The Persimmon Tree Tea Company

I received this sample in a trade I think, or a traveling teabox because I certainly don’t remember ever buying anything from this company before. I may have to change that though if all their teas are as tasty as this one. The pu-erh base is fantastic giving the tea rich, earthy notes that also manage to be slightly sweet. It goes well with the nutty coconut flavours and though I’m not getting hazelnut exactly there’s a distinct flavour of tree nuts somewhere in there. 10/10 would recommend.

Teeny Tiny TTB

I have 3 remaining teas to try from this tea box and they are on the docket for today. This was one of them. I was a little worried about the pu-erh and I am getting some kind of weird taste from it that I can’t quite place. It’s not horrible, but it’s not something I would want to drink again. It is surprisingly smooth and creamy, but not quite delicious though not bad enough to dump.

Another tea from VariaTEA which gets me to 210…soo many teas still to drink to get to 200, let alone 100. I have to say, with this tea, the jury is still out. initial sips provide a flavourless sort of tea until the tail end of the sip where the butterscotch is hiding out. but when you hit that butterscotch, it’s delicious! Soooo while i am a fan of the flavour, i’m not a fan of that initial taste you need to get through to get to the good times :) still though, i can appreciate why ppl like this one, so thanks variatea!

Sipdown (168/174)!

Another from 221Tea. When I saw it I knew immediately I’d be cold brewing it! I just need to find that perfect Coconut Grove replacement. I mean, I’ve come close but still not quite there. I thought this would be a good match because of the white base.

It was good; just still not that same level of spectacular. Biggest complain is that this was all creamy coconut until the end sip which had this unpleasant, sharp sourness that I don’t think coconut should ever have. That through it off a lot for me. So nice to try, but not gonna pursue.

Oh, Tre bought a bike. I did not know Tre bought a bike until I came home from work late at night, exhausted and walked into the apartment with all the lights out, turned the corner and tripped over the MASSIVE box he’d left in the middle of the floor.

It’s been at least three days now; the box is still there. No one will move it. And it’s stinks; like tires…

Nasty, plastic tires. Yuck.

I enjoy this a lot – the white tea base is very flavorful. That said, I have never had guava I don’t think. I have had artificially flavored stuff that is supposed to be guava, but I can’t fully assess how guava-y this tastes. It does have a strong but not overpowering fruit flavor I like. I think it is much better iced than hot, but that is how I prefer fruity tea.

Wow, I am on a roll with teas this AM! Both selections so far are new, and both were very good. This white tea smells wonderful, and when brewed, it absolutely tastes like coconut.

I tried it without sugar, and then with a little added. It was good both ways, but I preferred it with a small amount of rock sugar.

Coconut isn’t my favorite flavor, but this was a very well done coconut tea. I’m happy to have received the sample from The Persimmon Tree.

I’ve been bad about posting tasting notes lately. I still drink lots of tea… I’m just not good about writing down my thoughts on them.

This one came in one of their cute little one oz tins. I think I’ve figured out how they manage to stuff soo much tea into these tins. My theory is that the caps and bodys are already attached, and they seal the bottom of the tin! I don’t know how else they get everything to fit!

Anyway. This tea dry looks like a flat long leaf intermixed with crasins. The cranberry taste isn’t too sweet thankfully. Rather tart and bright. But thankfully not tart like hibiscus tart. The green tea actually comes through quite strongly, which I love.

As usual I got distracted and let the cup cool, but it still tastes good cold, but the cranberry taste is much more apparent when warm.

Pomegranate? Umm, not really.

I love pomegranates. I used to buy them by the bagfull from the farmer’s market during undergrad. They’re sweet and tart and soo juicy.

This though to me is cranberries. Not even fresh cranberries, more like the sweet dried cranberries. The little ornamental fruits even look like crasins! That I couldn’t get out of my mind, so the aroma was all cranberries to me and I couldn’t think of pomegranates when drinking it.

