The Persimmon Tree Tea Company

So this is exactly what I assumed black teas tasted like before Virginia sent me some from Tealux that proved me wrong. Just woodsy.
I literally feel like I went outside, peeled some bark off a tree and steeped it in my tea. Then added a pinch of sugar to make it “drinkable”.
Just..no…please no. I don’t understand the appeal in pure woodsy teas. xD
This is gonna go in the swap box. xD

Backlog because Steepster was broken Thursday night/Friday morning. Just as the package leads you to believe- it tastes of berries and cream. The berry taste is sort of generic, a mix of strawberry and other berries. White chocolate curls lend the taste/feel of cream, but do no impart much if any sweetness. The rooibos is thankfully not very prominent in this blend- only just enough to leave the taste refreshing instead of heavy.

I was just gonna throw this sample in a swap box because it was green tea, but it smelled so good and sweet. It smelled like candy. Almost like a sharper version of Lupicia’s Melon Oolong. But no.
That was a mistake.
Time to abort mission.
The candy smell is so faint when you drink it. It’s like the green tea just takes over. Slightly sweet in the back of your throat, but just not enough. xD This is why I have trust issues with flavored Green Teas. xD

Another Persimmon Tree tea. Honestly, I didn’t realize that this is a green oolong. The leaves are quite dark and they’re not rolled up, just long and twisty. I was quite surprised when I took the brewing basket out of my cup and saw how pale the infusion was! The dry leaf didn’t necessarily smell green, just sweet and vanilla-esque with some butter rum notes. Oh well, onward and upward! :P

This is actually quite tasty, even though I don’t generally enjoy greener oolongs. The vanilla and cream is quite strong, and there’s a definite buttery quality than approaches butter rum or butterscotch when combined with the other two flavors. I do notice a slight green grassy or vegetal quality lingering in the background, but it’s not too noticeable and I don’t mind it at all. There’s also a touch of floral (of course) and a slight fruit aftertaste, either from the “mandarin” or naturally from the oolong base. Speaking of mandarin, I don’t really taste citrus in this blend, but I feel it doesn’t necessarily need it with the richness of the other flavors. Quite good overall! :)

Oops, I’ve been neglecting my Persimmon Tree samples! I still have a couple that I haven’t tried yet, and I’ve had them since the July 4th sale. Now that I’m done with the TTB, I can get back to focusing on sipdowns! It doesn’t specify the type of white tea, but I’m going to guess shou mei based on the appearance. There are some flower petals mixed in for color. It smells nice and coconutty! :)

The brewed tea smells grassier than I would like… I generally like white teas less when they have that leaf/grass quality about them. The coconut flavor is quite good, and it’s actually strong enough! I was expecting much less from this tea after trying their Butterscotch, but this is actually quite a nice and light coconut tea. I would like this even better if the base tea were more hay-like and less grassy, but you can’t have everything you want! Overall, a lovely tea if you like coconut. :)

So I got 2oz of this tea from Persimmon Tree’s 20% off + free shipping sale a few weeks ago around the 4th. I couldn’t resist getting a few of their teas-one of the most awesome sales to me!
What appealed to me in this tea was the possibility that it would taste like vanilla mixed in with the assam. As it steeped I could mainly smell the black tea with hints of vanilla. But when it cooled down enough to drink the vanilla really hit me.
You can still taste the black tea of course, but it’s not really malty or anything too distinct.
This tea reminds me a lot of Harney&Sons, Vanilla Comoro which I adore!
It’s basically the more subtle version of Vanilla Comoro.
I wouldn’t go out of my way to get more of this tea, but if they have another awesome sale like before (fingers crossed for Black Friday/Cyber Monday) I’ll definitely purchase more. Another nice vanilla tea!

Well this is a really interesting tea. The dry leaf smells exactly as described, star anise with vanilla. It brews up to a pretty light yellow and smells mainly of vanilla with a bit of pepper. So far so good. As for the taste… huh. It’s a bit difficult to describe. The anise flavors are very muted with a mixed grassy & floral flavor up front, then strong vanilla right after.
I just kind of can’t make up my mind about it. I like the hints of vanilla, but there’s something a little off about it. I think it’s the vegetal-ness combined with how strong the vanilla comes through. I’ll finish off the rest of the sample and see how I feel about it. Maybe it’s a bit of an acquired taste?

This was a nice way to start the day today! My husband made up some pad Thai for dinner last night, so it was fun to follow it with a tea that reminds me so much of a Thai iced tea… but without all those super creamy calories!

Like the beverage, it does taste more like a dessert treat than a tea, and the black base vanishes into the background in favor of a lightly balanced cardamon, ginger, and lemongrass.

