The Persimmon Tree Tea Company

Brewed a cup of Green Caramel this morning. The dry leaf scent is sweet caramel and you can see the pieces of caramel mixed it. Brewed up, I was disappointed with the taste.. I felt that the rooibos taste came through much more than the caramel or green tea taste and threw off the balance.. This rates as a “meh..” on the taste-o-meter™.

Another vanilla infused tea, another note about how too much vanilla can overpower the tea flavor.

I’m glad they chose a green tea as a base, since I couldn’t really taste the green tea. It seems that a more robust base would hold up to a strong flavor like this. I also really couldn’t taste any of the anise flavor that was supposed to be in there. Don’t get me wrong – I like the tea. I love vanilla. I just kinda wanted something more complex from this cup.

Another steep of honeysuckle puerh from my work stash this week. It’s becoming my go-to work tea, since it’s easy and it’s in a cute little tin from Persimmon Tree. Great flavor and a nice everyday tea.

This tea smells very interesting – nothing like I would have assumed honeysuckle puerh would smell like. The dry leaf scent is kinda like molasses. The tea brews up very dark and tastes syrupy, fighting between wet forest notes of shou with the bright floral notes. The resulting taste is thick and a little sweet. I think it would be a good first step for someone who wants to know about puerh without really diving into it.

This tastes very similar if not identical to the Coconut Cream white tea that I got from the Tea Gallerie in San Diego. I wonder if these two companies have the same supplier – or if one supplies to the other?

This is an amazing looking tea. The loose leaves are very picturesque. The smell and taste of the tea are overwhelmingly vanilla. Slight floral notes with a hint of citrus, but too much vanilla in this mix for it to be a home run.

Mild coconut smell. Very pretty leaves of various colors. It tastes smooth and mildly like coconut. It’s slightly sweet. I think this would make a great dessert tea.

Yum, these tea leaves smell just like a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. It definitely makes a good cup of dessert tea. It’s sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. I taste more mint than chocolate. It also leaves a bit of an Andies mint aftertaste. I like it!

Just looking at this tea brightened my day. My son and I spent over an hour dropping balls of tea into a cup, then pouring hot water over the top to make them bloom. My favorite part of the afternoon was watching him and the myriad of reactions he had as the tea blossomed. If he could talk he would probably tell you his favorite part of the afternoon was drinking the tea, he’s a bit of an addict, especially if the tea is sweet.

You can read the full review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2015/4/7/tuesday-tea-sunshine-flowering-tea-the-persimmon-tree-tea-company

Sample from whatshesaid. Thank you!

I brewed 3/4 of a teaspoon in 4 oz of water (a splash of cold water, the rest boiling) for 3 min. This tastes really odd to me. It smells quite a bit like coconut, but it tastes more like hay with a metallic almost coconut flavor. I don’t think I’m much of a fan, although the aftertaste is better than the flavor itself. I love coconut, but unfortunately I have yet to find a coconut tea I really like. It may be like peach for me, I love the real thing so much that I’m really picky about artificial versions.

Another good, solid chai. The spices are fresh and easy to distinguish, and the Assam black tea still comes through. Both the tea and the spices are a little stronger than the ones in the Tealated Chai I drank yesterday, but it’s good. This chai compares very well to that one. So, all of a sudden I’m finding pretty great chais! And once again, no artificial or natural flavorings.

Nothing terribly new or exciting about this puerh but it wasn’t bad either, especially for the price, a nice mellow woodsy aged puerh for an everyday day. A little floral but no hint of honeysuckle for me. :(

This is the kind of tea I like to serve guests because it has a nice smooth flavor without any of the bitterness or astringency that my non-tea drinking guests dislike. It’s not the type of tea you’ll find me drinking late at night, instead I prefer it as an early morning tea or afternoon pick-me-up. It does pack a bit of a caffeine induced punch. Overall I think this is a great everyday tea that will suit a lot of tastes.

You can read the full review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2015/3/10/tuesday-tea-assam-gold-the-persimmon-tree

(I believe this is from the Marco Polo TTB.)

This could be described as tasting like caramel, marshmallow, toasted rice, and earth. The rooibos imparts a woodsy flavor and there’s also something like damp leaves in the background. Not as unpleasant as it sounds. The green tea base, however, is atrocious. It’s like stewed grass. It’s like vegetables that have been left moist and out of the fridge for too long. I don’t know how else to describe it. It has a funk to it that’s just intolerable. If this blend had used a black tea base, or even oolong, I could probably get behind it. Unfortunately this is blended with a very rough, low grade green tea.

I was hoping this would be my last cup before bed, but now I’m going to make something else to get the taste (and the memory of the taste) out of my mouth.

