Ocean City Coffee Co.

I haven’t had this one in a while, so the woodsy note caught me off guard at first. The fruit comes at the end of the sip which is lovely, but the initial taste is of bark or fruit wood (also nice!). This is a great morning cup to help chase away the winter blahs.

The dry leaves smell spicy. I’m thinking allspice and white pepper. This is not what I was expecting, but I like it. After brewing for three minutes the liquid is indeed a copper color. Very pretty. The tea is creamy, almost buttery but… blah. It’s alright, but definitely nothing to write home about.

I won’t have a problem finishing this, but it is not a tea I’ll go out of my way to find and purchase.

Every summer a dear friend of mine goes on a family vacation to Ocean City, NJ. While she is away I tend her garden, take care of her pets, and a few other little things. In return I get to eat anything from her garden that happens to be ripe. Given that her family’s vacation is in August, when her garden is in full bloom, I consider this a very generous payment. However, she always brings me back some little treasures. This year one of my gifts was five bags of loose leaf tea. She did the same thing for me last year, and I think she could see how happy it made me just to look at the little bags!

This is a nice tea. I’m not sure what the base tea is, but it is smooth and not at all bitter. The flavor of the tea is not so much peach or apricot as it is orchard. It’s like walking in a fruit orchard and taking a deep breath. The smell of the bark, the grass, the leaves, and the fruit all combines to create a clean, fresh flavor. I like this much more than I would if it were just peach and apricot.

This is definitely a tea begging to be ice brewed, so I’ll probably do that this weekend. I’m also thinking about using it as part of a glaze for a roasted chicken. How yummy would that be?!?