Lemon Lily

Another weird one! Postal Teas / Lemon Lily, you’re not impressing me. This one also has a powder visibile in the bag, though the powder is sweet and obviously maple. The ingredient list has “Canadian Maple Flakes”, so I guess if you beat those up you get Canadian Maple Dust. Steeping instructions were “2 tea spoons @ 200F for 4-6 mins”. I measured out a level (1.5) tsp and then topped it up a bit to make 4g for my 10oz mug. Water at around 90C, steeped for 4min.

Ok, in the bag, this smells extremely gingery. So I was ready for it to be a ginger-honeybush tisane, and then… huh, the steeped liquid smells mostly kind of earthy or plant-y (is that the honeybush?). The taste is slightly tart from the hibiscus (it’s not overdone, but… I’m still not sure why it’s there in the first place?). I’m only getting ginger in the aftertaste, with a slightly warming quality. There’s a very slight sweetness from the maple. I don’t detect any cinnamon. I don’t understand this tisane at all! Like, it’s not terrible, I’ll drink it, but I do not see what the point was of combining this particular set of ingredients. I’m just stting here, sipping, going “but… WHY?”.

This is a weird tea. In the bag, with the black tea leaves, safflower petals, and citrus peel, there’s this granular, powdery substance. The lemon lily website has “pomegranate powder” in the list of ingredients they use, so I’m guessing that’s what it is. I tasted some of the powder left behind on the scale, and it… didn’t really tast like anything. Weird. Steeping instructions on the label were “2 tea spoons @ 212F for 4-6 mins”. I measured out 1.5tsp (one level “tea spoon”) and it was 3.4g, which seemed like plenty for my 9oz mug. Steeped for 2 min, tasted, it was kind of bland. Steeped for one more min, tasted, it was starting to get a bit tart/bitter, so I figured it was time to stop. This brews into a dark orange liquor. It smells like… red fruit, could be pomegranate I guess. It actually smells like it has hibiscus in it, though it doesn’t. It tastes mostly citrusy and slightly sour/bitter from the orange and lime peel. Where is the black tea hiding in all of this? If I were tasting it blind I would assume this was a tisane. Bizarre.

From this month’s Postal Teas box. I may have a problem with this tendency to try out new subscription boxes. ;) The steeping instructions on the package were “1-2 tea spoons @ 200F for 4-6min” which seemed a bit crazy to me, so I went with 3.5g in 10oz @ 80-85C for 2min (3min on the second steep). Worked fine, definitely didn’t taste like it needed a longer steep! Anyway, this is a pretty unremarkable fruity green tea. Solid sencha (I’m assuming) base, kind of artificial-tasting cherry flavour. I don’t taste the rose petals at all. It’s not unpleasant, but I have fruity green blends in my cupboard that I like more.

Backlog:

This was the third and final tea from my 8th edition box from Postal Teas. I really enjoyed this box and discovering the white teas from Lemon Lily.

Even though these teas all seemed to share a common thread (beyond being all from the same company and all sent in the same sampler box from Postal Teas) – they were all very visually stunning and seemed to have a lot of flowers in them – I enjoyed that I found them all to be unique. They were all quite floral but I liked that I was not only tasting the flower but the other flavors of each blend.

This one is even more floral than the first two were. This blend focuses on the rose and I like the flavor combination of rose and white tea. It’s a soft and subtle combination. Mild fruit notes.

A really lovely tea – not just to look at but also to sip.

Backlog:

The photo is slightly deceptive because it doesn’t show all the beet powder that is in this. When I received this tea in my 8th edition of Postal Teas, I was kind of surprised by all the hot pink dust that was inside.

As I mention in my full-length review of this tea: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/11/26/beauty-the-beet-white-tea-from-lemon-lily/ – It kind of looks like freeze dried lipstick that had been pulverized into a powder.

When you steep the tea, it becomes a ruby red. It almost looks like it has hibiscus in it, but it doesn’t. (Thankfully)

A very interesting tea. I taste rose and lavender. The beetroot softens the flavors and gives the cup a sweetness and accents the earthiness of the white tea.

It’s a pleasant cup and certainly unusual.

Backlog:

This is one of the most visually stunning teas I’ve encountered. However, there are a lot of flowers – let me retype that and say: there are a LOT of flowers in this. It almost looks like there are more flowers than there is tea.

This is the first tea that I tried from Lemon Lily, a tea company that was featured in edition 8 from Postal Teas.

Fortunately, even though there are a lot of flowers in the tea, I can taste the delicate white tea. It is a very floral tea, but the flowers seem to actually accentuate the white tea base.

This tea pleases all the senses – I love the way it looks, I love the aroma, I love the taste and it even makes me feel good when I sip it. As far as the sense of hearing, I like to hear the sigh of contentment when I sip it.

Notes of lavender and chrysanthemum. A hint of spice from the anise (I really like the way the licorice plays with the floral notes). The maple comes through nicely. And then I taste that light, airy, silky quality of the white tea.

A really enjoyable tea.

This tea is delicious! Love that its also organic and fair trade.