The Persimmon Tree, White Guava

The Persimmon Tree Description:
White Guava tea brews into a light color with a beautiful, rich scent and a tropical flavor. It has an exotic blend of white peony loose-leaf tea, guava, strawberries, marigolds, and a touch of ginger. As with all of our white teas, White Guava tea prepares nicely hot and iced.

Price: $6.99/oz

My Review:
I got this tin free while cruising The Persimmon Tree's website by posting a link on Facebook. Cool. Although I have heard of guava, I had no idea what it was. I made a quick trip to Wikipedia for the following description:

Guava fruit generally have a pronounced and typical fragrance, similar to lemon rind but less sharp. Guava pulp may be sweet or sour, tasting something between pear and strawberry, 

If you follow the link and look at the pictures of the fruit you will likely say, "Oh yeah, I've seen them in the store".

The dry leaf is rather aromatic citrus. It is kind of prickly smelling. I hope I like this. Having not yet read the ingredients, the leaf looked more like Sencha to my bleary morning eyes. I used slightly less than one scoop, I should have used more because it is a white tea (hence the name - doh!). I heated the water well below boiling per white tea protocol and steeped about two minutes in my press.

The leaf stayed near the surface the entire time. The liquor is a pale yellow/green. The scent is much like the dry leaf aroma. Highly aromatic.

The sip is far less intense than the scent suggests. Very pleasant and tropical. Reviewers familiar with guava fruit say the taste is natural and spot on. The ginger adds just the tiniest bit of zing to the sip. It gives it almost a peppery element. The strawberry is difficult to detect but appears late in the sip. The white tea is not the star of the show with this cup. It lends support throughout the entire sip allowing the other flavors to shine.

On first opening the tin, I wasn't sure how I was going to react to this tea. After finishing the first cup, I am anxious to brew another. Quite nice.

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Update:
When this is steeped the second time the fruit flavors are lighter, mellower, this allows the white tea to stand out. I liked this second cup even more than the first, but then I am a sucker for white teas.

Visit the webpage for White Guava tea.


About The Persimmon Tree:
(From their website) The Persimmon Tree® offers our customers some of the world's finest organic teas and botanicals. Not only are most of our fresh high quality teas from around the globe hand-blended and organically grown, some of our teas are also fair trade, ensuring fair working conditions, fair wages, and a better life for tea workers from countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

At The Persimmon Tree®, our mission is simple: to enrich people's lives through the pleasure of tea.