The Persimmon Tree Tea Company

Ick, I’ve been sick for almost a week, and I’m mostly better and back to normal functioning. However, I’m still kind of snotty. Past week I’ve been snuggling with bottles of orange juice and tissues watching kdramas. Now finally, tea drinking time now that I can taste tea!

Mmmm, a good baozhong is always a nice drink! Love the floral and creamy notes! Now back to snuggling my tea cup watching City Hunter.

Very lovely bao zhong oolong! Great buttery, sweet, vegetal bean and floral notes.

I had a tealog awhile back when I had this as a sample, and it was on the astringent side – I think I was overleafing as I had no issues with astringency now.

I gotta say, bao zhong is impressive cold steeped! This will be my go to over night cold steeping tea!

Full Review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/bao-zhong-from-the-persimmon-tree-tea-review/

I decided to try out my husband’s fuzzy logic expensive rice cooker to make congee, which turned out amazing! I remember eating congee with my Grandma for early lunches (with hours at the stove making it) and sometimes during our weekly trip to china town in Vancouver. I got that comfort food drooly fuzzy high feeling that I thought I should follow up with a good oolong or green.

DRY: soft floral and fruity – a pear kinda fruity.

STEEPED: strong floral smell! Steeps up a yellow tea.

TASTE: floral and sweet – a delicate fruity sweet zing overtop earthy light oolong. The more I drink this cup of tea and as it cools, the earthyness comes out more and becomes slightly astringent.

WHO’D LIKE THIS TEA: floral tea lovers!

COMMENTS: First sip I was like “WHOA” drinkable perfume, light, delicious! I was in total tea love until the last cooler sips of tea. The astringent dryness at the end of my cup was kinda odd since I didn’t get that with the tea very hot. This tea was perfect until I hit that.

Overall, pretty amazing. I might tweak the steep time shorter or cooler water to avoid that astringent zone, but I could see this tea being a part of my permanent stash, but I have a few more oolongs to try from Persimmon Tree first.

As it turns out when I was a little kid I used to loooove guava. I would beg my mother to buy it at the store any time I saw it. This tea is like getting smacked in the face with a fist full of juicy guava bits. It smells like guava, brew like guava and anyone who loves guava should have this tea in their cupboard. I however, in my “old” age have fallen out of favor with guava. I try to love it, but it never loves me back. On the plus side, I don’t fault the tea for that as its a really nice tea, just not to my liking. I’ve enough of the sample that the persimmon tree tea provided to try it cold as well, so I’ll be doing that in case it lends itself to being more of a cold tea that I can drink. I really do love the generous sampls they provide. It really let’s you play with the tea a bit more instead of trying to get everything you can out of a whee little sample. :)

Sipdown!

I tried this cold brewed today to see if that helped with the tea and sadly it didn’t. It’s like a miscellaneous rooibos tea without a dstinct flavour to say “yo, whaddup, i’m ruby orange!” A little sad as I had high hopes for this tea when i brewed it. Ah well, farewell ruby orange! May you bring delight to someone else.

Received this tea as a sample from The Persimmon Tree and I’m not sure what to make of it. There isn’t much in the way of orange going on here – there’s a lot of rooibos. It’s not a bad tea, but it’s not really what I’d expect from an Orange tea. I’ll have to try this again and see if it was the water temp or timing.

In another note…it would be nice to consolidate the teas for this company under one listing – there are two going on. And I’m not sure what’s up with the picture I uploaded…tried with both the URL and uploading an image and it’s always a blurry mess once it’s on the site. sigh

This is another one that I’ve had for a long time. I cold brewed it over night and drank it at work this morning. It had a an odd bitter after taste that covered up any sweet or fruity flavors. It seemed different from an “I oversteeped” or “I overleafed” bitter flavor, which makes me think it may be time to get rid of this one. It may just be too old now. I really need to go through and find all of my old teas and see if they’re still any good. A cupboard clean up sounds like a good idea.

This was the last tea I had last night. I wanted something cold brewed, and I wanted something fruity. I’ve only had this once before, so I put it in the fridge for about 12 hours. It looks like my thoughts haven’t changed much since my last note. It smells sweet and fruity and delicious, while the taste is more white tea balanced well with the guava, without one feeling like it’s overpowering the other. One I will definitely be using to get me through the upcoming Texas summer.

I got a tin of this with their free offer. It was definitely packed as full as it could possibly go! This smells so good. It reminds me of Hawaiian Sun juice. It comes in cans like soda and has flavors like Passion-Guava and Strawberry Lilikoi. They’re everywhere in Hawaii, and sometimes in Asain stores here on the mainland. I haven’t had a Hawaiian Sun in forever so I was really excited about this.

I tried it both hot and cold. The flavors seemed to be about the same either way, and both ways were very good. Despite the strong smell, the guava flavor isn’t IN YOUR FACE. It’s a very light flavor. It doesn’t taste weak or thin. It’s light while still being very good.

Today I have not been lucky with tea. First I spilled my cold brewed EGC all over the floor, then I had a mishap with this one! The top seems to be kind of loose, and it exploded EVERYWHERE when I tried to move it. Thankfully, it exploded over the floor I’d literally just cleaned because I spilled iced tea… so at least I was able to salvage all of the leaves. However, they didn’t all fit. Somehow they fit before the explosion, but not after? Anyway, I wasn’t planning on making any of this today but I had a heaping teaspoon of extra leaves with no place to go so I made it hot over ice.

