White Christmas

This teabag came as a free sample in the Lupicia newsletter. I was expecting it to be a white tea like the Harney version, but it’s a flavored black tea.

This is a fairly likeable tea in my opinion, though the other reviews are not stellar. This is a lighter black tea base and the flavor notes of white chocolate and apricot are subtle but present. I don’t drink a lot of black teas without additions, but this is very good plain and would also be good with additions.

I would be tempted to buy more of this but I really do not need any more tea and hope to spend 2013 paring down some of my collection. We’ll see! hee hee.

Woot, got the blog going, muhahahahha! If you wanna see pictures with this review, check out http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/white-christmas-by-lupicia-tea-review/

FYI, this tea I’m reviewing is in bagged form, flavor might vary in loose leaf.

DRY LEAF: Smells kinda fruity. Huh? I guess I feel as if this tea should be minty. You know, like Stash’s “White Christmas”? I loved that tea until I had loose leaf tea.

STEEPED: 2 minutes over boiling water. Annoyingly, the package did not have English instructions, so I guessed the steep time. I was off my 30 seconds, oh well, I don’t want oversteeped black tea. White Christmas smells very fruity.

TASTE: Apricot! Very much like apricot and it is the first thing I taste! The apricot here is pretty natural tasting and well done, mixed with a little sweet and creamy taste. The black tea here is light and more present end of sip. No bitterness or dryness in this tea. Good clean black tea flavor too.

COMMENTS: The apricot flavoring is VERY well done here. Actually, this has to be the best apricot tea I’ve had so far. It’s not bitter and weird-dried-apricoty-sulfur taste. This tea is great on its own, Lupicia suggests using milk, but I probably won’t try this tea with milk as I think that it would take away the apricot flavor.

If you want to try a good apricot tea, give this one a shot! Even if you aren’t into black tea, this one is quite light – so it could be enjoyed by non-black tea drinkers. I could be convinced to purchase some of this, but I more so will be on the lookout for other Lupicia apricot teas. Lupicia does fruity teas VERY well and one could never have enough fruity teas.

Yum yum yum! I am tasting distinct nutty tones to this tea, even though the ingredients do not mention any nut flavoring to this blend. But I don’t care, because I love the way the toasty, nutty flavor plays with the apricot and white chocolate.

This is a really good tea. Don’t oversteep it though… I steeped this 4 minutes, and I really wish I had steeped only 3 1/2. It’s still good, but I do think it would be better with a shorter steep time.

This is probably my favorite holiday tea. (I’ve never cared for ‘spicy’ cinnamon or chai teas, so that tends to eliminate about three quarters of the holiday blends out there.)

The word that comes to mind as I drink this is creamy. Apricot flavor can go one of two ways: it can either be sharp and tangy, almost citrus-like in its intensity, or it can be very soft and mellow. This apricot definitely falls into the latter category. I’m guessing its the influence of the white chocolate, which I don’t really taste otherwise. I get the tiniest hint of vanilla, too.

A pretty nice Christmas tea! Though I couldn’t get much white chocolate flavour until the second steep. Since white chocolate contains cocoa butter instead of cocoa solid, this tea tastes somewhat creamy and vanilla-y rather than chocolate-y! The apricot flavour was soft. Since I used a larger mug to brew this tea, it was fortunately not as strong as other reviewers even though I carelessly oversteeped it (over 5 minutes!) when I brewed it the second time!

Thanks to Meghann for this one!! :0)

This one is pretty good. I don’t taste much of the white chocolate but I’m def get the apricot taste. Very different taste. My first experience with Lupicia teas. Tastey!

This is a delicious tea! It calls out for cooler weather, but I wanted something sweet today. There is a hint of sweetness and nuttiness to it. Everything is blended well and nothing strikingly stands out. Its soft. It is definitely good!

Sample bag from Lupicia newsletter!

Smells almost exactly like Lupicia’s Cookie. The particles are the same small bits as Cookie too, making me wonder if they added the hint of nutty sweetness to make it more complex.

Brews a dark-colored but not especially strong liquor which tastes pretty much like Cookie to me. I don’t pick up the added white chocolate flavor a lot in this blend.

A bit of a let-down. Like I always do with flavoured black teas, I added milk, and I expected a lot of creaminess and a rounded fruit taste. Unfortunately, the delicious smell of the dry leaves didn’t translate into the liquid. I really didn’t taste the white chocolate – it was more of a shortbread note, and a weak one, in my opinion. The apricot wasn’t very strong, either, so the overall effect was kind of unsubstantial. I like flavoured black teas to be really strong – marron chocolat probably being Lupicia’s best example – so this tea struck me as nothing special. I really wanted to like it, and I probably would have if the flavour had been stronger.

Theres something lovely but slightly unsettling about drinking a sparkly tea. And yes it does actually sparkle. The silver cachous actually give the tea a glittery sheen.

sparkles aside, it is a lovely tea. It has such a strong toasty flavour with a lovely sweet apricot taste as well. I love the really strong black base to it. I love this base lupicia uses (I think its the same base as cookie and joyeux noel – two of my favourite teas).

Dont steep for too long or it will be awfully strong.

I’m not really sure I should be reviewing this now—it’s sort of my post-surgery consolation tea, and I’m a little congested, so I’m not sure I’m tasting this right, but it’s been such a good little tea that I can’t really help giving it some props.

The love I’ve developed for sweet-flavored black teas, which I still blame on Zen Tea ( ♥ ), pretty much ensured that I wouldn’t be able to pass up an apricot and white chocolate black tea, especially being the sucker I am for seasonal teas now. And it did not disappoint at all! This is such a wonderful tea. Again, I don’t think I’m tasting this right, but I’m loving what I do taste—the black tea is great, the apricot really pops out and goes a lot better with the black tea than I thought it would, and what I can taste of the white chocolate is sweet and subtle and accentuates the other two perfectly.

Happy winter, everyone!