Spring Tea

Oh my…spring tea indeed.

This is raspberry oolong at its finest. There is raspberry, luscious, juicy raspberry. But there is also the oolong. Neither one overpowers the other, instead they work together to create a smooth, vaguely roasty treat. The raspberry takes me back to the angel food cake with burnt raspberry icing my grandmother used to make for my mom’s birthday in October, because she somehow always still had raspberries then.

Yummy.

L&CTTB

I normally don’t like flavored oolongs. This one may be the exception to the rule. The raspberry was really nice. It went incredibly well with my chocolate chip cookie. The raspberry, even though enhanced by flavoring, did not taste fake. I enjoyed this tea.

This is really wonderful flavored oolong! Thanks so much Marzipan for the sample.

I love fruity oolongs iced in the summer. I made a cup at lunch hot poured over ice, and will likely cold brew the rest of my sample in a big pitcher :D

The raspberry flavor is nice and natural and the oolong seems high quality with a slight floral overtone.

Yup! This is an oolong! Came as a sample in my first RiverTea order.

It’s got that nosy orchid floral taste of a quality oolong. The tangy sweetness raspberry was a surprise mainly because it balanced so well with the natural flavor of the oolong as a complimentary layer. However this is still an oolong, a good oolong mind, but an oolong all the same so it can’t get higher than a 70 from me.

Proud to say I drank this cup complete without any sugar……mostly because I forgot to add any. But! I didn’t need any so that’s fine.

So here is my full confession.

I haven’t had many oolongs, so I don’t really know if I know what’s a good one. My whole life I have been all about the strong, very oxidized teas, and I still love them. Recently when I was trying to put together a Rivertea order I went by the ratings on here and saw that this one was pretty highly rated.

I think I like it. I think the problem is ME. I expect tea to be brown (this isn’t), strong (this isn’t), very hot (not an oolong!) and heavily flavored. I think the issue is that I need to retrain my taste buds to appreciate delicate teas.

When I initially made this, I was waffling on whether to put the rest of it into the TTB or keep trying it to see if I can broaden my tearizons. I think I’ll do the latter.

As a bonus, it doesn’t taste green!

As for me…dude, work has been so busy this week. We got a new Burger King account, Carl’s Jr. starts next week, Volkswagen starts in two weeks, Hill’s pet food any day (who knows?) This is on top of all of our regular stuff. And, I think I need to bring on two more people.

From the Here’s Hoping Traveling Tea Box #2

I have read such wonderful things about River Tea that I was excited to try one of their offerings. If their other teas meet the high quality of this one then I’m not surprised that so many people on Steepster enjoy them!

This is a beautiful oolong. There is so much fresh, juicy raspberry flavor. There is also the buttery flavor of the oolong. The combination is outstanding. I resteeped my leaves twice, and the balance of flavor remained the same for each cup. It’s well named, too. This really does taste like spring in a cup.

Edit: My 500th tasting note! Yay!

Sipdown (168/172)!

It’s raining, it’s pouring…
The lazy teenager old man is snoring…

I had a crazy good sleep and then woke up with some tasty, tasty oolongs. It’s been a pretty simple, relaxed day so far! However, I think I’m ready to go back to work tomorrow; it’s been a nice “vacation”.

Thank you aisling of tea for the sample of this one; it’s another RiverTea blend that’s eerily similar to Tea Desire’s blends so I was also excited to compare the two since TD’s Raspberry Oolong is another blend I keep stocked.

I must say the two are very, very similar: both have an incredibly strong and juicy raspberry taste that dominates the cup and commands your undivided attention and both have a touch of floral quality and nice buttery, pastry like notes. The main difference I experienced was that this one tastes greener and TD’s steps up the pastry comparison to a whole ’nother level.

For my personal tastes, I think I would prefer to keep TD’s stocked just because I’m not the biggest fan of green/vegetal tasting teas, so I like the pastry quality of their blend better than the green quality of this one. That works out well I guess since TD is local. However, someone who prefers a slightly greener oolong would likely enjoy this one more than the TD blend.

Both are very good, however.

So yesterday I was packaging up some care packages to send out, and one of my swap buddies had this on their wish list. Knew I had it so went rummaging for it and realized it was raspberry oolong. I have raspberry oolong in the house? You know you have too many teas when…
This smelled just amazing so had to try a cup. WOW this is really RASPBERRY – not much oolong, it pretty much could have been on any base that’s how strong the raspberry was. Normally I prefer to get a little of the base and to have that base compliment the flavors involved. This time, I don’t care – LOVE the raspberry. I would definitely order more of this.