Dark Iris

Tried this one with milk, and I’m not sure I’m convinced. I wouldn’t usually add milk to oolong, and it looks kind of thin, pale, and…uninspiring. It tastes fine; mostly peach, although more muted than it would be without the milk. I do think the white chocolate came through better, although how much of that was the tea and how much the milk, I can’t say for certain. I still don’t get pistachio. It was worth a try, but I think I’ll be finishing this one black.

I could spend a whole page gushing about this tea, from the fact that even the leaves themselves—and the nuts and the fruit pieces mixed in with them—are delicious. It smelled so good—dark and earthy with hints of sweet—that I nibbled on a leaf before pouring hot water over it. It tasted like the best dark chocolate I’ve ever eaten. Then I munched a pistachio nut and a piece of lime, all infused by their time mingling with the tea …
And then I tried the tea as actual tea and was blown away. I could live on this. It tastes like autumn harvest in my mouth, with lingering traces of summer and spring. So. Good.

I checked out this company because it was getting good reviews on here, has interesting tea descriptions, and was on sale over the holidays. However, I find this company’s marketing off-putting and unnecessarily pretentious. Ok, yes, the name should have tipped me off, but for some reason I had been reading it as August the month rather than august the adjective meaning “majestic”. The first descriptor on their front page is “Tea so modern it’s like nothing you’ve tasted before.” I was originally going to do a line-by-line breakdown of what’s wrong with their FAQ, but at a certain point that’s just free labor. My point is that the things this company claims are uniquely theirs – fancy blends, seasonal batches, and single-cup brewing – have been around for years and are already being done quite well by a number of other companies large and small. A Quarter to Tea, 52teas, Whispering Pines, and Lupicia come to mind off the top of my head. Meanwhile, a more-than-cursory reading of the booklet that comes with your order (and the website) suggests that this may be a dilettante effort: “Tea is unlike coffee in that cold-brewing does not yield flavorful results.” Ahem. Hands up if you’ve enjoyed a fine cold-brewed tea in the past year. Since the weather is getting nicer now, I might try it out with their own blends just to underscore how misguided this is. If a company is going to talk themselves up this much while demonstrating a failure to grasp or respect the basics, their product better be transcendent.

Ok, I’ll concede that it’s good, but it’s not transcendent. This is certainly no Butiki-level excellence. This particular blend tastes a lot like a sweeter version of Lupicia’s Momo Oolong. That one is a more delicate peach oolong but the blends share a distinctive fruity peach flavor. The lime note comes out in the aftertaste, lingering long after the sip is through. I’m not picking up on the pistachio taste, which is unfortunate since that was what attracted me to this blend in the first place. I am picking up on the white chocolate flavor, both creamy and sweet. As the brew cools, the white chocolate and lime flavors become dominant. It’s a nice combo but not quite what I was expecting based on the ingredients.

Ultimately, I will happily finish off the sample and the others that I bought. However, they are not so good as to override my concerns with how the company presents itself. I am probably not their target audience anyway. The marketing seems pretty clearly directed at people who want to be part of the hip, new thing, not people who are into tea for its own sake.

I really didn’t expect to like this tea. When first opening the bag and also during the first steep, it gives off a very, VERY strong scent of peaches. Not the actual fruit, but the kind of tart, sharply sweet smell of peach rings. (D even compared it to peach schnapps.) It took a moment for me to get past the overwhelming candy smell. It does, however, make a very nice cuppa.

The oolong base gives off a buttery, toasty flavor that’s not too strong. It’s mild but it’s decidedly oolong. There’s a sweet fruitiness about it that pairs well with the peachy tones and the light flavor of lime. Underscoring it all is a lush and creamy vanilla note that makes me think of whipped cream or custard. I’ve never had creme fraiche but I can imagine this is exactly how it tastes. It complements the other flavors very nicely. Try as I may, I can’t pick out pistachio at all and the rose acts as a barely present floral note in the background. (I’m thankful for that. I’ve never been a huge fan of rose—or floral based teas in general.) The second steep is more mild on the peaches with the lime and cream notes dominating. It’s a little like key lime pie, without the crust.

Overall good impressions. If you’re wanting something more nutty-floral, you may want to look elsewhere. I think I might restock this tea. The sample is not going to last long. (:

My throat hurts tonight. Not sure if I’m getting sick or if I was just talking too much at work (training a student).

I love this tea, I really love this tea. It was on sale during Black Friday so I bought 2 tins. What I really like is that it’s different every time I have it. The first cup tonight was really lime. The second cup was more peach. Either way it’s just amazing. The base in most fruity oolong is normally pretty green. This is a darker oolong and that makes me really happy. I’m not really getting much that I would call pistachio but I’m pretty sure if it wasn’t there I would feel something was missing. Dunno – I just love it.
The instructions say to steep it for 5 minutes, I think it does better with a shorter steep. 3.5-4 minutes seems to work best for me.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcbBVeDBnSW/?taken-by=dex3657

Just got home from supper out with my old roommate Shauna and her boyfriend; they actually picked the pub we went to and it was really, really nice there.

I ended up drinking a lot so I’m just a little drunk at the moment – but SO worth it. One of the pub specials for cocktails is called a Lemon Meringue Pie and HOLY SHIT it’s good. But almost kind of evil in how smooth and easy it goes down – I was like four in before I realized the alcohol was hitting me really quickly. I almost ordered their version of Blueberry Tea as well ‘cause I saw it was on their specialty menu and I wanted to compare to the Blueberry Tea I had yesterday, but they were actually out of Orange Pekoe so they couldn’t make it. That just means I have to go back there another time, though…

This is probably gonna be my final tea of the night; I made myself a very small teacup of it when I got home just ‘cause I set it aside before I went out in the afternoon not realizing I’d be back so late and if I don’t make it today I’ll be sad ’cause I really wanted to see how it holds up hot.

I have to say that overall I think it’s better hot than it is cold brewed but I still find it really weird too. The peach is so strong though that it almost negates the other odd flavour pairings and what the peach really reminds me of is when, as a kid, you’d finish off a bag of fuzzy peach candies and then “drink” the little sour sugar crystals from the bottom of the bag. I can’t be the only one who did that, right? But it’s the same intensity with that same really bright and almost sort of shocking vibrancy of sweet and tangy.

The rest of the flavour notes are sweet and borderline creamy pistachio and a touch of a soft roasted note/feel. I don’t think this is nearly as floral hot. That, or I just didn’t get a lot of rose petals in the leaf I used. I can’t really remember what the ratio of stuff I measured out looked like, to be honest.

Marginally bumping my rating up – but in a cautious way. A part of me wonders if the improvement in tonight’s teacup has anything to do with the light buzz I’ve got going on as well.

I was so excited to get this sample (along with a couple of others) in the mail! I tried this one first, and I didn’t steep it for the full five minutes that it said on the package, because I don’t feel like any oolong really needs that long… but maybe I should have, because I feel like I didn’t get all the flavor that was promised to me by the AMAZING smell coming off the dry leaf. I think this is the first time that I have been able to detect all of the scents that the package said were there, instead of just some of them. The most prominent scent was the peach, followed by the pistachio and the crème fraiche, and then after a few whiffs I could smell a hint of lime. But the brew just didn’t deliver. I could taste the peach, and a little bit of the crème fraiche creaminess, but even after sweetening, I couldn’t coax any pistachio or lime flavor out of it. The oolong was nice and bready, and slightly naturally sweet, but weak, like someone swapped half of it out for mineral water (or didn’t steep it long enough… maybe I will try it again steeped for five minutes…?). I liked this tea, but it’s nothing to write home about.