of dried fruit. The dry leaf smells – not surprisingly – like peaches and apricots! It evokes thoughts of a farmer’s fruit stand in the middle of summer!
To brew this tea, I used my Kati Tumbler. I added 1 bamboo scoop of tea to the basket and poured boiling water into the tumbler. Then I steeped the tea for three minutes. This seems like the perfect steep time for my palate – the tea tastes strong without any bitterness and I’m getting LOTS of fruit flavor from the peach and apricot.
The base is brisk and invigorating without being too aggressive. It’s got a light to moderate astringency to it. It’s a good base for the flavors because it’s strong enough to be tasted. There’s no doubt that what I’m drinking is indeed tea. It tastes like tea! However, there is plenty of sweet, juicy peach and apricot flavor too.
The peach and apricot flavors here are so strong and delicious. It reminds me of those summer days when I’d bite into a peach or an apricot that was just picked from the tree. That fruit essence has been captured in this tea: it tastes fresh, sweet and true to the fruit. Most of all, it tastes delicious.
Peach Cobbler a la Mode Flavored Iced Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Learn more about Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
This is delicious and refreshing. I don’t know if I’m tasting peach cobbler a la mode or not … but I definitely am tasting the peach cobbler. And it’s really yummy.
Peach cobbler is one of my favorite desserts. There are few desserts out there that say “summer” quite as clearly as peach cobbler! Sweet, fluffy, golden-browned biscuit atop sweet, juicy peaches and their juices. Mmm!
To brew this tea, I went with the hot-brew method. I brought 1 quart of freshly filtered water to a boil and then tossed in the tea bag and let it steep for 90 seconds, removed the bag and then poured the tea into my favorite tea pitcher. I repeated this process – bringing another quart of water to a boil, this time steeping the same tea bag for 2 full minutes, removing the bag and pouring the hot tea into the tea pitcher to combine both infusions.
Then I let the pitcher cool down a while before stashing the tea into the chillbox and refrigerating for a few hours. Mmm! Frosty, delicious iced tea!
The peach notes are sweet and I can taste notes of buttery, biscuit-y pastry that’s been caramelized. These flavors are evenly matched with the brisk-tasting black tea. It’s sweet and fruity, but not too much. The black tea balances out these flavors. The black tea isn’t bitter, and I like that it’s a rich, solid tasting black tea.
This is SO MUCH better than one of those ready-to-drink iced teas that you can buy in the grocery store that are mostly sugar. I can taste the black tea here. This isn’t an overly sweetened, overly flavored tea. It’s just a really refreshing, smooth-tasting, flavorful drink that tastes more like tea than a bunch of flavors and sugar … and it quenches my thirst on this hot summer day. I like it.
Just Peachy Black Tea from Pluck Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Pluck Tea
Tea Description:
This high grown luxury loose leaf black tea is blended with dried ripe peaches and apricots grown in Niagara, Ontario.
Soft and fruity… chill for an enchanting iced tea.
Learn more about August’s Postal Teas shipment here.
Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
My “August” box from Postal Teas arrived a few days ago, and I was eager to dive right in and try “this month’s” teas. This service is set up to ship at the end of the month, so these teas that I received in September are actually August’s teas, so it will be a little confusing for me to be calling this August’s box when it arrived in September. But it’s really not that important … at least the teas arrived, right? And I’m quite happy with this month’s selection.
And I’m even happier with the note that I received in the box. As I mentioned in my first review of the teas that I received with my first shipment, they include a handwritten note. I dig that, it communicates to me that they took a few moments out of their day to write something to me. While I love the convenience of shopping online and it’s how I do most of my shopping (at least for tea!), with the handling process of the many orders of so many companies out there it seems that the personal touch is lost. That “thank you for shopping with us” and the smile from the clerk is lost (and let’s face it, it’s lost when you shop at most of the big chain stores too) and that’s something that I – as a consumer – appreciate. So when I get a handwritten note with an order, even if it’s just something as simple as a hand-written “thank you” on the receipt, it tells me that a person was on the other side of this order. I like that.
And what I like even more is that this note … was written with ME in mind. They wrote this to me. They didn’t have some formed response that they wrote on everyone’s note of every package that they sent out this month. Let me show you what I mean. The note says:
Anne,
We love having your feedback!
We hope these are a little more exciting for you!
Be sure to let us know what you think!
OK. So not only are they addressing the fact that I sit here and write tea reviews, but they’re acknowledging that they read my reviews and they’ve taken my feelings into account while writing this note because I did express some discontent with the previous box because the teas – while they were classics and quite good! – were just a little … well, it was like, OK, I signed up for this new service and they’re sending me teas from a new-to-me company but they were teas that I could pretty much find anywhere. I could go to my local coffee shop and find those teas. So, I was like, “Um … boring!”
Hey, what can I say. After writing reviews for over five years, I guess you could say that I’m needy and what I need is something different. Something that I don’t already have in my pantry. (And my tea pantry is extensive.) So, yeah, my apologies to Postal Teas and Tease for sounding less than excited about trying something that I’ve already tried.
BUT … I’m not here today to talk about last month’s box. I want to talk about this month’s box! This is the first tea that I’ve tasted from this month’s box from Postal Teas. This month’s supplier for Postal Teas is a company called Pluck and it’s a company that I’ve not yet tried. And THAT’S why I like to subscribe to services like this. I like to explore teas that I’ve not tried before from companies that I’ve not yet heard of. This month, Postal Teas delivered that right to my mailbox.
The dry leaf is deliciously fragrant! It smells a lot like my kitchen did about a month and a half ago when I brought home a big box full of freshly picked peaches. Yum!
I brewed this tea in my Breville One Touch. I put two bamboo scoops of tea into the basket of the tea maker and added 500ml of freshly filtered water into the jug, and then set the controls for 212°F and 2 1/2 minutes (my go-to settings for most black teas).
The tea has a peachy aroma, and I smell more “black tea” notes now than I did with the dry leaf. The dry leaf is all about the peach, but now that the tea is brewed, I’m experiencing a lighter peach note and a little bit of black tea in the fragrance. It smells delightful!
Nice! The peach is a little elusive while the tea is piping hot so I would suggest letting this tea cool slightly before taking a sip. As the tea cools, the flavors develop. (And it’s AMAZING iced!)
The black tea is strongest flavor of this cup, and that’s the way it should be. When I taste a flavored tea, I like it when I can taste the flavors the tea promises, but I still want to taste the tea part too. Otherwise, I might as well just consume a glass of fruit juice. I want tea!
But that’s not to say that I don’t taste the peach in this tea, because I do. The peach is there, but it doesn’t overpower the tea notes. It’s a flavor that starts out subtle and develops slowly.
And what I like best about the peach notes here is that it tastes very true to the fruit. It doesn’t have an artificial peach taste. It tastes like peaches that have been picked off the tree and then liquefied and added to a cup of Ceylon tea. The aftertaste is delightfully peachy!
As I was brewing this tea, I thought about additions. I didn’t add anything to the cup, but a little bit of sugar might encourage the peach notes to emerge a little bit more and it might temper the slight astringent bite at the tail of the sip. But, it wasn’t too astringent and I could taste the peach notes without the sweetener so it’s not something that must be added. I was thinking that maybe a splash of milk or cream would give this a ‘peaches and cream’ sort of flavor but now that I’m drinking it, I think that the dairy addition would overwhelm the delicate notes of peach and you don’t want that!
It’s a very enjoyable cuppa, and it captures what this time of year is about to me – the sweet harvests as the summer comes to an end and we welcome autumn.