I did score some tea when I was in NOLA. Two kinds of Tazo from Whole Foods, three loose leafs from a local tea shop, and one bag of Intelligentsia’s jasmine (at O’Hare, but it counts). This is the first Tazo – I figured it would be nice to have some easily drunk bagged greens for travel, so this was an experiment.
These are not so ideal for travel, though – the little envelopes are paper, which always irks me. Paper is fine as long as there’s also an outer layer of plastic – however pointless and wasteful – but I do prefer just plastic. (Kusmi have it down for sure; great, pretty plastic envelopes, and really lovely tea bags inside.) In addition, with a recommended steeping temperature of 80 degrees C, this is a little too finicky for travel water.
In the bag, this smells of nothing. Steeped, this also smells of nothing. Possibly a slight whiff of cucumber, but it’s more reminiscent of zucchini, seeing as I so rarely come across warm cucumber. Flavour wise, I don’t get any peach whatsoever, only a somewhat fishy vegetal flavour presence that doesn’t really linger. I assumed this would be a plain green (you know, with a name like ‘Peachy Green’, but clearly I’m just not paranoid enough) but it is, in fact a green-black blend. This would explain the slight fishiness, if nothing else.
This isn’t unpalatable, but mostly because it just doesn’t have enough flavour to have personality. It’s fairly unoffensive and definitely something I will try to cold steep, or drink with food. However, it’s quite far from the perfect, peachy green travel tea I was looking for.
ETA: When it cools, it acquires a round sweetness that is quite pleasing and does carry some small peachy note. +5
[Picked up at Whole Foods in NOLA, March 2014.]
80 C, 3 min.