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I chose this tea to be my reward for staying on track with this Couch to 5k program, whee. I wanted something sweet. I may have to go and paw through the other samples for more sweet teas after this. As for this one?

Fruity!

Seriously, where am I getting that from? Of all of the things that I expected when I lifted my steeped cup of light, yellow-amber, canary-colored tea up to my nose, fruit was seriously not on the list. And yet, that’s sort of what it smells like, to me — like someone caramelized some sugar and added it to some kind of fruit. My cup is still pretty hot. Maybe that’s going to lessen as I sit here and sip on it. I’m not even sure how to describe what kind of fruit I’m smelling. The more I sit and sniff, the more I think it’s reminding me of the bananas-in-bananas-foster smell…which I guess makes sense, given all of the ingredients in a bananas foster and the sauce…all of that hot sugar. In fact, now that I’ve said that, ‘bananas foster’ is definitely sticking around.

It’s not a very punchy flavor in the cup. Not nearly the strength of the coconut pouchong. I don’t know if I’m pleased or disappointed by that. I’m also not sure that I know enough about oolongs yet to properly evaluate the one they used here; all I know is that it isn’t the kind of oolong that makes me salivate from the rich, nutty, buttery smell. This is merely an echo of that flavor profile, a ghostly reference to those stronger qualities, lacking the brothy fullness in the mouth.

There is a temperature somewhere between ‘just shy of boiling’ and ‘tepid’ when the cup is hot but no longer needs as much caution in the sipping, and I’m starting to believe that this magical temperature window is where amazing things happen to the flavor of certain teas. Since hitting that mark, the tea seems to better represent the scent it throws off. It’s still not nearly as intense, but it’s stronger. Somehow I feel as though a little bit of sweetener in here to bring the sweetness you can smell up to the level of the sweetness your tongue gets might help to round out and smooth the flavor. It doesn’t need the sugar, but it might make the sweet-tooth itch the cup aims to scratch a little bit easier to satisfy.

Not a bad tea. Pretty drinkable. Not sure I can see myself craving it, though, so I probably won’t buy any, but it was interesting to try.