A Berry Frui-tea July! This came as a free sampler with my last order. It was a single teaspoon sampler, so even though I usually prefer my fruity teas iced, with such a small amount I just made it as a hot cuppa.
I have to say, the leaf made me question the “oolong” part of the name, because it just looked like an herbal blend (of mainly apple, hibi, ginger, and licorice root… all things I personally like, but uh… where’s the oolong?) I poured the hot water on and looked for any signs of tea leaf opening up and… there were a few, but it definitely wasn’t abundant. I realize that could just be the luck of the draw with the sampler scoop, but that still doesn’t really give me much overall faith in the blend, especially when oolong is listed as the second ingredient after currants. Not particularly impressed and the cup isn’t even brewed yet…
In any event, the brewed cup is sort of a gingery yellow color, and has a very peach aroma. The flavor was… odd. The oolong base is a bit earthy, which already doesn’t really seem to compliment fruity notes particularly well. The main fruit note I get is a very strong papaya flavor, followed by peaches, and the fruit itself would be okay… if it weren’t for the overwhelming abundance of ginger. It isn’t that it’s “so hot it’ll burn you tongue off” levels of ginger, but it’s enough ginger that it is unsettling to the fruit flavors… it tastes really peppery and off-putting. There isn’t enough sweetness for it to come off like a nice candied ginger sort of note, so it just seems to not belong at all in a tropical fruit blend. Perhaps the licorice root was suppose to add some sweetness, but honestly, I don’t even taste it; I just taste ginger. I’m not getting any strong red berry fruity notes either, despite the currant/hibi in the blend.
Glad I only had a single cup sample of this, because this is a pass for me. I find it hilarious that Capital Teas describes the blend as having “just a hint of ginger”… if that is a “hint”, I’d hate to think what their ginger blends are like…
Flavors: Earth, Ginger, Peach, Pepper
