June Wedding! This is another of my newer aquisitions, also from the American Tea House “going out of business sale” when I got the Citron White tea (which I can report was better as an iced tea, but I still found a little cloying in citrus flavor… I wish I had some fresh mint sprigs, which I think would’ve helped? For the hot cuppa, I actually ended up making it as a choco-milk latte, and the lemon-chocolate flavor combo worked quite well! So at least there is that for finishing it up…)
So this is another lavender tea, something I’ve been really into lately, though I have found some blends can be heavy handed on the lavender, and then they just taste sour. The Lavender White tea I got from Lupicia ended up that way to me, so I am a little skeptical… I love the stuff, I really do, but I find the proportions and blending has to be just right, so I guess I’m a bit of a picky fan…
Fortunately, this is a really wonderful sencha, the kind that is smooth, with a soft grassiness and just a little buttery, and a nice buttery sencha is my favorite flavor. The lavender is not too heavy and blends nicely with that buttery note, adding a minty floral flavor to the grassiness of the green tea. I have a feeling that if I added a little sugar to the tea, it would remind me just slightly of a lavender pastry, if not for the grassiness of the green tea. This is definitely a tea that I’d recommend going light on the leaf, using 160-175 F water, and a shorter steep of no more than 2 minutes.
I also really love cold-steeping this stuff in lemonade! The lemonade has a very subtle hint of the green tea, but mostly, it is just left with a very nice lavender flavor, and since lavender and lemon is a flavor combination that works so well together (in my humble opinion), it just works. It’s tangy, sweet, and a bit floral… pretty much everything I love! I imagine I’ll be drinking tons of this over the summer!
Flavors: Butter, Floral, Grass, Lavender, Mint, Umami, Vegetal
Oh wow, this would be great in lemonade!