This was easily the hardest on the monthly sipdown prompt list for me, “a tea with grape/muscatel notes.” I’ve already sipped down my older grapy-grape Lupicia teas, and when I brewed a cup of the only darjeeling left in my house, it just didn’t have any muscatel notes to it. I recalled that I very often smell and taste a grape flavor in jasmine tea (I’m not sure why, but I have noticed there are some other people out there that have this response as well, so at least I’m not alone) so I decided to brew this long ago sampler from Teavivre.
I recall I picked out this sampler in the first place because my early experiences with jasmine were very not good — as in, it was like inhaling the strongest, worst grandma perfume ever and gave me a migraine — and I thought the proclaimed peach flavoring might tame it a bit. I’m not sure if my tastes have changed since then or it was just bad luck with a far-too-strong jasmine, as I’ve had better luck since then (especially on black bases). Sniffing the dry leaf, I definitely get that distinct flowery jasmine aroma, but I also smell that “grape candy” sort of aroma in it, as well. I definitely don’t smell any peach, though.
Brewed, it still smells heavily of jasmine… not as strong as the “grandma perfume” cup from my memory, but there is a perfume-like quality to it. I also smell grape and bubblegum in the aroma. I’m still not smelling peach… maybe there is some sweetness there contributing to the candy aromas?
The flavor is heady jasmine with a noticable flavor from the green base. There is a slight sweet grassiness but leans more closely to a fresh garden/vegetal quality. The jasmine is strong but isn’t giving me perfume headache, so I’m enjoying the flavor a lot. On the tongue it doesn’t taste as strongly of grapes as I’ve gotten from jasmine black teas, but I do still get that mild grape candy/bubblegum sweet flavor from the tea. There’s peach in this?! Really?! Maybe its just from the age of the sampler, but I don’t get even a hint of stonefruit.
It’s a pleasant cup but I see no reason to have this over other jasmine pearls, as the differential here was the peach, and that is entirely non-present for me.
Flavors: Bubblegum, Candy, Floral, Garden Peas, Grapes, Jasmine, Sweet, Warm Grass, Vegetal
