Pumpkin Spice - Marzipan White

Really liked this one. I dig the flavor combo. Too expensive to own other than the sample, but it kept changing on each rebrew and it lasted very long western and tumbler style. The cardamom would actually be more prominent in the later steeps with the almond and pumpkin flavors giving off nice balanced natural sweetness with the persimmon. Really dug the persimmon almond combo personally. I feel lame, but I agree it is a bit too pricy. It’s easily a winner compared to the other fall blends. I had the highest hopes for the Pumpkin Caramel Oolong, but it was too dominated by the cinnamon to be distinct. The other two were also overpowered by cinnamon. This one was balanced.

All I have left to write tasting notes for tonight are these Magic Hour blends from my last order, and I feel like all of them deserve longer and more detailed tasting notes than I have the energy to write tonight – but I’m gonna try my best.

I actually enjoyed this one a lot! It was pretty sweet, but I definitely expect about this level of sweetness when I hear marzipan in the name of a tea. Rich and almond-y but with a creaminess to it as well that, at times, made me think of something like a vanilla almond milkshake. Or, at least, what I imagine that would taste like.

All in all I thought the “pumpkin spice” component in the blend was tastefully balanced. I got clove and nutmeg more than anything else, but in a gentle way the felt appropriate for a white tea blend. Plus, I loved that the delicate creamier and floral elements of the silver needle base were totally buried in flavours.

I see blends like this with the bai hao yin zhen base and it makes me think of teas from my past like Watermelon Xylophone from Butiki or Gold Rush from DAVIDsTEA. They’re just so intensely visually impactful. However, now that I understand the behind the curtains perspective it also makes me wonder why a blender would ever chose to use a base like this (past the visual impact). I mean this tea is stupid expensive and that’s not arbitrary – the tea base they’ve used is really costly to work with. You could probably achieve an equivalent taste/body/mouthfeel contribution from using a different grade of white tea and save both yourself and your customers a lot of expense.

So, striking as it is, I just don’t know if the added visual value is really worth it…

So this is the first of the pumpkin spice teas that I’ve actually liked and felt like lived up to its name. I’m not generally a big fan of marzipan/almond extract sort of notes in tea, but I found the idea of it combined with pumpkin spice intriguing.

It’s a nice combination, the spices are mellow and sweet, and there’s a slightly creaminess that makes it almost pumpkin pie-esque. Then the marzipan is there as a supporting note, adding a bit of richness and a syrupy sweet note. The white tea is somewhat subtle, which doesn’t surprise me since there were quite a few dried apple pieces taking up a decent amount of tea volume, but I can taste its soft haylike flavor.

Overall, quite good. I’m not sure I would pay the somewhat exorbitant price for it though. We’ll see what I think after finishing this and trying some of the other teas. :)