This one doesn’t seem to have gotten much love on Steepster. This is another my wife picked. I thought strawberries and cream – yummy. Then I read the ingredients. I have had one black currant tea before this. Granted it was bagged but it was Ahmad who I normally trust to give me a pleasant bagged experience. I did not like it. I seldom like hibiscus in anything.

Then I opened the lid and sniffed. Hey this may not be so bad. Yeah it is rooibos but it smells like vanilla and cherries, or blueberries, or maybe grape. I never could decide. Doesn’t matter as none of those things are actually listed as ingredients.

I steeped for 5 minutes in a Finum basket using boiling water. The brew is dark like coffee but as you tilt the cup it looks more purplish red. That amused me. The white chocolate forms some scum on the surface that doesn’t hurt anything except the aesthetics.

The first sip was pleasant but much lighter than I expected. I added sweetener and the change is spectacular. I’m just going to quote my blog post on this rather than coming up with something new:

I think I can best sum up my perception of this blend by telling you that I went into this review not expecting much from these ingredients. I thought, I’ll try to keep an open mind but will settle on just getting through it. I ended up gulping the last half of the cup down and can’t wait to have another. Surprisingly delicious.

OK, its me live again. This is one of those times when experimenting really paid off. You wouldn’t have a issue with adding a little salt to your supper, if it needed help bringing out the flavor, so don’t be afraid of a little sweetener when it is needed.

I see I never added a note for this one after posting my blog review. I think it is because Amanda ‘SoggyEnderman’ Wilson did such a great job explaining it.

Agreeing with everything she said, I’ll just add, I liked it but don’t ever see me craving it. It tastes like just what it is, a cup of seeds and spices. That is fine. It just isn’t for me.

However, let me point out this is one my wife chose. She was in the tin 3 times before I could get to it for a review. She loves herbals and picked this specifically for the coriander. I tried to get her to review it but she declined.

The Persimmon Tree uses all natural and organic ingredients and my wife loves it. That my friends is why there are a million different blends. Some you love some you don’t. Only about 999, 011 more left before I try them all! I made that number up. I really have no idea how many I’ve tried. Let’s just say a lot.

Needed some sort of caffeine-free fix tonight, and none of my sweet rooibos teas sounded appealing, so a spicy chai it is!
Ahh this one is lovely! Taken from the Marco Polo TTB

Great balance of spice, and a touch of sugar to pull the flavours out brought it all together :) The liquor is such a deep red, and it’s nice! Definitely doesn’t have that full black chai flavour, but this rooibos chai seems to do the trick. Hmm.. I don’t seem to taste the vanilla though. Just the rooibos and chai.

This cup of tea can be securely filed under “pleasant”. Nothing too flashy, just a gentle, almost floral vanilla, and a somewhat delicate base. Really nice afternoon cuppa.
Thanks to Ost for letting me try this. I’m enjoying all the samples!

Backlog:

I enjoyed this blend. It’s sweet with notes of orange, lemon and lime. There is a hint of creaminess to it too and I enjoyed how the creaminess melded with the citrus notes. If I’m to offer any kind of criticism about this particular tisane, it would be that I would have liked for the citrus notes to be a bit stronger, but as it was, I found it quite refreshing.

A nice ‘wake up’ tisane.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2015/01/09/citron-mate-blend-from-the-persimmon-tree/

These pearls really stand out from other jasmine teas because the flavor is subtle, not in-your-face floral. They’re nicely balanced with a sweet honeysuckle flavor and a hint of jasmine that becomes stronger the more times you steep the tea. Because the pearls aren’t as heavily scented as other jasmine teas they don’t have the strong soapy flavor I seem to run into time and time again. There is nothing I hate more than a tea that reminds me of soap, or worse yet, potpourri. If I happen to be in the mood for something stronger I can always add additional pearls for a flavor that better suits my mood.

You can read the full review on my blog
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2015/2/3/tuesday-tea-jasmine-pearl-green-tea-persimmon-tree

Made the last of this of my sample as cold brew last night. I used about 2 tsps in about 16oz water and I left it about 10 hours.

Honestly, this is so good I’m going to have to increase the rating. It’s such an interesting iced tea. A bit floral, notes of citrus, and quite malty. It’s light bodied but still flavorful and the taste really lingers after you take a sip. Honestly I think I might pick some up to use iced this summer, it’s incredible this way.

I’m not usually a drinker of Darjeeling, but I’ve had this sample laying around for months now and thought it was finally time to test it out. I forgot to set my kettle to a low temp so I boiled my water and let it cool down to about 200º which is a bit higher than the recommended 185º.

Thankfully, it wasn’t at all bitter. I have to admit I wasn’t expecting it to be so smooth. It’s a bit fruity as I anticipated, surprisingly it’s also a bit malty. It tastes like a very light Assam. Really, it’s quite nice and completely different than I expect Darjeelings to be. I’ll have to get around to testing out some more as I quite enjoy this one.