Plum Blossom White

Yum, this white blend is very tasty – a blend that is a must try if you like floral fruity teas!

Plum Blossom White is refreshing, full flavored with purple plum and delicate floral notes. The plum here is very nice, one of the better plum blends I’ve had. It is a little artificial, but not as artificial as other plum blends. The floral here isn’t outright jasmine as the plum blends perfectly, making it a flowery plum. The aftertaste of this tea lingers for awhile too after each sip!

Plum Blossom White also makes for an excellent cold steep. I did a 24 hour steeping (longer than intended) and the floral came out more, with a nice stone fruit sweet edge to it.

Full review of this tea on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/plum-blossom-white-tea-simple-loose-leaf-oolong-owl-tea-review/

I thought that I would love this tea, but the flavoring doesn’t taste a thing like plums. I do like the base teas used, although I couldn’t really taste the jasmine. Perhaps this would be better as a cold steep.

Backlog:

Delightful! I really love the aroma of this tea. I could smell the notes of jasmine and plum and they really create a lovely fragrance together. As I say in the full-length review of this tea – http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/07/14/plum-blossom-white-tea-from-simple-loose-leaf/ – these are two essences that I wouldn’t have imagined together but they work!

Sweet, lightly earthy from the Shou Mei, lightly vegetal from the green tea, delicate floral notes of jasmine, and sweet, fruity plum notes. This is a really enjoyable tea, and it has a light enough quality to it that it is something that you can drink later in the afternoon and into the evening without being overstimulated.

Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox Round #3 – Tea #32
This might just be the favorite I’ve tried from Simple Loose Leaf. Not sure! I seem to love anything to do with combinations of white tea and plum. There is a lovely floral quality… not sure where that comes from, but it isn’t the jasmine to me. Underlying that is a plum flavor. Maybe a little artificial with the plum but I liked it anyway. It’s tough to taste the white tea under that flavor, but I like shou mei anyway. This is similar to the 52Teas Sugar Plum… but this one is slightly more floral despite not having the lavender that the 52Teas blend has. The second cup wasn’t very good, but to be fair, I did leave the steeped leaves overnight.
Steep #1 // 25 min after boiling // 2-3 min
Steep #2 // 25 min after boiling // 4 min

From the Round 3 Here’s Hoping TTB

Meh. The base tea is good, but the plum flavoring taste fake. It actually taste more like a grape flavored Dum Dum lollipop than plum. While this isn’t a winner for me I do think I’m warming up to white teas a bit more.

Plum Blossom White, it is a blend of Shou Mei White Tea, Jasmine Special Grade Green Tea, Safflowers, Sunflowers, Plum Flavor, and Jasmine Flowers. I have to admit, I have never seen plum and jasmine mixed, but I think the idea is stellar. The aroma of the dried (and rather fluffy) leaves is rich, a blend of heady jasmine, honey, and candy. Specifically it reminds me of these delicious plum gummies I used to get from my local Korean market back in high school. They were all the rage with my friends and me, they have a distinct fresh plum aroma along with a grape aroma, it blended the candy smell with fruit smell really well. After that little bit of nostalgia I also picked up on fresh vegetation and a touch of earthiness.

Steeping the tea brings out more of the honey and plum aroma, really it smells like fresh plums drizzled in honey. There is an undertone of heady jasmine and fresh vegetation, along with a touch of plum candy and earthiness. The taste starts out honey sweet which transitions to fresh vegetation and growing things. This fades to heady jasmine and lastly a nice pop of fresh juicy plum and plum candy, this lingers on as an aftertaste. On a whim I tried this tea iced and let me tell you, that was an excellent idea, it was sweet and fruity on its own, but with a little bit of added sugar, it was like drinking a fresh plum.

For photos and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/07/simple-loose-leaf-july-subscription-box.html

Too light for my taste. While it does blend nicely with the base teas, the plum flavor is somewhat weak and could be just a little stronger (so that it doesn’t overpower the shou mei and jasmin green tea). On another note, the dry leaf looks very pretty with the bright orange cornflower petals contrasting against the varying dull shades of green.

ETA This doesn’t good cold-brewed. The plum flavor translates horribly and the aftertaste is better than the actual taste. There is also an unappealing smell. Dumped it halfway through. (I used 1 tbs for 12oz.)

I’m not changing the rating. It’s OK when it’s hot, and certain teas are just better at being brewed one method than the other instead of being flexible for both.

Another tea from the July Simple Loose Leaf box! I have pretty limited experience with white teas, and I’ve only ever had the bai mu dan variety, so this is a new one for me. I think shou mei is a lower grade of white tea, right? The leaves look fairly similar to bai mu dan, except there are a ton of stems in there. The leaves themselves are large and very varied in color. There are a few scant flower petals in there, too. It smells sugary sweet and kind of like grape, I guess. Mostly like candy… Not a great sign for me. 200 degrees seems high to me for a white tea, let alone one mixed with green tea. But I did it anyway! 3 minutes.

The brewed tea smells similar to the dry, but much more muted. There’s also some weird aroma that I can’t identify… The taste is kind of meh. I like the taste of the base – it’s kind of like a rougher version of the white tea I’ve had before. There’s that hay flavor, but then there’s also dry leaves and some grassiness from the green tea. I’m not sure that I really get floral, it’s definitely very mild. But the plum flavoring ruins this for me, it tastes like candy (not in a good way) and it has a very weird aftertaste that reminds me a bit of plastic combined with Dimetapp (grape cough syrup basically). It’s improved with a bit of sugar, but it still tastes just plain odd to me. :(

Sipdown!

I overleafed this slightly to get rid of the remainder that I had, and it didn’t affect the taste negatively. This time I’m having it hot, without sweetener, and it seems to me that the jasmine flavour is much more apparent now – the plummy, rosy flavour of the tea doesn’t come to the fore as much.

This is not a big deal, though. I’ve found it hard to engage with white teas, so I’m just happy to have another sipdown under my belt.

Method: 1 heaping tsp, 200 degrees, grandpa style

Dry Leaf Aroma: Amazeballs. This smells like ripe fruit and candy. This is the 2nd time today I have felt that a tea tasted like some candy from my past. But not the SAME candy as that first tea. This smells like plummy candy.

Brewing Aroma: Same as above, only quieter

Flavor: This is so good. I drank it unsweetened at first, then added a pinch of rock sugar. This tastes mild and pleasant. It reminds me of a warm spring day. It’s very light, but the flavor is still fully present.