American Dream: Peaches & Cream

Roswell Strange shared this blend with me b/c I am pretty sure I asked to try it and I didn’t realize until now how much she disliked it. When I brewed it, the dry leaf smelled familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it smelled like. Nevertheless, I was intrigued.

Then I took my first sip. I did not like it. I came here to review it and learned of RS’s aversion.

The tea is smooth but has a terrible artificial cream flavor that sticks on your tongue. And it could be peach but not a real peach by any means. Plus, there is a zing of either metallic or chemical that just bursts at the end of my tongue, specifically on the right side. I don’t like it. Though, thank you Roswell Strange for sharing! Clearly I was intrigued but I know better now.

Current cuppa, which I’ve let go cold while writing tasting notes…

(Mostly because I’m not enjoying it – tbh)

When you have a large tea stash you do sometimes completely forget that you own teas sometimes and that’s exactly what’s happened with this one. I’m actually a little bummed about that – not so much because it’s a good tea (it’s not) but because this would have been a very politically topical tea to brew up a few weeks ago…

As is stands, it tastes sort of like red fruit over peaches and has that very unpleasant artificial cream flavouring that has a gross finish/aftertaste. I know I figured out a way to make this come out good in the past, I need to reread my tasting notes and jog my memory on how I did that.

Holy nostrils Batman, this tea smells even better than expected. Peachy cream popsicle. I wish I had smell-o-vision at the moment so you could all enjoy this.

Long, leafy, unbroken tea leaves with lots of cornflowers and safflowers in the mix (I LOVE teas that incorporate these two). The smell though, gosh, that smell. I want to bathe in it and then wear it as perfume.

The flavor is robust, although not very peachy without some form of sweetener. I wish it tasted as good as it smelled – alas, I think that’s impossible.

Still, it’s got a good cream element to it (almost ice cream -like). The peach doesn’t come through as much as I’d like, but I’ve found it really tricky in tea to match peach well.

Must try iced, I have a feeling it’ll be stellar and the peach will shine then.

Was sent this tea for free through my Instagram account (http://instagram.com/teatravelninja/) in exchange for an honest review.

I should note as well that the customer service with this company was impeccable. They reached out, followed up, made sure there weren’t any shipping or duty issues, and were available pretty much 24/7 to answer any questions that I had.

The duty bit was particularly impressive; while they offer free shipping within the US, I was in Canada at the time of this tea testing. They shipped it and ensured there were no duty or taxes owing. Considering another company sent their package COD (and received on the same day, with no warning it was COD), I’d say this was a win all around.

Used DAVID Tea’s “perfect teaspoon” (2.5 tsp) in 12 oz of water, heated to 200F and steeped four minutes.