Peach Julip

Strange VariaTEA TTB #37

This was another tea that had just a spoonful left, so I snagged it to take to work. The description of “juicy peach twisted with a hint of sage” was enticing…but my experience was the exact opposite! It’s more of a sage green tea with a hint of peach. Pleasant enough, but not quite what I was hoping for.

Sampled from the Strange VariaTea Traveling Tea Box

Cold-brewed last night and enjoyed this morning.

OK, first of all, WHAT IS THIS SPELLING. I have never seen it before, but The Internet tells me it’s an alternative for “julep.” Wild. “Julip” looks so much more unpleasant, though…

Well, anyway. “Juicy peach” seems a bit hyperbolic. The sage is actually pretty strong in my cold-brewed cuppa, especially compared to the peach! It’s also got a decent amount of grassiness from the sencha.

Not my favorite, but… fine.

Mastress Alita’s Monthly Sipdown Challenge: an apricot tea

I don’t think I have any apricot teas right now, so another stone fruit will have to do. Finally opened this- it’s fine. Peachy. tbh- can’t remember much else.

As I’m sipping a decent cup of this particular B&B blend, I’m looking at news on updates to their tea wall teas which is making me a bit sad. A handful of favorites will be gone (forever? Or will they reappear during sales like so many of their other teas?) But that means some blends are coming to the tea wall, but I’m just not as excited for those. (I know I see a couple of Roswell’s favorites though!) So basically B&B wants the fans to stock up before they are gone. I definitely won’t be ordering right now, but wish I was! I would get THESE FAVORITES THAT I’M SAD ARE LEAVING: Lazy boy! Coco chai #5! Terry’s Tea! Hot Mama Jama! Mowgli’s Fire Chai! Coffee Puerh! The majority of the others leaving I probably have never even tried and would probably love those too. sigh. Hopefully they will at least return for sales. See the news here: https://www.birdandblendtea.com/blogs/news-from-the-nest/teawall-revamp-letter

edited to add: I will say I noticed some of these blends have been with B&B since DAY ONE, so though I have appreciated B&B’s consistency up until now, I do realize that some things have to freshen up and change.

#battleofthepeaches

So, this past week I went through all six of the peach tea blends from Bird & Blend as cold brew teas as part of their summer Battle of the Peaches campaign – I wanted to do this earlier, and I even ordered my teas as part of their subscriber pre release, but because of international shipping and Covid-19 delays I only ended up getting the teas right at the end of the campaign…

I posted an instagram story daily for each tea going through some thoughts on the cold brews – those stories are now saved as a highlight in case you missed them. Finally, after I’d gone through all of them I posted my final ranking for all the teas – so I’m going to write now starting from my least favourite to my favourite.

Obviously, Peach Julip came in sixth place for me – and once I knew the ingredients for the blend that was kind of what I’d expected would happen because there’s just so much green tea in this blend. It was one of the two new teas though that, based on name alone, I was most excited about initially.

Even if I was a green tea fan, though, I don’t think that this would have fit what I’d envisioned a “Peach Julip” tea tasting like – it was just a ton of sage and green tea and actually very little peach coming through at all. Plus, a Julep is usually made using whiskey and mint and there’s NOTHING in this blend that conveys those flavours at all. So this was really a miss for me in accuracy and execution.

It was also the only one of the six teas that I truly disliked. You can’t love them all, and if there was only one that I disliked overall then that seems like a win anyway…

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AeYJuxqu3A

(Ironic song choice, all things considered)

SIPDOWN

Ehm. What to write; it’s common sencha with expected peachy flavour but nope. Rather earthy — not sure if sage or osmanthus.

Only once it was tasty and how I have expected it. Once in, at least, four times. That’s pretty much disappointment!