White Mulberry

Again, I cheated a little. I surreptitiously emptied the tiny tiny sample left of this that I’d been clinging to into the extra super pretty Lupicia tin I got in October. Poof, gone! Because thanks to T. and her unsurpassed Christmas gift giving skills I now have a full tin’s worth of this. I could not be happier about that, as I absolutely love it.

So good. There’s so much melon in the nose, but then when I taste it, there’s a whole new set of unexpected flavours.

[Sample polished off in Rome, December 2013.]
[Gifted by my sweet friend T. in Rome, December 2013.]

When I got to the Perch shop in Aarhus were I live during the autumn, it was one of these perfect days. I had got a lot of good response on my MA thesis and lots of funny assignments on my internship, that I got downtown to buy something new to drink for my evening-studies. And what is more perfect than go to Perch to buy new teas and some ginger cookies?

Anyway, when I got in to the shop, the woman behind the desk laughed for herself. (I had been there two days a week since their opening to buy new teas so well, and I believed I went there the day before as well.) When I smelled the tea I got seduces by it sweet scent. It was hypontic and heavy in a way I never smelled before. I bought it and the first thing I did was to made a large cup, I got my book about the Scandinavian design that I was suppose to read and took a seat on the large bench on the balcony, in the sun.

I smelled the tea and the sweetness was so dominant and so hypnotic. In my first sip, I could taste the fudge, the cream. The second steep was more fruity, still fudge and caramel but a fruitiness of something I never been tasting before. Even if I got seduced by its scent in the shop, I lost myself after tasting it. I fell in love completely! This one is really a favorite that I need to have at home. It’s one of my most-have teas. If you are able to get to Perch, try it. It’s so interesting and so good. Love at first sight!

Thanks again to Courtney for sending me a sample of this one. I originally planned to gong fu a straight tea today, but I’ve been having trouble getting going and blew through most of my caffeine window. So instead I opted for a blend that feels special. I rarely see mulberry blends and they’re so so tasty. This one does a good job of letting the mulberry shine while also having a bit of complexity from the tropical fruit flavors and just enough heft from the base. The word that comes to mind today is shimmering, for some reason. Not literally but in terms of the vibe. It’s working for me.

Logging this tasty little number for the sipdown. I stand by my effusive praise and high rating from the first time I tried it — it’s so good, and I am sad to see it go!

In fact, I’m going to bump the rating up… I’m really digging it.

2023 sipdown count: 48

A.C. Perch Advent 2021 Day 10

This one has a sort of melon scent and a lovely light flavour of papaya and mulberry. The tea base is lovely against the fruit pieces and it’s nice to have a white tea with some flavour. The ingredients also include apple and jasmine, but I don’t get either of those very clearly. A loved this one! I imagine this would be delightful chilled.

Do I know what mulberries taste like? No. Yet, I have this and another mulberry tea sitting in my sample container, just begging to be enjoyed. RiverTea’s Mulberry Magic is next up.

Having said that, I was a bit leery to try this. I know there’s papaya something-or-other in it, having read other people’s notes. My first (and only) run-in with papaya was in high school during a writing course – and if you’re friends with me on Facebook you likely read this story already from two of my classmates way back when. Long story short: my inspiring, amazing prof (who at one time brought in a chunk of the then newly-demolished Berlin Wall) brought in an “unknown fruit” for us to try, and then write about. I HATED it. I wanted to puke. Floral mango-y sweetness? No thanks. So I wrote about it, and my classmates then still remember my vitriol today. It’s been more than 20 years now… Bah, how am I old enough to say that?

Anyway. This tea. It’s really pleasant, and while I do recognize the floral sweet notes of the papaya in here, plus other floral notes that are relatively subdued, there’s something light berry-ish that makes me think of summer, and then the lovely base that I’m really enjoying. I thought I overleafed, and wished I’d put the whole sample in now, because it is slightly weak. Still, I could see myself trying to find more of this, perhaps when my cupboard is a bit more… normal. Human. Less showing the world I have a tea obsession. ;)

From the queue

This is… I bought it based on a post that Anna made. She greatly enjoys this blend and I (used to) greatly enjoy this company. (Current relationship is somewhat fraught) In the meantime, however, it has been discovered that Anna and I are not Taste Twins. In many ways, in fact, we’re pretty much Taste Opposites, so now I’m a little concerned about it which is why the tin has been gathering dust in the Yet To Try Box.

I have to say I don’t rightly know what mulberry taste like exactly. I’ve had some before, but not so many that I’m at all familiar with the flavour. This blend though is not just a mulberry flavoured white tea. It’s a white tea with supposedly mulberry. And a bunch of other fruits and flowers. The description merely mentions white tea, mulberry and papaya, but I have some rather large pieces of apple in my tin as well and there is at least two kinds of flowers in it.

It smells quite fruity and creamy-thick. It has a sort of tropical twinge to it, which must be due to the papaya, but that might just be that I don’t know what mulberry smells like and I am aware that it has papaya in it. I’ve had some of these white blends from ACP before and I’m pretty certain that it’s the same Bai Mu Dan base for this one as it was for the others. I’m getting that same nutty, courgette-y note from it. I used to greatly enjoy BMDs years ago, but these days I find them all together too courgette-y. This is a smaller problem when flavoured, though.

The flavour also strikes me as somewhat tropical, and the comments above with regard to the base still stands. Again, though, I’m handicapped by having the faintest clue what mulberry tastes like and whether it tastes anything at all like this.

It’s quite nice, but not something that I’m likely to fall head over heels for. It reminds me strongly of the two other white blends from ACP I’ve had, White Temple Blend and especially White Dream Tea. The latter had banana and melon while the former had papaya and… some other stuff, so you’d think it would remind me more of the former. It doesn’t though. Interestingly enough, I also rated White Temple a full 20 points higher than White Dream, but if ever I were to buy either of them again, it would more likely than not by the Dream.