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This came to me thanks to the ever so lovely and amazing Anna, who was not only incredibly generous (also pulling like nine thousand teas from my shopping list to throw into a swap package), but she also packaged each tea with lots of love and expertise. She sent me enough for two samples of these, and each sample was in its own little bag, and then those bags were put (lovingly) into a slightly larger ziplock. it was like ziplock university, and she graduated with distinction.

Ok, so I chose this tea last night to try today, and consequently slept fitfully because I was so excited to try it. I opened the package to smell it last night, and my first thought was: I don’t even care how this tastes, I’m buying it. Like, it could have tasted like a garbage truck was sweating profusely in my mouth, and the scent alone would have made me buy this tea.

Thankfully, both the scent and the taste of the tea are entirely unblemished. The dry leaf smells very true to ‘melon’, although I can’t say I’m up on my melon discerning abilities. It smelled as though someone had sliced open the fresh fruit while standing in a sun-drenched garden. it also smelled slightly candied, although not even remotely ‘artificial’ if that makes sense. even if it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t have to, right? It smells like spring and summer are right here under your nose!

I read the tasting notes for this tea before brewing it. A lot of people brewed for two minutes or fewer, but I’ve always brewed my oolongs a bit longer. So I brewed for three and a half minutes.

And guys, this is awesome. It’s juicy—so juicy, in fact, that i’m definitely going to try icing it come summer time. I also think I’m starting to understand what a floral oolong tastes like, because although I couldn’t describe the taste to you, I picked up immediately on a similarity between this and my beloved rose violet calendula oolong. Are all of Lupicia’s flavoured oolongs this delicious?

So i know you guys are probably wondering how this is compared with cantaloupe and cream. There’s absolutely room for both in my cupboard—I’ll just get that out of the way. Here’s what I think:
1. Obviously one’s a white and one’s an oolong. Both are delicately flavoured, although I’d say lupicia’s comes out slightly on top in amount of flavouring, while I find the CaC a bit more delicate (this could also be because of the different base teas, obviously)
2. Oolong=juicy, CaC=gentle, and very, very spot on re cantaloupe. If I could use colours to describe the differences, I’d say the CaC is a lighter, more fairy pink, while this would be, like, a deeper, almost reddish shade of pink. Does that help at all? LOL.

Anyway, shopping list. Omg yes, shopping list.

Thank you, Anna!!!