Country Peach Passion

The fourth and last bagged tea of the day yesterday. I pretty much always take a cup of tea upstairs with me when I’m staying at my parents and they go up to bed way earlier than I would go to bed and I take a laptop upstairs and game/chat online in bed. This was the only non-caffeinated kind of tea they had open so this is what I went with. I figured I’d had enough black tea for the day.

Overtime, I’ve found that I need to steep these Celestial Seasonings zinger-style teas at the lower end of the recommended steeping time. I don’t hate hibiscus because I like tart things. But I like to make it on the least tart side. So I’m upping my rating 5 points (decent bagged tea range is 40-50) on this one because it’s a lot better than before I figured that out. But this one still remains one of my least favorite zinger-style herbals because it has a bitter bite/sour bite/sharpness to it that I don’t get with the others. Which sucks because I like the peachiness and tartness of it just fine for a warm mug to idly sip at.

Non-teaist co-workers even commented on how lusciously scented this is—-it makes the whole room fragrant. Beautifully peachy. A Cheapster Steepster winner since you can pick it up inexpensively and locally.

My plan was to have something warm and tasty to drink whilst editing photos. Something unfussy so that I could just throw some boiling water in over a teabag, leave the bag in, and immediately get to work.

I remember liking this one a long time ago. I still do :) With the teaspoon of honey I added, it tasted like canned peaches in syrup. When I was done, I just threw some more boiling water over the bag and got back to editing. The second infusion still had a lot of flavor! Perfect tea for when you want something to sip that doesn’t take your full attention. I think I’d also like to tuck a bag into a black cold brewed iced tea for a little added fruity flavor.

Two cups later, and my photos are ready :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackiemania/sets/72157623842760142/

De-cupboarding! With my volume of tea, it’s probably for the best to get a few items finished off. I’ve left the bag in this cup far longer than intended but it hasn’t hurt it any. This is a perfectly pleasant peach tea but I had the good fortune to try Sawadee’s peack apricot black last week adn think that I have finally found my favourite peach tea – loose leaf!

EDIT: Had a bit of a funky taste, realized after looking at the ingredients that it’s that soapy flowery chamomile taste I hate. It’s trying to overtake the peach – Scratch what I said earlier about not being hurt by an oversteep. Chamomile is blech!

This is my second mug of this that I’ve had tonight. I tried something daring earlier and it was so great that I’m doing it again. The box was rambling on about peaches and cream and I was thinking that sounded pretty amazing. So I put a bit of sugar in this tea, no big deal. But then I decided to add a bit of milk which isn’t something I would normally do, especially since Celestial Seasonings tend to be a little light. However, it worked beautifully. It really is like dessert in a mug. For an impulse buy, this tea has turned out to be a pretty good decision.

So I’m in love with my new tea kettle! :3 It boils water so fast. What in the world was I doing not using one of these?!
This tea is actually really good. I bet it’d be great cold. It tastes like peach and it is somehow not really artificial tasting. It reminds me of peach rings. I’m loving these herbal blends.

Sipdown! Mainly because I’m making room for more teas and the last old bag of this had to go. There were three left so I threw two in a mug. That may have overdone it on the stevia though. I’ve liked this better in the past. It usually has a nice peach flavor. I’m also just tossing an old box of CS berry zinger which I never liked anyone, since it’s mostly hibiscus. Ah well, moving on!

Another from my CS Fruit Tea sampler, since it’s 4am and I may as well!

Had it sitting steeping right next to another mug with the True Blueberry in it (for the boyfriend), and the two together made a very pleasant smell. I went ahead and added honey to this before tasting, since I was planning to just have it iced. But I miscalculated the size of my cups, so I now have half a mug of hot peach and a full glass of iced!

Another reviewer mentioned peach-flavored oatmeal – that is exactly what this tea hot reminds me of! It has something non-peachy in it that smells more like a baked good. Like others mentioned too, it’s definitely not tart. It doesn’t taste very much like peaches either though, to me. A lot like the blueberry one, this is really thick and syrup-y, and ends up reminding me of a peach syrup/jam. It tastes like something that would go well on pancakes. Like also happened with the blueberry, I’m finding it difficult to finish this one hot.

Iced though, it’s fairly nice. It’s diluted a bit and the whole tea is much lighter. For some reason it seemed to go a little melon-flavored on me when iced, in a not very pleasant way. It makes it somewhat sour, so I’m guessing that may be the hibiscus finally coming out.

Every day I drink an ancient tea (3+ years) from my cupboard, I give myself a pat on the back :D Go me!

So this one’s old, but not too old. As in, I think it is still going to taste reasonably true. Certainly smells like it! The dry teabag had little scent, but once it hit the water it did smell like delicious peachy goodness. I can smell a bit of creaminess too.

I remember as a kid always thinking that the peach-flavoured teabags were the best, and then heaping tons of honey into them because they were never as sweet as I wanted. Thankfully my palate has matured, and I no longer require massive amounts of sweetener, as long as a tea is not oversteeped and has some flavour.

I must say that this does taste like a bagged tea to me. Whether it’s the influence of the bag itself (i.e. papery taste) or just associations of this tea with bagged tea, I can’t tell. It is actually sweet, and the flavour does remind me of peaches, though. It’s actually a little bit like Southern Belle from DavidsTea, although with more peaches and no black tea (duh, it’s a herbal).

Not bad, but not a winner either.

This tea may have lost much of its flavor from being open in my cupboard for so long. I’m not really getting but the faintest hint of peach and something rooibos tasting/cardboardy, so I will not rate this tea. At least it is something warm to drink as my heating blanket attempts to warm me up from the outside.