Periwinkle

Finished off the rest of my sample of this, and I have to say I really like it. I tried other black and white tea blends, but this one is the best so far. It must be the addition of vanilla. As a follow-up to my first note on this tea, it didn’t matter that the white tea star wasn’t in this steep. Still tasted the same. I will probably pick up more of this when I reorder from the persimmon tree!

I’m working on a knitted shawl, so far, very easy and I’m about 30% done in like 2 days, and I could work on it more if I wanted to.

Anyways, drinking tea, knitting and listening to Super Junior (Eunhyuk fan here!). How about a new black blend? I gotta say, Periwinkle is a great name for a tea!

Periwinkle, hmmm. This is hard to rate, but was easy to review. My 1oz tin only had one white tea flower thing, so I only had a small teapot with it. It’s got a nice rich and bold black tea, with a vanilla smoothness, ending with a bit of floral sweet. And slightly bitter.
Sweetened, no bitterness. As a regular cup of tea, ehh, not my type of tea. The bitterness wasn’t for me and the white tea didn’t come out much (but could be my lack of white tea)
Latte however, Periwinkle is quite good – very vanillay and smooth. I’d probably drink the rest of the tin only as latte, or gift it to someone who is a bigger black tea fan. I let my roommate (ex coffee drinker) have some and he was going crazy “I could drink this every day!”

Full review on my blog, Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/periwinkle-from-the-persimmon-tree-tea-review/

Here’s hoping tea box

Overly sweet, fake-tasting vanilla. The base was decently madly and full-bodied, but I had to poor half the cup out because of the vanilla flavoring.

The last two days I’ve had a grand total of three cups of tea and I think the lack is starting to affect my sanity (then again it could be the sick toddler, hard to tell.) I don’t drink much in the way of black tea anymore, but when I saw this one, which is a combination of black and white teas it intrigued me. I’ve never seen the two blended together before.

This certainly is a bold black tea and an interesting combination. It steeped up nice and dark and ended up being just what I needed today. It had the added benefit of making the house smell delicious. Taste wise the black tea comes across strong although it has a hint of bitterness which gets stronger as it cools. I think I might try a slightly lower temperature with the last of my sample and see what happens with that. While I love the taste of the vanilla and the creaminess it adds, I think the amount of bitterness detracts from the blend a bit.

The second steep was much less bitter and more to my tastes. The vanilla still stood out, but not as much as the initial steep.

I finished up the last bit of my sample today (sipdown!) and it was tasty. It’s been very cold lately and this creamy vanilla tea really hit the spot. I will certainly order more of this blend in the future.

I got 2 steepings out of the leaves and added sweetener in my 16oz steeping mug.

Merlin sipdown. I recently discovered that I really like assam. This is nice, with mild vanilla flavor. It needs to be sampled with the rock sugar.

My Cyber Monday order from Persimmon Tree arrived yesterday! I was initially going to reorder Vanilla Bean until I noticed Periwinkle, which seemed similar, so I ordered a sample of this tea to compare. It’s been a while since I had vanilla bean, but I think I preferred the more classic vanilla ice cream-esque taste from vanilla bean than this tea. Periwinkle has a more subtle vanilla taste, but there is also something off about it to me. I’m starting to think that it might be the Assam base. Luckily, I ordered a sample of straight Assam, so I can get to the bottom of this. Just a few months ago, I was trying to untangle the differences between black, green, oolong, and white, and now I’m realizing how different teas can be within these categories. It’s pretty exciting, but also a little exhausting, exploring them all and trying to figure out which ones I prefer personally.

I’m not going to have to worry about teas sitting in the hot mailbox all summer… because I’m vowing not to acquire any more teas all summer! It’s been a little overboard lately, even if I appreciate them anyway.
Thanks for this extra in your sale, Ost! I’m always up for a vanilla tea. There is plenty of vanilla here but I didn’t see those vanilla stars that were supposedly in the blend. Plenty of vanilla anyway on a stronger black tea. The assam is a nice surprise though it isn’t distinctly an assam flavor that I would be able to tell is assam. It is delicious with the vanilla though. I don’t think there are actual vanilla pieces, it’s just flavoring. Maybe others wouldn’t like it, but I usually like any vanilla tea. :D

This cup of tea can be securely filed under “pleasant”. Nothing too flashy, just a gentle, almost floral vanilla, and a somewhat delicate base. Really nice afternoon cuppa.
Thanks to Ost for letting me try this. I’m enjoying all the samples!

Up way before dawn. While zapping spam and catching up on tasting notes, I decided to have this again this morning. Today I made a 4 oz concentrate then added milk and a little sweetener for a latte. Very comforting, though it would have been better as an evening cup. I don’t like being jarred awake but this is a little too cozy for 6:00 AM. Don’t know until you try. Warm. Silky. Vanilla.