Impeach Tea

Roswell Strange shared this blend with me b/c I am pretty sure I asked to try it and I didn’t realize until now how much she disliked it. When I brewed it, the dry leaf smelled familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it smelled like. Nevertheless, I was intrigued.

Then I took my first sip. I did not like it. I came here to review it and learned of RS’s aversion.

The tea is smooth but has a terrible artificial cream flavor that sticks on your tongue. And it could be peach but not a real peach by any means. Plus, there is a zing of either metallic or chemical that just bursts at the end of my tongue, specifically on the right side. I don’t like it. Though, thank you Roswell Strange for sharing! Clearly I was intrigued but I know better now.

Morning cuppa…

Honestly not the greatest tea, but I wanted to make more of an effort to sip through some of the teas in tins I have that I’ve neglected for a while and this tea really fits the bill! I was also feeling something sorta fruity and sorta creamy, and this also fits that bill…

The main issue is just the chalky/pasty flavour of the cream note in the blend that reminds me of childhood vitamins – but the peach itself is really nice, and I actually feel like the cream has gotten more tolerable with age (ie. as the flavour has faded). It’s still not good but it’s not revolting either.

Current cuppa, which I’ve let go cold while writing tasting notes…

(Mostly because I’m not enjoying it – tbh)

When you have a large tea stash you do sometimes completely forget that you own teas sometimes and that’s exactly what’s happened with this one. I’m actually a little bummed about that – not so much because it’s a good tea (it’s not) but because this would have been a very politically topical tea to brew up a few weeks ago…

As is stands, it tastes sort of like red fruit over peaches and has that very unpleasant artificial cream flavouring that has a gross finish/aftertaste. I know I figured out a way to make this come out good in the past, I need to reread my tasting notes and jog my memory on how I did that.

Hot with honey and milk.

Gotta keep putting work into this one to finish it off. The goodness is that this cup didn’t taste chalky and chemical/artificial. The bad news is that it tasted like overly yeasty bread with peach undertones. Still an improvement though, so I’ll take it.

(I wonder if that’s the result of bad tea stockholm syndrome, though)

Hot, with milk and honey.

This is another that I grabbed to drink because of the mild cold I’ve got going on. I figured that with how much I’ve been struggling with this one as of late, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it tasted a bit weird or was even just flat out undrinkable. I mean, it kind of borders on that during a good day, so…

Actually; it was probably the best it’s ever been though!? And of course that raises the question of whether or not that’s because I was sick and my palate was off in the first place OR if the milk and honey were just really good additions. I mean, it certainly felt like/tasted like they were softening/mellowing out the chalky and chemical notes in the tea, and just really embracing the creamy element of things, with a soft peach undertone. It wasn’t amazing, but it was good.

And in the case of this tea, good is as good as I’ve gotten…

Hot cup, from last week.

I let Brenna pick out my tea for me – it’s always interesting to see what she’ll choose when given the option. Apparently she picked this one solely based on the tin it was in, though…

I don’t love this one, but this last cup wasn’t terrible. The peach was actually very sweet and smooth, it really makes me wish that this tea was JUST peach notes. Once again, the “cream” killed it though! It’s just so chalky and artificial tasting. It reminds me so heavily of chewable vitamins, and while I’m generally pretty open to trying some pretty out there teas, chewable vitamins is not a flavour I’d willingly go for…

Bleck.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I ended up adding a bit of milk, which softened this one greatly overall…

Didn’t like this one hot, so I tried it as a cold brew.

Basically, I still didn’t like it.

It’s just very artificial and chemical tasting still; almost exclusively with the “cream” component of the tea and not the peach, though. The finish is a little chalky, as well. I mean, I guess next thing on the list is to try it with milk to see if I can cover up some of that cream taste; but not sure what route to go next if that doesn’t work.

Bought this one from MissB during her stash sale!

I love a good peach and cream tea, especially when it’s on a black base. One of my favourite is definitely DT’s Southern Belle but over the last four years there have been quite a few pretty good ones.

