Lychee

Tea of the morning…..

I seem to be going through all of my floral, citrus, and Earl Grey varieties these days. I guess that is what I like in the summer. This one is always reliable hot or cold. It is definitely my favorite iced tea, but hot it is wonderful, too. Notes of citrus and rose perfectly together with a good solid tea base. It is definitely in my top teas to always have on hand.

Usual teapot method.

Oooooooh Lychee! You are sweet, fruity, and rosy. You blend so well with this medium bodied Chinese tea base. I love you and you make me smile! (I think lychee must have what jasmine has — a substance that makes me happy!)

Lychee, you’re next! Last of my re-stocked Harney teas, except for Paris, which I already blew threw and no longer have in my cupboard. Again, this is still my favorite lychee black tea, despite having tasted a few of them by now. Harney often does a single fruit-flavored black tea so well! This tastes like ripe, lovely lychees, and once again the base is substantial but not too robust. Love!

So in full disclosure, I have never actually tasted real lychee fruit, mostly because I have do idea how you eat one. Do you peel it, are their seeds, do you eat the seeds – it stresses me out :) But I do like lychee flavoured things.
The dry tea smells of lychee flavour on top of a strong black tea base, but it is very perfumey.
The brewed tea smells of the same lychee perfume. The tea tastes like a medium boldness black tea base. There is a lychee fruit taste to it, slightly perfumey, but not bad. The perfume taste almost reminds me of rose petals. Overall a good tea, but I would have preferred a more fruity flavour. I may try to add some sweetener next time. It is slightly sweet on its own, but maybe some sugar would bring out more of the fruitiness.

I am pretty sure this sample came from SimplyJenW. If I am right, many thanks! Several people are now using QuiltGuppy’s type of packaging so it is hard to keep track!

I did not expect to like this tea. I did not expect my guest at tea today to like it. When my eldest daughter came home from Hong Kong she wanted us to try Lychee fruit and in addition to looking like eyeballs I thought it tasted like strong bathroom cleaner. Maybe we had bad ones…

This tea….not so! In fact, I really felt like I was drinking Harney’s Rose Scented Tea, easy on the rose and with a touch of lemon. It was truly delightful and light and very, very smooth. Surely this is a Ceylon base? This is probably going on a future shopping list.
This was my guest’s favorite tea today, and I enjoyed it very much!

Thank you again to JacquelineM for sharing and introducing me to this fantastic tea I had never tasted lychee and now I know what I have been missing as it is absolutely divine. I agree with Jacqueline in that if I did not know it was lychee I might think there was a hint of Roses. This tea is so very smooth and velvety in the mouth. I tried mine slightly sweetened and it is perfection! Mmmmm , so yummy!i

This is a nice, simple Chinese black tea with just enough added flavor to complement rather than overwhelm the tea’s natural taste.

It’s ok, the aroma and taste of lychee are very subtle. I prefer something stronger like Paris any day. Not enough flavor for me to like like it. WNRP

I love lychee flavor, but I feel like with teas it can go one of two ways. It could either be really fruity and sweet like canned lychee, or rosey and peppery like fresh lychee.

This one is a more rosey lychee. Sure, there is a nice amount of fruity goodness mixed in. But the peppery flavor lingers longest. All of these flavors pretty much mute the black tea base. It’s not bad, exactly. But it doesn’t really impress me, either.

The reason I bought this is because Tea Forte stopped making their lychee-coconut tea. I loved it and now it’s going for like $55 a box on eBay. So… I’m planning on finding a good lychee tea and trying to make my own. But I think I’ll try a few more before I settle.

I received a sample of this from Zack. Thank you!

So Lychee. I guess I had no idea what Lychee tasted like. We have never really met before. I am going to have to say this is not a favorite of mine. I think the lychee would blend much better with say an oolong or a green. With the black base it was a floral black tea which for me wasn’t great. Not bad, but not something I would go crazy about. Glad I got to try this one, and glad I finally got to try Lychee.