Pictures are available with my full review:
http://wordsabouttea.blogspot.com/2014/07/thai-chai-by-persimmon-tree-tea-company.html

This is my last sample from Persimmon Tree Tea Company, and the one I’ve been avoiding. I didn’t know that star anise is similar to licorice when I requested this sample. I did realize it when I smelled the tea once it arrived. I really really don’t like licorice. Still, I tried to give this a fair chance, I really really did. But the licorice taste was to strong for me.

On the plus side, I’ve you’re a fan of licorice, this is a tea for you.

Not sure why this tea intrigues me so, but it does. I think it is because I won’t let a tea with potential beat me or maybe just because the leaf is pretty to look at. For flavored teas I tend to like The Persimmon Tree as they generally don’t go in overdrive with the flavors. This one, however, prepared per their general white tea guidelines is strongly alcoholic in flavor – too much for me. The next time I heated the water up and shortened the steep time and it was much better. Today I used about 3 g of leaf and a cooler mug of 175 F water for a 1 minute steep. The color is much lighter than the deep honey from before. Now it is white grape. The aroma is pleasantly butterscotch. The taste is more like a butterscotch chai with some spicy notes from the cinnamon and peppercorns. This is a really nice cup. I knew this was worth the effort.
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EDIT – My wife, who generally doesn’t like my teas, took one sip and went Mmmmmmm. So yeah, cooler water and shorter steep time on this one.

I decided to try this again this morning. This time I used hotter water (195 F) and a shorter steep of 1 minute. This is much more to my liking. Yesterday’s alcohol taste is mostly replaced by a sweet buttery candy flavor. It is butterscotch like but the white tea gives it a twist.

I really like the look of the dry leaf. White tea I usually find pretty anyway. This one adds yellow marigold petals and pink peppercorns. It is really lovely. The dry aroma is alcohol. I read other’s reviews and some made a ‘scotch’ connection. While hot the taste is much like the dry aroma. I was expecting pie or at least candy, so I am not sure exactly how I feel about it. I had to take my son to pick up his car at the mechanics mid cup. When I returned it was cold. I actually preferred it cold. I could better taste the scotch and the white tea. In addition it took on more of a creamy feel. The aftertaste resembles more of what I consider to be butterscotch.

It is an interesting tea with potential. I just need to tinker and find how to prepare it to suit my tastes.

TTTTB

I’ve come to realize that Coconut is just in the Evil League of Teavil for me…there’s something almost vomit-esque about the flavour that keeps me from fully enjoying any tea that it’s in.

I had forgotten that when I brewed up this cup…it brewed up to a lovely rich brew, so I decided to give it a try. Verdict? I still hate coconut.

There was an overwhelmingly oily coconut flavour that completely smothered the earthy tones of the pu’erh and that just made the whole cup revolting. It went down the drain, but for the sake of those who can tolerate coconut I’ll refrain from rating this particular cup of bleargh.

Mmm, this is a lovely tea. On their website it’s labeled “Best Seller” and I can definitely see why. It brews up to a lovely golden hay color and smells oddly like buttered rum. Tastes light, slightly buttery with some vanilla cream. I don’t know that I taste the lemon myrtle, but it’s still delicious. I often find flavored teas overwhelming and end up mixing them to tone down the flavor, but not with this one. It is perfect on its own.

I figured since it’s now 9:00, I should probably lay off the straight black teas until tomorrow. Which is a shame! If only the mailman had gotten here sooner! So I chose this one out of my The Persimmon Tree sample pile to try. It’s a green tea and red rooibos blend with big spheres of caramel, genmai, crisp rice cereal, flower petals, and some little mystery seeds. Smells extremely sweet and caramelly.

The brewed aroma is… leafy, grassy, caramel. I am definitely not impressed with the taste of this one, which is surprising considering it has a fairly high rating for a flavored tea. The base tea tastes like either a low-grade sencha or a bancha to me. It’s very autumn leafy and rough-tasting. I do taste the red rooibos a little bit, but it’s very mild. The caramel flavor is strong, but there is a definite artificial aftertaste to it… It tastes plasticy or alcoholic. And I just don’t find that caramel goes that well with the green tea base. Nope, not for me!

This tea smells like a holiday kitchen. Creamy, buttery, cookie-like sweetness. It tastes quite the same as it smells. Very strong on the cream, but with a bright bergamot to cut through. The bergamot seems very lemon-y and it is reminding me of very strongly of my favorite lemon shortbread cookies. This is a beautiful dessert tea with zero bitterness. Yum.
I take my tea without additions, but I can imagine this being beautiful with milk and sugar. I bet it would taste even more cookie-like.

It’s been while since I had a chai (I’m not counting that Thai Chai earlier because it was more of a very mildly spiced condensed milk). And this one is caffeine free, which is lovely because for some reason, I tend to be low on caffeine free options. I can see whole cloves and big pieces of dried orange peel in the mix, along with pieces of ginger root and cinnamon bark. It smells very gingery and spicy, which is a good sign. There’s a little wisp of vanilla. I brewed 5 minutes and added a little condensed milk and sugar.

