White Peony Gin Tonic

Ugh, I had a big long note written on this and my browser crashed. Le sigh. So I will quickly reiterate – this is citrusy, and the white tea base is quite present and good. The cedar, juniper and birch add a woodsyness reminiscent of the forest, but not of gin in my opinion (which I am okay with lol). Slightly alcoholic like after taste. It is making me sneeze a bit, possibly due to the leaves being a bit dusty. Overall, pretty good. I like the flavor, but not the sneezing haha!

I am a gin drinker. I love the intense, outdoorsy, almost medicinal flavour and scent of a good gin.

This tea, while nice on its own, just isn’t that reminiscent of gin for me. Both the nose and flavour are dominated by fennel, and I’m only getting much in the way of juniper and coriander on the finish, when I really want the juniper in particular at the forefront. The fennel also gives this a warming sensation, when I really associate gin with cooling, so that aspect is not what I was wanting or expecting either. This leaves a slight tingling numbness on the tongue and roof of the mouth.

The tea base is pretty subtle. I can tell there’s a white tea in this blend, but I couldn’t tell you much more about it than that.

At 3 minutes there wasn’t much of anything to this, so I gave it an additional 2 minutes of steeping.

I’m not usually a huge fan of white teas (although maybe that’s changing recently?) but I love this one. I like the cedar tips and the juniper, and everything else kinda blurs together pleasantly in the background. I think I got through about four steeps before I switched to something else, but I maybe could have gone for a couple more. I’ll have to see how far I can stretch it out, and what more interesting flavors might emerge. :)