Sarsaparilla Tieguanyin

The other day I thought about this tea again and it dawned on me that it might make a great cold brew. Root beer is usually drunk cold, afterall.

It came out pretty well. The sarsaparilla flavor was nice, although the cold brewing brought out a bit more vegetal-ness from the oolong than I would have preferred. I may drink the rest of this up via cold brew this summer; it might also make a decent tea soda.

A nice creamy tea. It does remind me a bit of butterbeer. I highly recommend it!

First review! Haha I haven’t paid a lot of attention to this cup so far, but I’ll do my best. This was part of the March blend of the month club. I’ve sampled all of the teas from this box and the club itself actually except this one!

The dry smell is not very appealing to me, but that is the sarsaparilla giving it the woody, strong scent. I do get a bit of a vanilla-ness in there too along with the floral oolong base. I steeped this for around a minute and a half with 195 degree water.

The steeped scent is a bit better, more oolong, but still that sarsaparilla note that I don’t really enjoy. A bit cinnamony as well. The flavor is much better than the smell luckily. The first tastes reminded me of Master Zhang’s genmaicha with the toasty flavor, I think that might be from the dandelion root as it’s a common ingredient between the teas. As it cools there is more oolong flavor and almost a marshmallowy flavor, definitely can taste the sarsaparilla as it is like that foamy rootbeer flavor but not as sweet lol. There’s still a woodiness in there too, and that’s the one thing killing it for me, I haven’t really liked it in any of the blends with sarsaparilla from the blend club.

Overall, not a bad tea, but not a favorite of mine due to the woody note. An interesting tea nonetheless, I do get the marshmallow vanilla-y notes it’s going for, just not a solid winner due to personal preference. Happy to have the opportunity to try this tea though!