Most of the fruit is aroma though, and the other sensory is all straight green tea. The taste and mouthfeel was green and didn’t leave me with any fruitiness at all. This normally would have been fine, but I had brewed in a gravity steepster and transferred to an thermos. So sometimes I couldn’t even catch the aroma as it cooled and all I got was green tea. Which isn’t bad, but not exactly how I would have wanted it.

Second steep was just green tea with a hint of cranberry aroma. Not nearly as much aroma as the first cup, Persimmon tree doesn’t flavor their teas as much as I’m used to, and I’m not sure yet if that’s something I like. It kind of takes the fun out of multiple steepings.

I got this as part of their green tea gift set.

Oh! When they say that this tea is tightly curled, they aren’t kidding. The curls were so tiny and cute! Admittedly they unfurled to not very large leaves. Is that a good or bad thing?

The dry smell is like the tea smell in the tea section of the asian supermarket. It smells familiar, and I wonder if it’s very popular among green tea varieties. I’m still getting used to the idea of green tea varieties beyond “green, Jasmine, roasted, matcha, sencha”. Haha before Steepster, that was pretty much all I could identify by taste alone, not that I can say that I would be able to distinguish this as gunpowder on taste/smell, but maybe someday!!

This green tea is like BOOM! HELLO! I really really like it! And yet it doesn’t carry any odd flavors or notes I would distinguish as green tea. Alot of greens people describe as ‘grassy’ or ‘vegetal’ and I’m starting to see/understand that in some of the ones I’ve tried. This however to me tastes like straight up green tea, there is no other way to describe this flavor in my mind, and breaking it down to notes seems fussy. It’s beautiful and classic. I would PROBABLY like to try other gunpowder greens out there to see if I could tell the difference, but I do like this and would happily serve it to anyone wanting ‘just green tea’.

Cold brewed yummy creamy coconut, kind of reminds me of a coconut cream popsicle.

Can’t remember who gave me a sample of this, but it was super refreshing and fruity cold brewed at lunch today!

Water: 16oz

Leaves: Small chopped leaves with bits of orange peel, safflowers & hibiscus

Steep:

Aroma: the usual rooibos

Color: Rich deep copper orange

Taste: Today I decided to test out my new Brita water pitcher for making this tea. I use 16 oz due to the amount of tea that comes in a sample packet. The aroma was that of the typical rooibos (dry leaf). Upon steeping the tea had released more of a citrus note (wet leaf). I noticed the color was much deeper and richer than the rooibos I had previously, this was probably due to the addition of the hibiscus. Overall I found this to be an okay lightly flavored tea.

Light and dainty. Great for sipping and light tea drinking. Beware: don’t burn the leaves! Read the full review here: http://www.abbisiler.com/tea/the-persimmon-tree-tea-company-silver-needle

YUM! That’s how I’d describe this tea – whether you drink this tea hot or cold the fruity floral flavors are light and refreshing. One of my favorite teas! Read the full review here: http://www.abbisiler.com/tea/peach-apple-crisp-persimmon-tree-tea

Interesting. My first cup did not match other’s reviews. I got a very mellow rooibos with peppery notes – not hot and spicy, just nicely seasoned. I easily finished the cup. I decided the blend had settled so I poured the tin out into a bowl and mixed it with the scoop. This did change the flavor some. The second cup was light warm chocolate with hints of banana. The pepper moved to the back and meshed nicely. I could taste a light tartness from the apple at the end of the sip. None of the flavors stood out. It is just a nice mellow cup. The most interesting thing to me was how this worked to tame the rooibos. The aroma while steeping is unquestionably rooibos. In the cup it has the rough edges smoothed away. Everything blended together resembled almost a cherry flavor. I found it very easy to drink.

Surprisingly tasty! This black tea is a blend of Nilgiri and Yunnan Golden Buds. I found the two teas were well balanced – crisp, malty, rice, with a bit of fluffy silky texture. Also some light raisin notes and bit of briskness. No bitterness, and only a hint of dryness.

