Apricot Cheesecake Shou Mei

Cod brewed this for fun. Tastes about the same as hot brewed. Overall, not a favourite of mine but I don’t hate it :) just having fun cold brewing things lately.

Am I ever glad I listened to my instincts and bought this one. It’s liquified fruity comfort in a cup. Ok, that sounded weird, but it’s fantastic.

Frank was very generous with the chunks of apricot in this one. As soon as I opened the pouch, I was hit with the sweet aroma of apricots and/or peaches. I can tell the difference between the two, but here, I swear there is both. Don’t get any cheesecake notes at this point.

The first steep was a burst of homemade apricot preserves in my mouth. I couldn’t detect any cheesecake, however, there was a noticeable creaminess that was reminiscent of whipped cream. And the Shou Mei is oh so delicate.

I’m on my second steep right now, and while the apricot is still present, the creaminess is virtually non-existant. Still enjoyably fruity, but substantially weaker than expected.

Love this tea. I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase another pouch if there were still more left next time I order. A billion thumbs up, Frank.

Um….. YUM!!!! Of all the four teas I tried tonight, this one REALLY hit the mark! Finally, for once, I taste cheesecake in a tea! And the apricot flavour is wonderfully authentic and prominent! I can definitely taste the white tea base as well, and it’s so, so good. I am drinking this cold now, and it’s absolutely delicious. It was when it was warm, too. Yum yum yum!!! I would buy this again for sure!

ETA: Second infusion was fabulous, third was still pretty good, but tasted oversteeped (usually third infusions don’t manage to get that way, but this one did!) Fabulous blend though!

OMG CHEESECAKE!
I bought this tea as soon as I saw it announced on twitter by 52teas. Cheesecake tea! YESSSS! I never tried the Earl grey cheesecake tea, but a white tea with apricot (and CHEESECAKE) seemed more up my alley.
I was waiting for my husband to take me shopping, but then this tea popped through the mail slot. Stop, delay shopping and try this tea!

DRY: Very strong sweet and fruity smell. Yum!

STEEPED: Cheescakey, almost buttery smell with fruityness. Lots of chunks of fruit in this tea. As always, I fished a chunk out and it was amazing strong apricot! Mmmm freeze dried apricot! Colour is a yellow gold.

TASTE: Interestingly, some sips I find it to be white tea and fruity apricot. Other sips I swear its a liquid cheesecake, a slight twang of that sweet cheese taste of cheesecake. It might be the cheesecake taste is being carried mostly by smell, with the tea being a lovely white tea mixed with apricot. As the tea cools, the apricot becomes more of a brighter taste. No bitterness or tartness.

WHO’D EAT THIS TEA: White tea fruity drinkers (blow yer pants right off!) and peeps like me who are depriving themselves of cheesecake for diet reasons /cry

COMMENTS: CHEEEEEEESECAKE! All I need for this tea to be perfect is a tea burp of graham crust flavor and more creamyness. I’m happy with the use of freeze dried fruit, it goes over better than those typical sticky tart dried apricots.

Now I wish I tried some of the other 52 teas cheesecakes teas to compare, but I put myself on a “No buy” for awhile.

Overall, this has got to be the best 52 teas I tried so far, though I’ve only tried 6 to date.

Got a sample of this from Kittenna even before she gets hers because we had a mutual order sent to me. I have a huge box about to go out to her she is going to be rolling in tea soon! :)

Anyway about this tea.

I think it was a good idea to add this flavor to a white tea. I feel if it had been in a black te the flavors would have been lost but this is quite nice. There is a cheesecake flavor coming through along with a nice but not too over done apricot sweetness.

This tea, for me, is not up there quite with the Zabaglione blends but its tasty!

This tea has been sold out for a while… I took my time to purchase it and actually snagged one of the very last ones. It is really hard for me to keep myself from purchasing the cheesecake blends from 52teas, they are so tasty!! It has taken me quite a while to get around to trying it. I am trying to make myself drink through a few of my teas before I allow myself to try new ones. I am mostly succeeding, except when I don’t and fail miserably and buy more tea and drink new ones before I drink down what I should… Oh well! :)

As soon as you open this tea it smells like freshly cut apricots. Mouth-watering. There are a few large leaves, but mostly they are large fragments of fuzzy white tea. The leaves has small diced pieced of apricot that seem to be dried apricot. Yum!

