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A Berry Frui-tea July! New month, new theme, and since it’s the hot summer months, I’ve decided to feature fruit-flavored teas out of my collection, since they tend to make nice iced teas. And I drink a lot of iced tea during the hot summer months!

I received this tea as a gift from my bestie Todd last Christmas. It came in a tin from Par Avion Teas, but a little Nancy Drewing has led me to discover that all their blends are wholesaled and repackaged blends from Tea Guys. Ergo, I’m posting this under the source rather than creating a listing under Par Avion Teas, because that’s just how I choose to roll. This tea is still the original Ginger Darjeeling Peach name and blend ingredients.

I actually did try a warm cuppa of this tea with my breakfast this morning, steeping a teaspoon in 200 F water for four minutes. The steeped tea is a very orangey color, and has a strong sweet gingery smell, but there is something slightly metallic about the aroma as well that is slightly off and makes me a little worried about the taste… Thankfully it doesn’t have a metallic taste, but I wouldn’t say I’m crazy about the flavor, either. There is a really nice candied ginger top note with this somewhat sweet cinnamon-tasting aftertaste that is very pleasant, but the peach flavor is a little subtle… I notice it faintly, but somehow it feels a little… watery, or subdued. The black tea base itself also just feels… weak, somehow. I do like that it isn’t extremely harsh and bitter and overpowers all the flavor of the tea, but at the same time, I just wish it felt a bit more substantial. Something just feels a little off about all of this. I wonder if I have to use double-leaf to get a decent tasting cup? But if I have to use extra leaf, then there is already something a bit off. Meh.

It tastes all right, just a bit lackluster, like the flavors should all be a little more fuller than they are. Except for the ginger element, which feels just right, as I don’t like ginger to be too overwhelming. But the base and the peach just feel like they need a bit more “oomph” in the warm cuppa to pull it all together. Then this could really be something nice!

I also made a quart of this iced, cold-steeping six teaspoons in lemonade. I normally never cold steep black tea, as I feel it just won’t release a strong enough flavor, but eh… I was curious (and I added a little extra leaf-to-water as a result). After my hot cuppa felt so meh on flavor, now I’m especially worried that there is going to be no flavor pulling through against this lemonade… ah well, moment of truth time!

Oddly enough, I’m surprised how well the tea works this way! There is something about the lemon that actually brings out the peach notes in a way that I just wasn’t getting from the tea before, and the citrus and peach blend really well together. The ginger still doesn’t come off too strongly, but has that sweet candied ginger/slightly cinnamon taste that hits at the end of the sip, and it also accompanies the lemonade really nicely. I’m not really getting any of the base black tea, but then, I felt the black tea was a little weak on its own anyway, so I’m happy enough that the peach is at least more flavorful, and the gingered peach does taste nice in the lemonade. Since the tea was kinda meh on its own, I may just use it up over the summer this way instead.

Flavors: Candy, Cinnamon, Ginger, Peach, Sweet

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML

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Bio

Hi! I’m Sara, a middle-aged librarian living in southern Idaho, USA. I’m a big ol’ sci-fi/fantasy/anime geek that loves fandom conventions, coloring books, simulation computer games, Japanese culture, and cats. Proud genderqueer asexual (she/they) and supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. I’m also a chronic migraineur. As a surprise to no one, I’m a helpless tea addict with a tea collecting and hoarding problem! (It still baffles me how much tea I can cram into my little condo!) I enjoy trying all sorts of teas… for me tea is a neverending journey!

Favorite Flavors:

I love sampling a wide variety of teas! For me the variety is what makes the hobby of tea sampling so fun! While I enjoy trying all different types of teas (pure teas, blends, tisanes), these are some flavors/ingredients I enjoy:
-Dessert/chocolate/vanilla/caramel/cream/toffee/maple
-Sweet/licorice root/stevia
-Vegetal/grassy
-Floral/lavender/rose
-Spices/chais
-Fruity
-Tropical/pineapple/coconut
-Bergamot (in moderation)
-Roasted/nutty
-Tart/tangy/hibiscus/rosehip

Disliked Flavors:

There are not many flavors or ingredients that I don’t like. These include:
-Bananas/banana flavoring
-Hemp/CBD teas
-Smoke-scented teas/heavy smoke flavors (migraine trigger)
-Perfumey teas/extremely heavy floral aromas (migraine trigger)
-Gingko biloba (migraine trigger)
-Chamomile (used in blends as a background note/paired with stronger flavors is okay)
-Extremely spicy/heated teas
-Medicinal flavors/Ginseng
-Metallic flavors
-Overly strong artificial flavorings

With the exception of bananas and migraine triggers, I’ll pretty much try any tea at least once!

Steeping Parameters:

I drink tea in a variety of ways! For hot brews, I mostly drink my teas brewed in the western style without additions, and for iced tea, I drink teas mostly brewed in the cold brew style without additions. Occassionally I’ll change that up. I use the https://octea.ndim.space/#/ app for water-to-tea ratios and use steep times to my preferences.

My Rating Scale:

90-100 – Top tier tea! These teas are among my personal favorites, and typically I like to keep them stocked in my cupboards at all times, if possible!

70-89 – These are teas that I personally found very enjoyable, but I may or may not feel inclined to keep them in stock.

50-69 – Teas that fall in this range I enjoyed, but found either average, lacking in some way, or I’ve had a similar tea that “did it better.”

21-49 – Teas in this range I didn’t enjoy, for one reason or another. I may or may not finish them off, depending on their ranking, and feel no inclination to restock them.

20-1 – Blech! My Tea Hall of Shame. These are the teas that most likely saw the bottom of my garbage can, because I’d feel guilty to pass them onto someone else.

Note that I only journal a tea once, not every time I drink a cup of it. If my opinion of a tea drastically changes since my original review, I will journal the tea again with an updated opinion and change my rating. Occassionally I revisit a tea I’ve reviewed before after a year or more has passed.

Inventory:

My Cupboard on Steepster reflects teas that I have sampled and logged for review, and is not used as an inventory for teas I currently own at the present moment. An accurate and up-to-date listing of my current tea inventory can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/xjt9ptx3 . I am open to tea trades (within the United States only!) at this time. Note that I will not trade teas that I currently have in a quantity less than 50g (samplers, 1oz packages, etc.) or any teas that are currently still sealed/unopened in my cupboard.

Contact Info:

Feel free to send me a Steepster PM, or alternatively, check the website URL section below; it goes to a contact form that will reach my personal e-mail.

Location

Idaho, United States

Website

https://teatimetuesdayreviews...

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