Peach HoppiTea

I randomly picked up an ounce of this, knowing it would likely be an acquired taste.. knowing that I don’t usually like beer, fruity black teas, or peaches in general. This tea therefore leaves me speechless because I strongly like everything about it.. the peachy fruitiness, the malt, the vaguest hint of tobacco, the hops. I just finished my second steep and loved it. I don’t get me.

I will withhold a rating on this one until I’ve worked my way further through the ounce, and can rationalize my feelings a bit more. It’s an aroma versus taste thing (I’ve a tiny aversion to the smell of hops).

So, I inadvertently brewed up two peach blacks this morning, as I was unaware that the tea I received from Sil had peach flavouring as well! (Actually, it just occurred to me that the third sample I brought down is also peach! But it’s Peach Ginger White, or something to that effect. I guess I had peaches on the brain…) This sample was of course generously provided by Azzrian! Thanks for the chance to try out your custom blend! :D

Now, a disclaimer. I hate beer. I probably don’t like hops. I am apparently picky about peach flavouring in tea (well, it may just be DavidsTea’s peach flavouring). However, this is too cool to pass up!

Brewed up, it smells a bit peachy, and there’s another flavour I can’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps it’s the hops, but I don’t really know why they’d be familiar. Or maybe it’s peach flavouring from another tea? Oh wait… it kind of smells like…. Butiki’s Apricot Guayasa! I think that’s the association I’m making. Anyways. The flavour is definitely interesting. I’m getting some bitterness but not really astringency… is this the hops? They are bitter, aren’t they? Bleeehhhhhhh. I can taste some delicious peachiness in there too, but the bitterness is making me sad. I suspect this is a yum tea for beer drinkers, but not so much for me. So bitter my mouth is getting all contorted, haha.

On that note, if anyone I’m swapping with in the near future is curious to try this tea, I have a couple cups’ worth to send off! I wouldn’t suggest trying it if you dislike bitterness or beer. :) No rating because I should have known I wouldn’t like it (and therefore a 30 is soooo mean!)

A busy day requires a very large pot of tea, especially since this is my first of the day. To start with I had work and afterwards I ended up in the hairdressers for over three hours (my mum had her hair dyed before our holiday), so my desperation for tea has grown and grown throughout the whole day.

In raw form this tea has large pieces of dried peach amongst it’s dark brown leaves. Also something green and finely chopped..some sort of herb or leaf? There is a sweet fruit scent but not recognisable yet as peach.

Once steeped this tea is dark brown in colour and has a juicy fruity peach/apricot aroma. Not as sweet as it’s raw form but much fruitier.

The first few sips reveal a rich, malt black tea base with sweet fruit highlights and a rather toasty after taste. For me it’s sweet enough to not need any additional sweetener. The peach is juicy and sweet and the raw pieces were really soft like gummy sweets. It’s a nice balance, fruity enough to be a fruit tea but with an actual tea base that also makes it a tea with a touch of fruit.

I bet this would be amazing as an iced tea. The majority of Butiki blends that I have tried so far have a delicious natural sweetness that’s like magic. It makes a lot of their teas familiar so they do have that unique factor down, their blends literally are their blends.

Another tea I’m sorry to see go but at least I can enjoy the cup and half left in my pot. :)

This is the special custom blend tailored by Butiki for Azzrian
I thank you very much for sharing some of it with me.

I really love it – First the blend scent is wonderful, then the brewed blend perfume is unique …and the taste is just waouh…surprising and so yummy.

Tea base is not too strong-but absolutely not weak- and perfectly spouses the peach aromas. But we can detect a different very interesting aroma and this is probably hop.
There is a very very light bitterness (no astringency at all) which is so interesting because this is really like the flavour of a beer without alcohol :)
This is an original flavour in a tea and this is really a success for me (and I don’t like beer, so this is really a big success)

Dry and brewing this smells utterly fantastic, full on floral peaches including that mysterious “peach pit” aroma, with an element of…fizziness somehow. Wow. I love how fresh fruit-sweet it smells, not sugary or syrupy. The fizzy quality also contains a tangy aspect that’s perfect, contributes to the fresh fruit/fizzy beer evocation. If this was a perfume I would wear it! Someone mentioned peach oatmeal and I can definitely see that. The interesting thing is, the taste definitely still has the flavor of tea. Its lightly bitter, tannic astringency gives the blend that beer quality (and the more it builds the more it does taste like hops…perhaps it melds with the hops somehow, but it turns from tea tannin to west coast IPA hoppy, pretty cool), but also reminds you it’s tea you’re drinking (a good thing, I think). Really nice stuff.