It’s a way I haven’t used to make iced tea in a long time, and I’m so used to cold brewing that I found myself pretty sensitive to the bitterness here. Granted, it’s very very mild and is probably because I spazzed out and the water was too hot, so I won’t count that against the tea. It’s just funny how smooth cold brews are compared to the over-ice method! This is a mildly tart, fruity tea. The raspberry is definitely front and center, though I don’t know if I would really identify the other fruit as pomegranate if I didn’t know it was there. To me, pomegranate is rich and silky while this is bright and fruity. Not exactly a negative, but I did expect more, well, punch and tartness.

Oolong teas are so addicting! The complex flavors are so intoxicating and this tea falls right into that deliciously flavored oolong journey that these teas are so well known for. The floral notes are definitely there from start to finish but along the way is a deep rich sweetness that is difficult to describe, but yummy all the same. I was able to get three good steeps out of this one, with the third being about 1/3 weaker than the first two. A fourth steep seemed too weak for my tastes. Another great tea from Persimmon Tree.

Just came back from a huge brazilian bbq dinner with family that is visiting for the wedding. I really want an oolong tea right now, feeling that would make my stomach feel less explody but I don’t want to be up late tonight.

I finished off the sample tea, as I’m really really low on non caffeine teas that are not in my “Haven’t tried” pile. I shared a cup with my dad.
I added some light agave syrup, which really brightened the berry and vanilla. Very smooth tea. I don’t think I’d buy more of this, but was good while it lasted.

I still haven’t figured out what is up with me and rooibos teas. I don’t like red rooibos flavour. However, they keep sneaking into my cart. It’s like I’m trying to love it, but it’s a hard sell. But also, I have so much teas with caffeine that I don’t have anything I can enjoy in the evenings, as unfortunately I’m very sensitive to caffeine. If I have a genmaicha at like 6 or 7 I’m up very late at night.

So Vanilla Berry Truffle (VBT) sneaked into my cart. Maybe it’s the white chocolate? Oh crap it has hibiscus, my mortal enemy.

DRY: sweet and fruity smell.. and rooibos smell. What have I gotten myself into? Generous on the white chocolate curls though, and I love white chocolate in teas.

STEEPED: Very creamy smell, hint of rooibos smell. Looks like the chocolate all melted down, tea is a cloudly redbrown.

TASTE: Milky creamy with a hint of red rooibos flavor. Fruity taste of currants and slight sweetness. Not tart or bitter.

WHO’D ENJOY THIS TEA: Peeps who want to try red rooibos. Someone who needs to be schooled in the use of hibiscus in teas.

COMMENTS: This has got to be the best use of hibiscus I’ve drank to date. I’m guessing the hibiscus twangs with the currant to give that fruitness without drinking liquid tartness of death. As always, The Persimmon Tree makes very good blends. VBT is very balanced with rooibos, creamy and fruity. Personally, I love the creamy elements the best. The creamyness is as if I added milk to my tea.

However, that rooibos flavor is still “uggg” to me, but the rest of the tea I enjoyed.

Another tea nearing the end of its life with me. I still enjoy this though its less wonderful and delicious than when I first started drinking it, and tea. I like the creaminess of this one with the slight hint of berry. Overall a pretty good rooibos blend from the persimmon tree.

Didn’t get too far with the sipdowns today but i DID manage my one for the day and get some quality time in the sun, so i can’t really complain :) Still really enjoy this one from The Persimmon Tree – though it’s not a hell of a lot of “berry.” it’s more of a vanilla creamy chocolate (white) tea with a hint of berry. But i’m ok with that, because i like it. :)

Last tea of the night, so i figured I’d bust out my Persimmon Tree rooibos. I finished off the mint chocolate one i had from them a little while back, but this is still my favourite for sure. This is more like a creamy rooibos without being particularly berry but it’s tasty. And i don’t taste the rooibos so no complaints here. Well except for shipping to canada from this company but you know….otherwise it’s all good lol.

Note: if you hold the tea in your mouth the berry flavour comes out to play lol

Evening tea before bed as I need to g up for work tomorrow early. Back to the grind! Had a blast this evening playing games with friends and catching up. On the plus side as well, one of my friends would like to come over for tea in the near future so she can raid my tea stash and samples some of my matcha. She’s been looking for a few good teas to get back into drinking tea on a regular basis in non bagged form. Yay!

Mmmmm tasty delicious vanilla berry :) nice cup of this while enjoying a show with my other half.

Last tea of the day….helped to calm my cough a little. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Still digging the creaminess of this tea. Still my fav persimmon tree tea I think

This is just what I needed tonight after dinner date night! Soothing vanilla tea…chocolate and berry…but mostly vanilla and delicious. This might be my favourite from the persimmon tree….might.

Mmmmmm last tea of the evening I think. Almost time for bed with plenty of work to do tomorrow.

Mmmmm free tea won always tastes better! Thank you again persimmon tree for this one! This might be my favourite persimmon tree tea now that I’ve had a few more. The vanillas isn’t overpowering and the creaminess of this tea makes it a wonderful dessert tea. :) the tins that these teas come in are also pretty handy for storing in the cupboard.

Mmmmmm this was the last of my sample from the persimmon tree. I’ll be sorry to see it go as this is a really nice caffeine free tea. Perfect for in the evening when I don’t want to risk the buzz from caffeine. This will need to go on to my shopping list to pick up once I get through more of my samples and new teas.