269/365
I think this is the last of the teas I picked up with my latest Leaves of the World order, although I’ve one from a previous order that I’ve not tried yet. Must get to that! This one wasn’t part of their summer collection, but I feel like I rarely see a fig tea so I had to give it a go.
It brews up to a very pale yellow – no hibi here! – and I could easily mistake it for a white tea were it not for the scent. It smells like Um-Bongo – that tropical fruit drink that came in a carton. I used to drink it all the time as a kid. The flavour, though, isn’t as sweet or as tropically as the scent might lead you to expect.
There’s a lot of peach, and that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. It tastes like slightly underripe peach, but I’m okay with that. There’s an undertone of green apple – crisp, slightly sour, and a hint of spice. Not exactly what I was expecting! The initial sip is fruity wonderfulness, but the spiciness seems a little misplaced – this blend contains both ginger and pink pepper, and it’s the pink pepper that dominates here. It creates quite a distracting burning sensation that lingers at the back of my throat long into the aftertaste. I’m usually okay with pink pepper – and I love it in chai – but it’s more than a little heavy-handed here. My other complaint is that I only get the slightest hint of fig, and I was expecting more of a flavour that gets first billing in the name.
I don’t dislike this one – the peach is pretty awesome, for a start – but it’s not exactly what I expected it to be. I think Leaves of the World are a pretty young company, though, and so it’s perhaps not surprising that things are a bit hit and miss at the moment. I’ve had some fantastic blends from them – this summer’s Fruit Salad springs immediately to mind – but there have been some duds. This one isn’t quite that, but it’s a bit of a close thing – the pepper is misjudged, I think, at least in its current quantity. Possibly it would work better cold, though, and that’s something I’ll try at some point.
