Julian select Send Message

I’ve noticed in my travels I prefer Chinese green tea to Japanese, but I still love that rich green flavour that shade grown teas have. That said this tea does not disappoint in that area. The aroma is fresh with a decidedly bright liquor, and that prominent vegetal taste of a Japanese tea. That said, it was pretty much like every other sencha I’ve tried and did not stand out to me.

Dragonwell is my favourite type of green tea. That said, I was pretty disappointed in this one. The smell of the dry leaves barely hit me at all. The liquor was like white tea, which I now notice from the photo is what was expected, and the aroma was lackluster. What makes Dragonwell my favourite is the nutty hints, and this one was seriously lacking that. Dare I say it, but it almost tasted stale. Alas.

I’m a pretty big fan of oolong so I was looking forward to try this one, especially since I tend to prefer Chinese oolong over Taiwanese. It brews as a very dark liquor with a smokey aroma, and tastes toasty and lingering hints of sugar without the sweetness. I never sweeten oolong and this is no different, not needing anything added at all. I’ve never had a red robe and I’m very pleased.

What immediately made me excited about this tea blend was the fact it has real pumpkin in it. Actual, honest to God, pumpkin pieces. Autumn is really great for pumpkin flavoured things, but I wind up getting bored with flavours claiming to be pumpkin but are only pumpkin pie spice. This at least changed the pace.

It has real pumpkin pieces, allspice and clove, white chocolate, and pumpkin seeds. The pumpkin has a subtler flavour than if you were to eat straight up pumpkin, but the spices mix well with it. A pet peeve of mine, however, are the claims of this being a more butterscotch tea than pumpkin, but this is of course my palette’s personal opinion. The tea itself does not have caramel and definitely tastes more like pie than Werther’s originals. It tastes even better paired with Teavana’s Cocoa Caramel Sea Salt tea and soy milk.

Now for the bad: This tea is very greasy. I recommend it brewed in single cups or a PerfecTea maker over a standard tea pot, as you tend to have to let the device soak in hot water after you’re done. While the tea is creamier cold, the cinnamon and nutmeg give it that “cold cider bitterness” when chilled. I also think it could stand to contain more oolong leaves, as that oolong flavour doesn’t stick out at all; although this doesn’t bother me as much, as I prefer my oolongs unflavoured anyway.

All in all it tastes amazing and is one that I recommend a lot to people.

How do I confess my love for thee? I certainly can’t count the ways, but this tea is one of my all-time favourites. It tastes just as it promises, with bright strawberry and dark chocolate, and is especially good with milk. Highly recommended.

I received this tea as a free sample from Adagio, and was not impressed. The flavour itself was nothing like white tea nor mandarin, nor even fruity. In fact, it tasted like artificial honey and residual chemicals, and I couldn’t even finish the cup, something I never do. I am a huge fan of white tea so this really disappointed me.