3582 Tasting Notes
Sipdown
June Sipdown Challenge Prompt – an unflavored black tea
I have had this tea several times over the past few days. I get three steeps consistently, all good, even when I drink them separately instead of combining them all into a single pot mixed.
It is good for breakfast sipping if you don’t require a morning kick in the pants, good for afternoon tea time (even though it is called a breakfast tea), and was over the top delicious served alongside vanilla ice cream. I love warm tea with ice cream!
Would definitely re-order when my unflavored black tea stash gets low.
June 1st Sipdown Challenge Prompt – in honor of June’s birthstone, the pearl
Although I have had this tea before, Ashman has not. I told him we needed to drink it today to fulfill a prompt and told him we would have it at afternoon snack time. When asked if he had a preference for snack, he said his only request was that there be one. I made blueberry cobbler and we ate a remarkable amount of it, both of us going back for seconds which we don’t usually do for snacks.
We have only done two steeps so far but I will make another in a few minutes.
Notes are as before – it is a mild green tea without so much astringency and bite as I have come across in many jasmine teas and even in pearl tea. The jasmine is lovely and just right – not heavy and cloying but also more than just a whisper. I would definitely be willing to repurchase this tea.
Uh oh… sounds like you’re now all out of jasmine green tea pearls! Looking forward to your reports from the next adventure!
Not out! The sipdown challenges can be fulfilled by any tea you have! I have over half the tin left, but it is a very small tin. I already have another jasmine silver needle to work on, too.
I got a wonderful surprise tea envelope from Courtney! Thank you so much!
After getting drenched when it started to pour during my evening walk, I wanted a hot and cozy cuppa. I try to avoid caffeine late in the day so this was a perfect time to try this brand-new-to-me tea!
The base is green rooibos, which I greatly prefer to red. There are little pieces of dried peach and a powerful peach aroma to the dry blend.
Is Fuzzy Peach a type of candy? I got the impression from other reviews that it is, but if so, I have never tried it.
The tea is just bursting with peach flavor. Since the aroma was strong, I decided to do the steep it twice and combine method for a giant pot of tea and served it with cookies. It reminds me of Simpson and Vail’s green rooibos blends quite a bit, and I love those. We both enjoyed it very much.
Thank you, again, Courtney! What a lovely surprise!
May Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a tea you will reorder ASAP
Sipdown – sort of
Is this cheating? It fulfills the prompt and the truth is I sipped down one package and had already re-ordered this seasonal, limited time availability tea and it has arrived.
Superanna gave me this last year and we both gasped and made nommy noises when we tried it. It is a tea with a lot of presence. The salted cherry leaf adds big impact to the flavor and provides a cup of serious oomph. I think I ordered extra the same day she gave it to me, and ordered again this year when I saw that it was available again. It has wonderful berry flavor, too.
May Sipdown Challenge Prompt – your current favorite tea
To be honest, I don’t have a current favorite tea. Every time I drink tea, I figure out what I am in the mood for.
But this tea is one that make me squeee and hug myself when I walk past the tin. I confess I am hoarding it a bit, only having it occasionally when I want something I especially like.
The berry flavor here is stunning and I love it, and the base tea is a good, solid presence. The balance of base and flavoring is spot on.
Sipdown
Ashman and I made a ton of this to go with lemon cookies last night and I saved the rest for sweet iced tea for today. It is fresh and lemony, and so smooth and sweet on its own that it takes very little sugar to get it sweet enough for Ashman, who isn’t used to unsweetened iced tea yet.
May Sipdown Prompt – the tea with the most ingredients
I drank white jasmine last night late and couldn’t sleep, although that may not have been the fault of the tea. Tonight I decided to stick with caffeine free. This one is a night time favorite, and is also worthy of the prompt a tea you will repurchase right away. i might just drink it again before May is out for that one!
The fresh apple taste is so good and it just occurred to me that this would probably be fabulous as an iced tea for summer. I know how I am having it next!
Aahhh, thank you ashmanra, for reminding me of my long-gone mother, who would read Ms. Potter’s stories of gardens and bunnies to her imaginative little boy at bed-time. It’s been over a half century now, and I’m feeling all warm & fuzzy and a bit misty-eyed. ;,-)
I love children’s literature! I actually never had this read to me as a child, but when my children were little we began a tradition of reading one of the Potter series each night on December 1 through the 23rd. On Dec. 24 at bedtime, we read Luke 2, just as my father always did.
My mother was a voracious reader and instilled a love of reading in me, but never actually read to me that I recall. My father did read to me, though, and when I was older we went to the library together.
When I had children we read all the time. As homeschoolers, we would read aloud for literally hours each day, especially in winter. One daughter still lives with us, and we read Brambly Hedge aloud after my most recent surgery, a series that was new to me and is similar to the Potter books.
May Sipdown Prompt – a tea with good memories attached
I have lots of good memories with the Queen. I drank the Queen with my friend Sandy back when my tea obsession was just beginning. It was one of the first teas I shared with my then-coffee-drinking friend, Melissa, who quickly converted to tea and is as obsessed as I am now. I felt sustained by the Queen throughout radiation for breast cancer fourteen years ago. I drank the Queen at the gym, walking on the track during a period of depression with One Republic’s Good Life playing through my ear buds and felt stronger. And I have had countless cups of it on countless mornings and afternoons throughout the past fifteen or so years.
Sandy nailed the elusive part of the flavor that I loved – a little bit smoky, not like a lapsang, but with that touch of smoke that feels like it is keeping you on your feet. I have always been partial to teas from China and this one is a blend of three.
I love black tea with ice cream, and the last few times we have had ice cream in the evening I have been brave (or foolish) and made a small cup of tea to go with mine, regardless of whether it was decaf. I just chose what I was in the mood for, and I was in the mood for this one. Perfection.
Long live the Queen!
This tea was sent to me by Martin – many thanks, Martin!
I had this on the patio after breakfast. Although I looked at this listing for it a while back, I had forgotten what the flavors were so I had fun trying to see what scents I detected. I thought I was smelling lemon, but not tart lemon. It was a soft and slightly citrus aroma. There was a fruitiness as well. I asked Ashman to sniff the tea and then sip it and he said he detected fruit and he liked the tea.
The more I sipped the more I thought it was reminding of something with lavender that I have had before…and I realized I was tasting fig! The fig flavor really built up throughout the several small cups that I drank. I have Fig and Lavender from Tea Grotto and this reminds me very much of their fig flavoring. I liked theirs so much that I put it on my wishlist a while back, and Superanna bought me some.
The fig in this was so very similar to that one, minus the lavender. It was delicious. I think perhaps the base was giving the lemon vibes, but it was not at all astringent or sharp. It was quite smooth. The base tea was full of middle notes, lacking really sharp high tones or deep bassy or cocoa tones. It was a great carrier for this lovely flavoring.
Wow, it’s great you enjoyed it, but also a pity that more is unavailable since Michelle reported that they’ve changed the formulation to replace the fig with a yucky black-current flavoring. I hate when that happens! To top it off, all the customer reviews on P&T’s site are from before the reformulation! =Not a good thing!
Yes, my sample pouch said “old version” on it, and I am glad I got to taste the one before the unfortunate recipe change.
It is indeed a shame that they switched fig with black currant. While I pretty much adore the latter, fig was kind of unique flavour; hard to find. I have one fig tea in the office; I need to write notes before it will be a sipdown.