My 600th tasting note!
I saved this sample for last because I was the most curious about this blend. Thanks Stacy!
This was deliciously peachy, with a hint of sweetness.
I am not usually a fan of beer, but the hops in this tea add a very interesting note. It is kind of hard to describe. I am not even sure what hops are. I should have paid more attention but I was mostly focused on the delicious peach flavour.
Overall, a unique and pleasant tea!

Received this as a free sample with last Butiki order. Super impressed that Butiki teas are labelled with exact water temp and brewing time and it is not just a generic for all blacks use this, etc.

This tea smells of delicious peaches. Not too juicy, but it is authentic smelling. While brewing the smell of peaches with an undertone of hops was wafting out of my mug.

This tea tastes like an unsweetened peach juice. It is not thick though. There is a slight black tea taste but I almost had to wonder if I was really drinking tea or not. There is a very faint hops taste that becomes more prominent in the aftertaste. This one doesn’t really remind me of beer at all, which is slightly disappointing because I was hoping for that hop-y, slightly malty beer taste. But it is still a delicious tea. The hops work really well with the peach flavour. Excellent blend!

Ok, so this isn’t really a tasting note per say since I never actually got around to making myself any of this. More so, this is just me logging my feelings because they’re rather “unconventional”, one could say, in regard to the dry leaf.

Last night I was feeling incredibly sick and as I was entering the different teas I had received in the mail into my spread sheet I had them all next to me – and something from that pile was making me feel INCREDIBLY nauseated and sick. I was sure it was just my sense acting out of sorts from being sick though. So since today I’ve felt perfectly fine I decided to pull out all of the teas I received yesterday from my sample drawer and individually smell them to see if I could pin point what it was that was making me sick.

Everything was going really well until I reached this one, which I had received from CrowKettle as part of the “Take It Away” thread. Before even opening the bag to smell the leaf I started to feel sick, but once the bag was open I just couldn’t take it and I actually literally started to gag. 100% that’s what was making me feel so gross and making me so queasy yesterday.

And, I’ve scoured tasting reviews and read through the ingredients list and really there’s nothing in the tea that I’ve ever had adverse feelings to prior, and I can’t see anyone else ever experiencing the same bad reaction, especially just from just the leaf. I’m honestly baffled – a huge part of me just wanted to throw it away though…

I just cannot bring myself to make a cup of this to try out. I just can’t and wont. So, that said, if anyone wants to swap for this (or honestly, I’d be ok with just mailing it away to someone for nothing in return) despite my “glowing” praise towards it please just comment and let me know.

I’ve never had such a poor reaction to a tea, and I just want it out of my house…

Thanks to Kittenna and Azzrian for letting me sample this! an interesting experience.
Tastes JUST like a peach beer I had a few months ago. I swear, add some fizzy and alcohol burn… they’d be identical!
That said, I really dislike hops, and I wasn’t that big a fan of the actual peach beer, or the tea.
Funny, because I love beer… but wheat beer or ones that are very low on the hops.
In any case, it is very smooth and well put together. I really like the peach part to! juicy and fresh, but not in a pulpy way. More like the essence of peach.

A one-cup sample from CrowKettle!

This tea smells sooo peachy and delicious. I steeped it a bit cooler than boiling (boiling water and tea scares me), and added a pinch of sugar.

This tea is… kind of sparkly. Such a weird texture! The base is quite delicious, even though I don’t think it’s one of my favourites. The peach flavour is just yum. I don’t drink beer, and have no idea what hops taste like, but this has a bit of an odd flavour to it that must be the hops.

I think I’d like it a lot more if it was just peach, but this is pretty good! I’ll enjoy my cup, but won’t reorder.