Even with the additions, it smells very spicy. And it still tastes quite spicy too, hooray! I didn’t kill it! ;) The ginger is very strong, and it makes my tongue tingle! I can also detect the clove and the warmth from the cinnamon. There’s no sign of the rooibos base, and only a very little hint of vanilla. The vanilla would probably be more obvious without the milk and sugar, though, so I’m not going to count that against it.

Overall, I am very pleased with this as a late night option. It’s simple and good chai. There’s a little bit too much ginger in my opinion, but that’s more a of personal taste. Would definitely recommend as a caffeine free choice!

Drinking this tonight because I figured since white tea has the lowest caffeine content, I can count it as a nighttime tea. :P Butterscotch is one of my favorite flavors, so I had to choose this tea when I ordered samples from The Persimmon Tree. The dry leaf is a mixture of (very) broken-up bai mudan leaves, a few golden flower petals, and red peppercorns. I have no idea why there are peppercorns in a butterscotch tea, but I’ll go with it. It smells very lovely and candy-like, with a little bit of spice and an interesting crisp, fresh flavor that reminds me of cucumbers or a crunchy pear. I steeped for 3 minutes.

The aroma is lovely creamy butterscotch and hay from the white tea. There is a tiny bit of spiciness and something that smells like licorice root… Uh oh, I hate licorice root. Well, this does taste like butterscotch, in a very mild way. And it goes nicely with the natural flavor of the white tea. However, this is some kind of weird flavor in here, and I’m not sure where it’s coming from. I guess it could be from the peppercorns, but it really tastes like licorice root. I’m thinking maybe there’s some kind of alcohol flavor element to their butterscotch flavoring?

Holding off on a rating until I try this without the peppercorns in, to see if that makes any difference…

I totally killed this one, and I’m not even ashamed… Brewed 5 minutes and then added some sweetened condensed milk. I didn’t consider it a large amount, I just let it coat a spoon and then stirred. But clearly I didn’t brew this strong enough to be able to handle the creaminess, because the spice flavor is now very light. However…

IT WAS SUPER DELICIOUS AND I DON’T EVEN CARE! :P

I’ll be sure to try this again later so I can give it a rating…

This afternoon I waded through the boxes upon boxes of tea in my den. I was sorting out the straight black teas to use in mystery iced tea mixes this summer. OK, I’ve been doing it all winter as well but I needed to replenish the supply. Anyway, stumbled upon this one. It does not go in the mix. 3 years old and still tastes like day one. This one smells strong of pine smoke. Scary strong to the uninitiated. The cup is beautiful orange/red. The taste is so different from the aroma. It is nicely sweet and the smoke is pleasantly subdued. No BBQ. No bacon. No ashtray. Just sweet pleasant woodsy smoke. I totally miss The Persimmon Tree, and I will miss this one terribly when it is gone.

Just read through my old reviews of this tea and still agree with every one of them. Smells intense. Not for smoke weenies. Taste is milder, layered, and sweet. I miss you The Persimmon Tree.

Yesterday was the last of the Christmas music for another 11 months. Christmas music is brutal for a guitar and bass. I noticed even our professional level drummer was having a hard time making 12/8 timing fun.

Finished off this week, just me on guitar and one singer. She has an awesome voice. We did El Shaddai. It isn’t a Christmas song really, but fit the moment. I played fingerpick style. Our bass player is a much better guitarist than me, but when I finished, he looked at me and said that was an awesome job. Meant a lot coming from him.

Back to this tea – my wife hates it when I brew it. She can’t stand all that wonderful smoky aroma that fills the house. Mmmmm.

I am a big fan of The Persimmon Tree. They generally approach flavored teas as I like them – with subtle flavoring. I want to taste the tea base. When it comes to LS, I want it to be a lot more robust with sweet pine smoky goodness, not ash trays. They deliver. It takes sweetening well if you are so inclined but doesn’t need it. Strong but not overwhelming. I tend to not mind if a LS has a bacon or smoked meat hint but this one does not. It is straight away LS. Worth your try if my description agrees with what you are looking for.

Usually I freeze everyone in the house because I am always hot. Today, I cannot get warm and my wife says she is comfortable. Uh Oh. I need hot tea – of course. I have been craving LS for days. Every time I smell burning leaves, or a fire – my brain goes, need LS! We went to a new BBQ place a week ago. All I could think was it smells like LS in here (really good food by the way). So it is definitely much welcome today. I even added sweetener, which I haven’t been doing, to bring out even more smoky goodness. Hope it helps warm me up, and if it could help with the headache, well, bonus! Probably should have been wearing a jacket the last week. Not ready for cold weather just yet.