Pineapple Oolong

i was a bit sceptical about this flavour at first. but its really really nice. Its got a nice fresh pineapple taste instead of a too sweet fake pineapple taste. its really good.

Another from my LA tea spree!

Love LOVE this! So good! Smells more of coconut when dry, but definitely tastes like pineapple when steeped! I had some hot, very mellow flavor, warm pineapple scent. Cold is fantastic! Light, refreshing, and just the right amount of sweetness that you can drink it all day, like I have been. Makes my summer days happy, even when I was at work.

Does not do well with oversteeping (oops). But the following infusions (three so far) have been great.

Going through my teas from the New Years grab bag and this was one of them. I normally don’t like fruity teas but this one isn’t so bad. It’s not overwhelming but given my tastes, I’m not a fan. It does brew into a very nice iced tea though.

I should preface this by saying that pineapple’s not among my favorite fruit flavors. The dry leaf of this tea smells strongly of coconut, but once brewed the coconut is mostly absent (from both the scent and the flavor) – it’s not totally gone, but it’s very, very faint, and the pineapple definitely dominates. Which is too bad, because I’m fonder of coconut than I am of pineapple.

I will say that the flavoring here isn’t terribly strong, and the oolong base comes through nicely. I like this one okay, and I can definitely see pineapple fans really loving it.

I got this in my New Year’s Happy bag. Which was a really awesome deal. Now I have to work my way through trying the different teas. So this one I am having after lunch since I was craving something sweet. So I was good and steeped this instead of having a cookie. Dry it smells like sweetened pineapple and coconut. Steeped it is delicious. Very buttery creamy flavor with just a hint of pineapple. I really like that you can taste the oolong more than the flavoring. Liking this one a lot. Yummy!

A delicious pairing of pineapple sweetness and the freshness of the oolong.

I don’t want to get too excited here, but it is possible I am getting to close the point where I will have tasted all of the flavored oolongs in my stash and written about them. I’m finding them harder and harder to locate in the as yet untasted category in my Steepster cupboard.

When I get to that point, I am thinking I may move on to the relatively few flavored pu erhs I have.

But meanwhile, I’m trying this one today. Pineapple and coconut, tropical staples, and a green oolong. The dry mix smells about 1 part pineapple to 2 parts coconut. But both flavors smell like good representatives. Not fakey fakey, in any case. Which is exactly what I’d expect from Lupicia because they give good flavor.

Rinse, short steeps, etc. for this first getting to know you session. Light butter yellow liquor.

A pleasant surprise after steep 1 (15 sec): the floral aspect of the tea base comes through nicely. It’s about equally prevalent with the pineapple and coconut, which are now at about 1/3 each after steeping. And that’s pretty much how they taste, as well.

Steep 2, 20 sec. The leaves have unfurled and are now filling the gaiwan. The three components I noticed in steep 1 are still there in equal parts. The coconut may be slightly less, but that’s ok. Coconut is a pretty strong flavor and can tend to take over. Not here. There is something really wonderful about this. I’ve had a lot of teas with these flavors, and none of them have struck me as so nicely balanced. I particularly love that I can taste the oolong in and among the flavors, in all its buttery and floral glory. When the tea is gone, the cup smells like sweet cream.

Steep 3, 25 seconds. This may be the exception to the rule that flavored oolongs don’t need to go through multiple short steeps. Because this one somehow manages to keep the tea base front and center. The pineapple, coconut, and oolong flavors are still present in equal parts, and aren’t really losing much flavor. The buttery, creamy quality is developing nicely.

Steep 4, 30 sec. The non-tea flavors start to wane, but the tea is still tasty. The wet leaf smells like a damp forest, with an interesting evergreen note. Fir-like.

Remaining steeps — 35, 40, 45. The tea flavor starts to wane but is lovely till the end. The leaves, when completely unfurled, overflowed the gaiwan.

I’ve had a run of great luck with teas I’ve tried lately and this didn’t blow the streak.

Here’s Hoping TTB.

So, I definitely thought this was a tasty oolong, but I didn’t taste pineapple at all. In fact my experience of this tea seems to be wildly different than the flavors other people have noted. I got a nice roasty mineral flavor which none of the seventy other reviewers have noted. I may buy some and see if it has a different flavor when fresh or if it got some flavor contamination. If not, I’ll still have a pleasant oolong to drink.

Well! Happily I found a third tea that I really like from Lupicia. Not great for my wallet because undoubtably by the time summer comes around I will have to order more…but I can kinda get away with rationalize restocking to my Mom, plus a few new tries. But it will depend on how many other teas that I like.

Though this tea has pineapple in it, I don’t get much of a ‘tropical feel’ from this tea that others have mentioned. Which is fine…I got more then enough tropical teas.

There was the buttery element that others mentioned…generally speaking, buttery is not a quality that I care for, in combination with the pineapple, it made for a very appealing taste.

This is the tea I’ve wanted to try right from the get go…so I am extremely pleased that I liked it as much as I hoped.

Thanks to CheshireEyes for the thoughtful sample! This has been on my wishlist for a while and I’m super glad to have tried it. This has a lovely sweet pineapple flavor that comes just short of being cloying or tasting candy-like. It’s also nice as an iced tea. By which I mean brewed hot and then cooled, since I never had the patience to cold brew this. Sipdown!