Once brewed, the light yellow tea smells undeniably like apricot with a hint of tartness to it. I am not really getting any cheesecake scent from it. I am getting, strangely enough, a coconut rum scent. Yep… Coconut rum… It was so odd! I had to sniff it a few times, but surely enough, I kept smelling something that reminded me strongly of rum…

The taste was all apricot. There was a hint of creaminess and tart that was evidently the cheesecake playing in. I had it unsweetened, so I will have to try it sweetened to see how it plays with the flavours. I really enjoyed its natural sweetness and smooth flavouring. The apricot worked really well with the Shou Mei. All in all a delicious experience. Just in case you were wondering, I got no rum flavour at all (in my case, this is a good thing!)

I decided to try this two ways before rating it. Mostly because when I made it hot last night, it wasn’t exactly a winner. It was okay, but far more fruity than cheesecake-y. In fact, it didn’t really have much in the way of creaminess even since the apricot totally overwhelmed everything (including the shou mei). I was a bit disappointed, but decided to cold-brew the leaves I’d just steeped.

Cold, it’s a totally different animal! It’s crisp and refreshing, and the apricot is more subdued. It’s still quite fruity (perhaps more than I was expecting), but it’s more harmonious cold. The shou mei is bright, and adds another layer of fruitness and sweetness. The cheesecake is interesting here: unlike some people, I’ve found it quite prominent in their black/green teas. Here it’s… well, not nearly as cheesecake-y as I expected it to be. There’s a definite creaminess, along with a soft tanginess that really plays well with the apricot. It doesn’t really scream “cheesecake” though, while I found the flavor easily identifiable in their EG Cheesecake and the Cherry Cheesecake Genmaicha. It does come up more as the cup “warms” to room temperature—this is one that definitely doesn’t benefit from being ice-cold (unlike, say Cotton Candy).

I think this came off a bit more negative than intended. It’s a very nice tea, and I love the play of crisp white, sweet apricot and tangy cheesecake. I think the flavors were a bit different than I expected is all, stronger on the apricot and weaker on the cheesecake. However, the spoonful I used had a LOT of apricot bits, so next time I’ll try to weed some of ’em out and see if the cheesecake is a bit stronger.

Apparently I am having trouble typing apricot today. Twice I failed trying to get to the page to write a tasting note!

I cold brewed half a liter of this overnight, and I’m finishing it up before I go onto a growler of beer. It was $21 beer and my boyfriend doesn’t like it so I have to drink it. Well I don’t have to but it’s not happy to toss a pricey beer. It’s made by monks in Belgium and it actually reminds me of Tower of London/Paris if the base was ale related and not black tea!

I do indeed taste the cheesecake in this one. This is one you want to have by itself, I started drinking it with lunch and it ruined any flavor. The apricot is pretty tasty too. One of these days I have to eat an actual apricot given I love it in tea so much.

Some sips are super fruity and lacking in cheesecake, and others are super creamy and taste just like a bite of it. Overall the Shou Mei adds a really nice sweetness to everything, and I think probably boosts the apricot flavor.

This one is a winner, although I never really had a problem with cheesecake flavors lacking in black or green based teas from 52teas. But I will take everything and anything cheesecake!

This is tasty. I don’t know that I’m as excited about it as some of the others who have tasting notes on this one, but it’s good. It’s definitely better as it cools versus when it’s hot. The cheesecake flavors really seem to pop when it gets colder. I taste the creaminess, the tangy flavors of the cream cheese, and even a bit of buttery crust. And the apricot is sweet and juicy and tastes like sweetened apricot … it doesn’t have a fake taste to it.

thanks again Amanda for allowing me to try so many of samples of 52Teas! I swear the other day I thought of a caramel apricot cheesecake. I never had that particular dessert before but it sounded good (I must have been hungry). Then I remembered I had this tea! SO I had to try it… Sadly, this one doesn’t have the caramel. From what fell into my infuser, there was at least one apricot chunk. The white tea lends a nice base for these flavors. Definite identifiable apricot, certainly a nice fragrance too. The cheesecake flavor is more of a cream flavor, but it is more present here than in other cheesecake teas I’ve tried from 52Teas. Overall, this is great. But I’d really rather like to have the actual cheesecake I envisioned!