I had this tea for breakfast and it really hit the spot! Especially after spending all yesterday canning strawberries (my feet are dying).

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/vintage-black-persimmon-tree-oolong-owl-tea-review/

It’s cold. It’s raining. The furnace is running. I checked the calendar and it’s the middle of May even if I can’t tell it. Peach tea just says summer to me. So closing my eyes and pretending. Steeped this up and hot it is a light flavorful peach and white peony. Very pleasant. Very relaxing. Halfway through the cup I realized I was late for an appointment and had to abandon the tea. When I got home I decided to go ahead and taste it. Very happy I did. Once the heat leaves the cup the peach begins to jump and shout. This becomes the summer thirst quenching peach tea I wanted today. Cold and nasty outside but it’s summer in my den. This begs for ice.

Another sample I bought with my Persimmon Tree order a few weeks ago. I thought since I’ve enjoyed a few orange/citrus teas, that I would be brave and get myself a sample of theirs.

Dry leaf smells mildly sweet and orange

Steeped I got creamy orange with the base playing a supporting role in the mouth feel and flavor. I did find that after a couple of sips it started tasting chemical and artificial… Oh no! It got even more so as it cooled.

Since this is an oolong I decided to do a resteep. Much to my surprise it that chemical flavor was gone and I enjoyed it much more this time. The chemical flavor began to return as it cooled… Bummer.

I did a third steep and it was much like the second. Note to self… Drink this one hot!

I enjoy this enough to finish the sample. I just wish the orange flavor was true throughout the variety of temperatures that my cup tends to get before I finish it. I don’t know if it would ever be a re-order or not… but I do find I like the light base with this. Maybe if I order from them again sometime I would consider another sample.

I like this, however there’s something in the end of the sip that doesn’t appeal to me, and I think it’s the base. It’s a spicy chai with little to no heat, and there’s a fair amount of cinnamon and clove here, because it’s numbing my mouth a bit. I’d love this if it weren’t for the dryness at the end of the sip.

Thank you to the lovely Suziqzer for gifting this to me!

Sipdown (176/182)!

This was not a pleasant sipdown, but that’s my fault…

I thought this tasted wonderful and boozey the first time I had it, so I figured I’d add in some Butter Ripple Scnapps to enhance that taste. Bad choice; turns out I’ve created a concoction that tastes like rubbing alcohol. Never again.

Even sadder than this being my last cup of this tea? That was the last of the schnapps too. I finished it out of guilt, but it was not good.

Thank you 221tea for the sample! I’ve tried a few teas from this company but none of them really hit it off with me so I was discouraged about exploring them some more, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this included in your swap because it looked like something that fit my tastes and it kind of forced me to try some more things from this company.

I’ll be honest; the peppercorns weirded me out which is why I didn’t try it sooner: they just don’t seem to have any place with a butterscotch flavoured tea! WHERE DO THEY FIT IN!? But it smelled delightful so I was keeping my hopes up anyway. Definitely glad that I did, because this was really, really good! I didn’t even taste those weird little peppercorns at all!

Mostly I think this was a very rich butterscotch flavour, and actually maybe a bit boozey? It very heavily reminded me of my favourite Butter Ripple Schnapps so I think I’ll save that last cup for sometime when I’m more able to drink a bit more freely (ie. next time I have a day off work) and then I’ll add in a shot or so of the Schnapps! I have a good feeling about it!

And now I think it’s time for a nap…

Odd. I know I’ve had this and reviewed it. Steepster loses data yet again. :(

I’m fighting off something, and while I know I’ll be fine, I’m using tea to catch it before it turns into anything, as I’ve got a whack of work to do in the next 24hours or so. So, I’m drinking this. Really, it just tastes like flavored hay at this point, but that doesn’t bother me one bit. The chai next to it, I’m enjoying. This? Meant to infuse my body with goodness.