This was a bonus tea from my (last?) 52Teas order. I think, anyway. It’s definitely been a while. It’s also the last untried 52Teas blend I have in my cupboard, other than (quite a lot of) SBTs. I’ll be working on those again this summer, though.
I kept this one until last for a few reasons. I love the name, and it’s SPARKLY, and obviously that makes it the kind of tea I want to keep around for a bit. More significantly, though, it contains ginger. And ginger isn’t really (usually) my jam. I’m hoping the pluot is more apparant in the taste than the ginger…
I used 1.5 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 3 minutes in water cooled to around 180 degrees. It was kind of hard to measure – these oolong leaves are big! Or at least, long and twisty. Despite my aversion to ginger, I do actually love the scent of this tea. It’s mostly sweet and stonefruity, but there’s a touch of ginger lurking underneath that actually strikes me as appealing…Who’d have thought?!
To taste, it’s pretty delicious! It’s sweet straight-off, mostly plum in my estimation but I get apricot, too. I’ve never tried a pluot before, so this is a learning experience as well as a tea. There is ginger, but it’s reasonably subtle. It adds a spicy warmth to the background, and works better than I expected with the fruit flavours. On the whole, this one’s a lot fruitier than I thought it would be, and juicy-tasting to boot. It’s perfect on a day like today, which is spring in essence but also cold; sunny fruit flavours, warming ginger kick. I couldn’t have chosen a tea more suited :)
The base oolong adds a mild nuttiness, but otherwise is pretty hard to taste underneath the flavouring. It didn’t make much of an impression on the blend, but I suppose in that respect it’s doing its job well – supporting the flavours without overpowering them. It might have some stone fruit notes of its own, but it’s almost impossible to say.
The sparkle in this one is very subtle, but there’s a touch of gold glitter swirling around. It’s not in-your-face in the way that Glitter and Gold is, but it’s cute just the same. More of a Bluebird Christmas Cake level of sparkle, if you’ve tried that.
The more I sip this one, the more I like it. Sad face for it being a limited edition, because I’m pretty sure I’m going to miss it when my sample pouch is gone. My conclusion is that pluots should be used more often in tea!