The dry leaf for this tea smells intriguing: it’s got the same peach aroma as all of the other teas from Impeach, and then a bit of a boozy quality as well. However, as soon as I had it steeped up I knew right away I was going to have some issues with this tea…

The peach flavour in this is actually really nice; it reminds me a lot of the other two peach teas from the company and I enjoyed it in those blends so I’m definitely liking it here too. It’s the “cream” that’s really problematic for me – it tastes God awfully artificial and fake and there’s this gross chalkyness to it in the body of the sip. In the finish, that bitter chemical tasting cream flavour lingers for fucking forever. Then to top it off, something just seems kind of rubbery tasting, kind of latex gloves? No clue where that’s coming from, but it’s definitely also a turn off.

So – I foresee lots of experimentation with this one in the future to make it tolerable/drinkable. Damn it – I so wanted to like this one so I had another peach/cream tea on hand!

Sipdown (240)!

Made a pot of this, which I shared with my mom.

Since it was a pot worth I got to try it a few different ways. On its own, I think this has a REALLY similar peach flavour to the other Impeach tea I’ve already tried – it’s very obvious they come from the same company because of that identical, juicy sweet peach flavour all on its own. It treads the line of natural and candy like, and is very smooth overall. The base is nice too; kind of generic but fades into the background really well to highlight the other flavours. The ginger was surprisingly light; I normally don’t love ginger/peach teas but with it being such a mellow, light whisp of a flavour in this blend I actually think the ginger was a nice compliment to the peach. Warming, and still sweet and fun.

Then I tried it with a bit of honey which didn’t change up much other than making the peach a little too sweet/cloying. So, after the one teacup worth of honey sweetened tea I moved on to something else. That something else was the version with milk, which was really tasty! It definitely was creamier, obviously, but that tempered some of the brightness of the peach in a way that still maintained the lush sweetness of it – if that makes sense. I also feel like it just slightly drew out some of the ginger, and married the two together a little more smoothly.

Thanks for the share MissB! This was really tasty, and it was very interesting seeing how the different additives effected the flavour overall. Straight up was definitely the best, but milk was a close second.

Sipdown (220)!

Thank you MissB for the tea!

It’s been a while since I’ve bought from a stash sale but I’ve been curious about this company for a while. Only selling peach teas seems like an odd gimmick for a company to have, but if it’s the best peach tea, then I can buy it. So when I saw you were looking to get rid of one of their teas, that was enough to get me to bite. The rest was just gravy. And then of course you added in a sample of the this and the other peach tea they carry, and I was so stoked! Now I get to try the whole line up.

The dry leaf looks fairly small/broken up – somewhat lowish quality, but not the worst either. It looks a lot like the typical black Ceylon base many companies use for their flavoured blacks.

I made that sample as a nice Western sized pot to sip on while watching Interstellar with the family. As soon as the water hit the tea leaf I could smell the sweetness of the peach filling my kitchen. It was fresh, and really realistic smelling. It could have easily been the smell of peach juices from slicing up a few really ripe peaches.

Taste wise, it’s far from bad but it doesn’t pack the same robustness as I was getting from the smell of it infusing. I think the peach is definitely there, and I like the level of sweetness, which is relatively natural, and overall juicyness. I do think it has more of an artificial and almost candy/Fuzzy Peach like quality to it though. Not chemical, mind you. It’s just that when it was steeping I really felt like it gave off a freshly cut, ripe peach vibe and this is more a “just cracked open a bag of Fuzzy Peaches” aroma. It’s good in a different way, but when you’re psyched for some natural peach taste it’s a small let down.

I enjoyed it overall – it was a good choice to sip on slowly throughout the whole movie. Also, now that I feel like I have a bit of a base line for what to expect, flavour wise, for the peach taste in the other two blends from this company I feel pretty good going into the tastings for those teas.

No idea why this is called Presidential, unless it’s just to keep in tune with the (fun) company name. Regardless, as stated, it’s a black peach tea.

