Peach Oolong

Thank you Terri Harp Lady for this lovely tea sample!

My morning tea’s are usually strong. Regular favorites are a Keemun or Assam (Butiki), Laoshan or Breakfast Blend (Verdant), Black (Teavivre). Many times mornings are when I choose a Puerh for multiple steepings. Ah yes, I love rich tea!

Summer is fading fast into Fall. Yesterday it was 85 and today 66.
The temperature hops up, then down again but I’m beginning to notice some of the tree leaves starting to turn golden. Soon, the full leaf display of red, maroon, bronze and gold will flicker in the trees everywhere I look when driving around town. The snow geese will arrive in force! Great flocks of geese passing through, many thousands who stay and meld into the landscape with the great eagles, cranes and occasionally pelicans.

I looked at the end of my kitchen counter with ‘Tea to be reviewed’.
There was a packet of Peach Oolong that seemed curious. I’d never heard of such a thing.
I’d tasted an essence of peach while drinking tea but I never had tasted a real “flavored” peach tea before. I decided to try it out.

I used a Finum filter and brewed the tea 3 minutes. I poured half the tea in a tasting cup to drink plain, and the other half was kept in the mug and I sweetened that half.

The wet leaves were filled with little pieces of minced peach and large unfurled green Oolong leaves. The aroma was mild peach and vegital.

The color surprised me. The liquor was mauve. There’s something in the tea mixture that made the tea a blush mauve. (a purple very small little stick hard to see, maybe roselle)

First I tasted the unsweetened tea. It was slightly floral orchid tasting and sweet. As the tea cooled the sweetness increased and the slightly acidic fruit flavor of peach with the floral Oolong tea blended very well together.
The sweetened tea version was my favorite.
Let’s face it, who wants a half ripe peach? If you can control the sweetness and have a fully ripe, floral peach flavor…well…do it! (which is what I did!)
The combination of the floral orchid Oolong (which I must say was smooth and gentle) and the luscious ripe and juicy peach was perfect.

Now that I’ve tasted my first Peach Oolong…I want more.
I think Peach and Oolong go well together!

sipdown! a sil sized cup for me and a share with a friend :) Thanks terri for sending some of this my way. For an oolong? this ain’t half bad…for a peach tea, there’s a bit of an after taste here that is sitting funny in my mouth this morning. I’m not sure if that has anything to do with my sinuses being messed up, but it’s not my favourite taste. That being said though, it’s not a bad taste, just an after taste that it’s my fav. Overall this is a pretty decent tea. I like that the peach has a bit of sour too it, as if they’re slightly on the unripe side. But not enough to detract from the peach taste. thanks again terri!

Last night was my 3rd night in a row of not sleeping well, which is highly unusual for me (I generally sleep like a vampire at dawn), and when I did sleep, my dreams were crazy, scary, & disturbing. It’s not the caffeine, as I’m pretty used to the level I’ve been drinking. In part there is the late night blogging to blame, but I’m also having awful allergies, which always makes me feel irritated from head to toe.

So today I thought I’d be gentle with myself & try a fun little experiment, which I’ll call “Peach Oolong – 3 ways”. I had students today from 10am until 4pm, with a few short breaks, so I felt like the day would lend itself to this sort of thing.

Peach is one of my favorite flavors. The Tea of this experiment is a dark green nugget style Oolong (summer?), mixed with pale chunks of peach, cut at roughly the same size as the tea. Dry, it has the scent of under ripe peaches. I’ll confess right now that it isn’t my favorite Peach Oolong, I prefer a more fall-like blend, so I’m not going to attempt to give a rating.

Brew #1: In a cup, 3 minutes, basically the standard brewing I’ve been doing for years. It’s a very light taste of less than ripe Peach with a brightness to it, & a slightly bitter green backdrop. I just remembered that I usually use a Tablespoon, because there’s more peaches than tea, & I only used a tsp. I re-brewed the leaves & the 2nd cup was less peachy, more green, slightly astrigent. When I use a T it is better.

Brew #2: Same as #1, only I added a few drops of Stevia, which really brought the Peach to the for-front, & my mind’s eye saw the color yellow. This was my preferred brew of the three.

Brew #3: I’ve been reading some tea blogs, so I decided to try something different. First, I gave the tea a quick hot rinse, then I went with 6 brewings:
20 seconds – lightly sweet, pale green
15 seconds – I felt clarity, a mild orchid scent, pale apricot essence
15 sec – Alkaline
15 sec – more Tannic, my mouth was really dry…
20 sec – OK….admittedly, at this point I started losing interest…
25 sec – This last one was like really smooth water…

I have to confess, I didn’t drink all the tea in this series. I drank the 20 sec & the first 15 sec cups, but after that I just sampled them. I tried this technique because…well…just to try it. I suspect it is more worth doing with plain, really awesome Oolongs, & I plan on doing so when the teas I’ve ordered arrive. So really, this was just a trial run, I suppose. But worth trying.