I finally got one of the most rated teas on Steepster!
I’ve been meaning to try this one for a while, since I got started on steepster in the first place. The high price and shipping has made me delay for years, especially since I’ve spent most of it on What-Cha. People are usually divided on this one from what I see. Either it tastes refreshing; the natural peach blends the florals effortlessly with the oolong; it tastes fake and the peach overpowers the oolong; OR the peach is the weakest thing about the tea. I eventually was going to try it to see what I thought myself; it’s inevitable.
Since I had slightly more income, I decided to get a few sachets of this tea with the mango oolong. I’ve been using the flavor=sachet, high grade tea=loose leaf rule. I was very close to getting either the Melon and the Queen’s Muscat Oolongs, but I don’t need more than 50 grams of tea , and the current expiration date for the Muscat oolong was in July of this year…I was not going to risk a long shipping time on that. My greedy thirst does want to try EVERYTHING, but I cannot have TOO much more tea.
After reading through the reviews on here closely, I expected this tea to be a very light sachet that tasted a lot like those Japanese Kasugai peach and lychee gummies that I am addicted to. They are sweet, but are definitely softer in profile. This sachet’s flavoring is nearly identical to those, and I personally fall under as one of the natural balance of peach and florals reviewers. Opening the bag gave me the immense peach blossom rose that reminded me of lychees, and it made me immediately think of Hawaii. I think I may have been to that store myself when I was really young. So, it’s got some points for nostalgia already.The nice thing about this tea sachet is that it really does not oversteep in large mugs for me. I had about 12 oz of this one, and I’ve had it twice. The second brew is weaker, but it’s still peachy. The rose is subtle, but I can definitely taste it. I am glad they used flowers instead of a rose flavor since it could have been too perfumey.
As for the teabase, it was not as high grade leaf as it advertises. I think it would have been had I gotten the loose leaf version of it. It’s possible that the Baozhong leaves ARE high grade, but got broken up in the bags. There is some dust, however. It luckily does not make the tea astringent. They could have used a little bit more Baozhong in the sachets or a different source for better leaves, but it would have been extremely easy to make this tea too astringent with a baozhong base.
Baozhongs are one of my favorite oolongs, and they blend really well with fruit flavors, but even on their own, they can become astringent like Green Teas. I think the sachet was made with the notion that someone might leave it in their mug.
So to finally wrap up my ramble, this was the nice refreshing oolong sachet I hoped it would be. It reminds me of home, sunshine, spring and summer. I do agree that the flavor could have been drawn out a little bit more, but I enjoy that it’s intentionally light. I do not think it deserves to cost $1 per sachet, but it’s a unique tea that I do not regret getting. It’s a 75 in terms of tea quality, a near 90 for in terms of aroma, 80 in terms of taste, so I personally rate it 85.