I love the packaging and the smell, and the company’s customer service rocks my casbah. Still this tea isn’t as impressive as I want it to be. Yes, it’s delicious. The tea leaves are a bit smaller than I’d prefer; I love to watch my teas unfurl as they steep. This one is more granular than long and leafy. Or, at least the batch I received, is.

As well, this just doesn’t taste strongly of peach, to me. Third time I’ve had it, this time it’s cooled to almost lukewarm, and it’s the most peachy that I’ve found it so far. It definitely needs sweetener, and while I do enjoy it (it’s smoooooth like butter), it’s just not luscious and ripe and juicy like I want a peach tea to be.

In fairness, I’ve yet to find a peach tea that’s luscious and ripe and juicy tasting. So on that scale, if I’m comparing to others, this one does a bang-up job. At the top 5% of the peach teas I’ve had, so far.

Still, there’s an artificial quality to this that I just don’t dig, and it bugs me. I’ll steep it a few more times in different ways (this is my third? fourth? try) to see if I can pull out it’s juiciness, minus the aftertaste. As well, I steeped it a bit long and hot this time, which may be the issue.

Graciously received from Impeach Tea via my Instagram account (http://instagram.com/teatravelninja) in exchange for honest reviews and shares.

Lots of caveats with this one – it needs sweetener, it’s much better when cooled, there’s zero ginger that I can taste (and I LOVE ginger), the peachy-ness is the best of the teas I’ve tried so far.

Love the tea leaves in this one, love how it’s packed, love the company that provided this to me (via Instagram, in exchange for an honest review, see http://instagram.com/teatravelninja/).

As the other tea in this collection that I’ve tried so far, it smells divine. This one though, I didn’t sit with and smell too much before brewing – I didn’t want to be disappointed.

Hot, I didn’t like it too much, it tasted odd and artificial. Cooled and sweetened, it’s a cup of peachy goodness, and quite lovely.

Steeped DAVIDs Perfect Teaspoon (2.5 tsp) of tea in 8 oz of water for 3 minutes in boiling water, and then let it cool 15 minutes at room temperature.

Out of the three teas I was sent to review from this company, the smell of this one wins, but it’s the loser in regards to flavor. Not bad! Just, my least favorite of the three.

Having said that – steeping it a bit longer seems to give it less of an artificial taste (I’m pretty sure it’s the cream flavoring, the others don’t have this issue), as well as steeping it at a lower-than-boiling temperature.

I get a lot of astringency with this though as it cools, almost cloyingly dry. Again, I’m pretty sure it’s the cream flavoring, as I don’t get this from the other two, either.

Still, I could smell this tea all day. I want to bathe in this smell, bottle it for perfume and douse myself in it constantly.

Holy nostrils Batman, this tea smells even better than expected. Peachy cream popsicle. I wish I had smell-o-vision at the moment so you could all enjoy this.

Long, leafy, unbroken tea leaves with lots of cornflowers and safflowers in the mix (I LOVE teas that incorporate these two). The smell though, gosh, that smell. I want to bathe in it and then wear it as perfume.

The flavor is robust, although not very peachy without some form of sweetener. I wish it tasted as good as it smelled – alas, I think that’s impossible.

Still, it’s got a good cream element to it (almost ice cream -like). The peach doesn’t come through as much as I’d like, but I’ve found it really tricky in tea to match peach well.

Must try iced, I have a feeling it’ll be stellar and the peach will shine then.

Was sent this tea for free through my Instagram account (http://instagram.com/teatravelninja/) in exchange for an honest review.

I should note as well that the customer service with this company was impeccable. They reached out, followed up, made sure there weren’t any shipping or duty issues, and were available pretty much 24/7 to answer any questions that I had.

The duty bit was particularly impressive; while they offer free shipping within the US, I was in Canada at the time of this tea testing. They shipped it and ensured there were no duty or taxes owing. Considering another company sent their package COD (and received on the same day, with no warning it was COD), I’d say this was a win all around.

Used DAVID Tea’s “perfect teaspoon” (2.5 tsp) in 12 oz of water, heated to 200F and steeped four minutes.