Pomegranate Oolong

My best friend left her one pound bag of this at my house for me to experiment with, and I decided to make it one of our Writer’s Group teas this week. One of our members does not like beverages with sugar AT ALL, so no soda and no sweet tea, and we are in the hot and sticky South!

I had a cup of this hot a few days ago, and then yesterday set some to cold steep. I kept this one unsweetened just for her! She liked it very much and even with the cold steep method the pomegranate flavor comes through very nicely.

It makes a lovely pitcher of light colored tea for hot, muggy, rainy nights like this. It was served cold from the fridge and without ice.

My cousin gave me a 30 sachet tin of this and I don’t know how I will get through it. This tea isn’t offensive in any way but it also isn’t anything special. I don’t get any pomegranate flavor, just slightly sweet vegetal oolong. I guess I will put this into my swap box as well because there is no way I will drink 30 cups worth.

I have this in the bagged form, and have been trying to think of ways to drink it up. Oolongs just aren’t a go-to for me, although I tend to enjoy them when I actually make them.

So I cold steeped this overnight. 1 triangle bag in 16 oz water. It’s so good! I stuck it into a thermos today, and am sneaking sips at work. I have a few bags left, and this is definitely the way to go.

I just have to remember to start with room temperature water, because if I start with cold water, the leaves don’t unfurl overnight.

So, I was frustrated this wouldn’t come up in the search bar. In fact, nothing was showing up in the search bar so I went to look to see if I had misspelled something and instead of typing Pomegranate Oolong I definitely entered in “VariaTEA”.

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample sachets. Next cup will be a sipdown, so I may take advantage of that and make it sooner rather than later.

Dry this definitely gives off a very floral scent and all a pretty strong scent of pomegranate – though if I was smelling it blindly I may mistake it for a muddled raspberry. Taste wise, this is definitely floral and a greener oolong with some vegetal notes in here too. I get the fruitiness of the oolong, but it’s not incredibly distinct so I’m not incredibly sure if I could blindly point it out as pomegranate. There also just a tiny bit of butteryness.

Concluding thoughts are that this is definitely enjoyable and pleasant, but it’s not unique or distinct enough for me to feel that I could justify purchasing it. Ultimately, I think I would also crave my Raspberry Oolong from Tea Desire over it because it shares many of the same characteristics and it much more available. The only thing that would maybe compel me to make this a purchase is the beautiful tin design.

I have to say, I’ve tried several Harney blends now and while they’ve not been bad only one has really impressed me greatly.

I’m nearly done this – it’s the perfect cup for a nice autumn afternoon. I love the Fall! I’m going to take the baby out tomorrow and dump leaves on her and take pictures. It’ll be great.

And I made an apple crumble today, with a recipe that is supposed to be better for you than normal so that’s also awesome! :D

I had to drop of a return to UPS and my favorite tea shop is right next door, so naturally I had to go in :) Just to window shop. Right. Picked up another ounce of the delicious peach oolong they carry and grabbed some of this to try. So glad I did. I purchased it loose leaf.

It’s very nice and tart with the pomegranate flavor. The oolong beautifully expanded in my Teaze. I should have taken a picture. Next time. Like the peach oolong, I really thing this would be amazing iced. I’m going to have a lot of fun this spring/summer :)

BTW, my sissy just joined Steepster!! You should follow her. Her name is Anna. She sends me tea and brings me tea when I see her. Gotta love it!!

Thanks OMGsrsly for sending me a couple of sachets.
I’m not doing well with this one. In my world pomegranate oolong sounds wonderful, key word there being “sounds”. In reality this doesn’t work for my tastes. Tart, bitter, vegetal, weird fruit – that’s my impression.
I probably would have bought some of this when/if I ever get around to a H&S order. OMGsrsly, if nothing else you saved me some money – thank you.

Soooo, I heard from one of the local news channels about my video of the storm/hail starting, and then…I missed it being shown at the end of the 6:30 news. I’m so disappointed in myself still so I’m hoping they might show it at 11 too. The one time something I record will be viewed by thousands of people and I miss it myself.

I also went out in the pouring rain to grab hail and my hair is still wet and I’m cold, so more hot tea it is! I was feeling like an oolong, but something I wouldn’t feel bad about not resteeping a couple times. All my tea is mainly in my bedroom right now for some reason (when you don’t even know why, there’s a problem) but this one was in the very back of my cabinet, poor tea.

I just love the fruit flavor of this tea. To me it’s not purely pomegranate, there’s definitely something else in there, something sweeter, since I think it’s far too sweet to be just pomegranate. Maybe some kind of berry. Either way, the fruit flavors blend so well with the floral TGY. It’s light, but it still shines through the fruit a bit.

I just realized a couple days ago that Caribou Coffee carries H&S teas. I had to promise I’m not that obsessed, I just noticed they had the iced tea bottles and finally put 2 and 2 together. Of course, then it was like, hot cinnamon spice…DUH. I’ve had this one there a couple times, but it’s never as good as the loose leaf at home. This one really needs space to steep.

Tea of the afternoon…..

I have new teaware! I ordered a gaiwan and two tiny cups, (and it looks like I should have ordered a fairness pitcher, too!) It looks so small next to my teapot, but I know it will be the tools I need for multiple infusions of the same tea without getting too saturated. I decided to try this tea out first, as I know how to make it and work some of the kinks out of my method. I discovered that my gaiwan holds much more than my two little cups…. And I did find a pyrex beaker to use as my pitcher for now….

As for the tea in loose leaf….. The liquor is light yellow green in color, and the pomegranate flavor is a little sweet and tart at the same time. I love that I can drink this one without any additions….. I had forgotten how much I like this one! The first time I had it was at the SoHo shop last Spring. I purchased 4 oz. of this at the Millerton shop in the early Fall as it comes by the pound in loose leaf on the website. I guess this tea also reminds me of the fun I had visiting the shops…..

Gaiwan, 1 tsp tea, about 180 water, 1 1/2 minutes. More steeping later!

This is a lovely oolong tea. The pomegranate flavour is clearly there, but not overwhelming. The oolong base is lovely and comes through clearly. Overall a great balance between tea and flavour.

Thanks jessiwrites!

The second resteep is still quite flavourful. The pomegranate has diminished somewhat but the oolong base is still nice and strong.