Pomegranate Magnolia White Tea is a unique blend from Upton Tea Imports, an online tea seller.
This tea is from my first Upton Tea Imports order! I love that all their teas come in inexpensive sample sizes, so I can try a bunch of teas before committing to buy a large size. You can also have your name printed out on these – I should of had “Oolong Owl” printed on everything. Hoot.
So, why this tea? Well, I do love pomegranates and floral teas. I have a pomegranate tree in my backyard and it is exploding in flowers.
Oh man, I’m going to have even more pomegranates this year! Last year we couldn’t eat them all! Anyone wanna help?
DRY LEAF: Pomegranate Magnolia White Tea smells lightly peachy sweet. Lovely tea appearance, as always.
Heck is this? (the unfocused thing.. lol my photography skillz got used up on the pomegranate tree!)
I’m guessing this is a pomegranate kernel. I used to always spit those out when I first ate pomegranates. I later got lazy and didn’t bother.
STEEPED: The steeping instructions are 180F for 3minutes. I did 175F as my kettle doesn’t do 180F. Sigh.
Gentle floral sweet smell! A nice light amber cup of tea!
TASTE: Very delicate! Sip is light at first, then develops a lovely floral. 4/10 on the Floral-o-meter. I can identify this floral as a little magnolia and rose. Magnolia is softer than jasmine, no harshness. The white tea base is very fresh, juicy and floral on its own. The tea ends softly sweet, juicy and fruity, mixing in with the magnolia. I can’t really detect if this is pomegranate, but the fruityness compliments the tea beautifully. Finally, the aftertaste is a stronger floral, a 6/10. No tartness, though there is a slight dryness (1/10 Astringe-o-meter) the longer you drink.
I added a little sweetener to see what would happen to this tea. The light fruityness came upfront and stayed throughout the sip, with the strong floral as an aftertaste. I prefer this tea unsweetened to enjoy all the flavors.
RESTEEP: The tea changed to be a little savory floral up front, with a slight fruity tang as an aftersip. However, this is really light, so I doubt I’d resteep this tea next time.
BONUS STEEPING: I tried a steeping at 185F for 3 minutes to see if it would beef up the fruityness. At 185f, Pomegranate Magnolia White Tea has a stronger white tea base flavor, with a slight bitter flavor mixed in with the floral end of sip. The fruityness wasn’t improved or stronger. Oh well, I tried.
COMMENTS: Very lovely tea! I love the floral in this, the magnolia is very nice. My only complaint is the pomegranate, which wasn’t strongly present, but the fruityness in this tea was very delicious. The bonus in the fruit flavor in this tea was that there was no tartness, which is fairly common in pomegranate tea blends.
If you love floral teas, Pomegranate Magnolia White Tea is a must try! For me, it was totally worth the $2 I paid for this sample!
