So, I just accidentally deleted the first two paragraphs of the review. Gah. And since I hate repeating what I just wrote, I’m going to summarize. Basically, I’m not that great at detecting different notes in tea, and the best way to start to get them is by doing a side-by-side comparison with a supposedly similar tea. So, with the rhubarb and berries and flowers business, I thought of Yumchaa’s Enchanted Forest right away.
The first time I tried this tea (which was yesterday?) I have to say I was disappointed. It just tasted like floral oolong to me. Very familiar and not particularly special. Reminded me of Jardin de Luxembourg (also Dammann), which has a ton of mostly unusual flowers. I was mostly going for the rhubarb note with this one, so that was a bit of a downer. Also just the fact that I couldn’t really notice anything unusual about it.
Then I did my side-by-side, and boy – flowers! And unusual flowers at that. It also had one of those 1-2 punch flavours, where I first strongly taste one thing and then quickly another thing. I have no idea what, but I’ve never tried tea with either Tulip or Lilac before, so I’m guessing something to do with those. Also, the smell of this tea really started to stand out after comparing it with Enchanted Forest. I’m guessing it must be the lilac, because it smells rather wonderful and I love lilac. Also, tulips don’t smell.
I’m also pretty sure I taste some rhubarb now. It’s got a bit of that lightly sour note somewhere in there, which gives the tea an interesting complexity when mixed in with the florals. I’m also pretty sure I can smell it a bit. I can’t find any raspberry in there, though. But then again, raspberry is also a tad on the sour side, so maybe it’s participating in the slight sourness going on there.
No astringency here, by the way. I don’t usually have a problem with that with Oolongs anyway, but it’s nice to know I keep not having it :)
Still not sure how to rate it. Will be back. Oh, but I definitely like it better than Enchanted Forest. Seems I was right – I’m getting over Yumchaa…
Flavors: Rhubarb
