Organic Plum Oolong Tea

This is a winner! Light and a subtle plum taste. Not tart at all. I had this warm but I am sure this would be great iced…I am definitely ordering this one. Wish more companies provided flavored oolongs.

The first time I brewed this, I didn’t add enough leaf to my steeping vessel and it tasted just a little too hibiscus-y. This time, though, I added a little more leaf, and the flavor of the cup is infinitely better than the first go-around. The hibiscus flavor is still there, but, it manages to mingle with the other ingredients of this tea well enough so that it doesn’t taste too hibiscus-y (just be sure to use a little extra leaf so that you can get something from those other ingredients!)

Usually, when it comes to teas with hibiscus, I sort of groan about this inclusion… but I actually understand why it was added here. The hibiscus adds a pretty plum-red color to the cup and more importantly, at least from my perspective, it adds a plum nectar-like texture to the cup. This tastes a bit like a plum cider (without spices! But I think that some cinnamon would be amazing in this).

A very nice Oolong. Not my favorite from Arbor Teas, but they can’t all be my favorites, can they?

I’m still looking for a back-up to the Infusion Tea’s Plum Oolong…this really isn’t it…but there are a few completely different tasting notes and thoughts I have on this Oolong…

This smells and tastes wine-like…a very sweet and tarty wine or alcoholic beverage. I like the way this one starts but then it turns a bit too tart for my liking. I will give it some ‘props’ tho because it’s not as tart as it could be and I can certainly drink the entire cuppa! Yup! You got it! It’s because of the hibiscus! Ug.

It’s also because of the schizandra berries and rosehips, too! I, personally, would have preferred just straight-up Oolong with chunks of plum. Because this isn’t the case…I am ok with it…but I would have tweaked the name of the tea…maybe Plum Berry Surprise or “Plum & Then Some” Oolong or something…because it’s not just plum…there is more than just the plum.

Okay…so…now that I have gotten that out of my system and that my hot tea is cooling at rapid speeds today because it continues to be at tundra-temperatures…I’ll switch gears!

COLD or ICED…

This is where it is, folks! At least for me, it is!

I’m completely looking at this flavored oolong in a different light when it’s cold. I can totally take the level of tartiness with the hibiscus! I prefer this one cold! There it is. :)

When I review this one over at SororiTEA Sisters I will most likely do it from an Iced Tea Prospective…of course I will say why I prefer it this way in the post but it will be less of a rant and ramble than I am doing here. I guess it’s just been one of those days or weeks…I have finally decided to CRACK…

I can’t take much more snow and storms and cold and crappy roads!

Anyhow…back to the tea…

This iced or cold is MUCH BETTER and I am rating it mostly on the iced – since that is my personal preference here! It’s sweet and a little sugary and fruity and berry but smooth at the beginning with more tart at the end of the sip! It remains quite wine-like…maybe starting off more like a sweet and ending more like a fruity-dry. It leaves a drier fruit aftertaste as well.

So…how was that for a ramble and rant!?

Don’t get me wrong…this is a great tea for those who love their hot teas tarty and don’t mind hibiscus. For those like me who aren’t fond of the hibiscus – especially in hot teas – try it cold or iced. There are differences between the hot and cold versions. I, personally, prefer the iced in this case. I will say it has a nice wine- like color to it as well…comparable to some of the Arbor Mists colors…or wine-cooler type drinks.

End result for my preferences…fairly good cold.

Yeah, sorry, this one just isn’t for me. The dry leaf smells fruity and vaguely alcoholic, like wine or some variety of fruit Pucker. The steeped tea has a spicy, tart, stewed fruit thing going on and something that reminds me of a decorative soap. Sipping the tea gives me mild stewed berries or plums and soap. I find myself wincing three times during each sip – once to brace myself for the sip when the soap smell hits, once as it is in my mouth and I taste the warm tart flavor, then finally when I swallow and feel like I’ve just had my mouth washed out with soap.

Lots of others folks seem to really like this one so I’ll just say my rating reflects my personal tastes, not the quality of the tea.

Reading some of the comments, I decided to try steeping it a bit longer. I also added just a bit of amber sugar. It’s like a completely different cup of tea. The plum comes through a bit more, so the hibiscus takes a backseat. It now tastes more like a juicy plum than just the tart skin. Still not getting a real strong sense of the tea base, but it’s a nice fruity cup nonetheless.

I woke up this morning and could not wait to get this open. This is such an interesting tea! Rose hips, dried schizandra berries, hibiscus, and of course plum! It looked like potpourri in the bag as I transferred it to a tin.

The plum taste is absolutely vivid. It’s like the tea was soaked in Japanese plum wine, then dried. I admit I find the hibiscus flavor a little overpowering in this blend, but I still like it in all its complexity. The oolong is very mild beneath it all, but accompanies it well.

It brews up to a lovely pinkish-amber hue, and smells like fruit juice. In fact, the tea’s flavor reminds me a lot of juice when it has had time to cool. It’s wonderful. But that’s coming from a plum tea fiend.

I’d have to agree with the others saying the hibiscus is definitely the first thing you’ll taste. The plum is there, however, and its very nice. Overall a very good tea that I probably could have brewed better had I watched the temperature!

This is one of my favorites. I love the fruity flavor with the oolong, but the color is what really makes me love it. I always use a glass pot because I love to see the colors of my teas, and this one is stunning. I don’t get as tart of a flavor as other reviewers have, maybe because I am using a lower water temp or less tea per pot.

Extremely disappointing. I was expecting a kind of dark sweet fruitiness, somewhere between plum and currants. But all I got was hibiscus and tart. I ended up throwing the sample pack away, it was so unappealing to me.

This is the most fragrant tea I’ve ever experienced. Smells very much like wine, in a good way. I often open the tin I transferred it to just to smell it. Brews to the most beautiful deep red color. First steeping is extremely fruity, wonderful blend of the plum and berry flavors. Second brewing it usually loses the majority of the fruit complexity but the oolong is just as delicious on its own. This is one of the teas that I drink most often.