I am all about comfort tea today, so I just brewed up an evening pot of another utter favorite of mine: White Ambrosia by Tea Forté (http://www.teaforte.com/store/gourmet-tea/white-tea/white-ambrosia/).
The company's website describes it thusly: "Rarest Pai Mu Tan white tea is plucked in early spring from a special varietal tea bush called "chaicha." Blended with fragrant Madagascar vanilla and the tropical tea of island coconut. Delicate, refreshing and divine."
That's a bit over the top, but this is exceptionally nice tea. It doesn't taste tropical. I would characterize it as floral. This isn't the vanilla of sugar cookies or baking. It's the vanilla of orchids. The coconut provides a mellowing influence. I'd call it "refined" rather than delicate. This is a tea made for china cups and sipping, not travel mugs and blurry morning gulps (and not only because it's low in caffeine).
I did a bit of researching on "Pai Mu Tan," more commonly known as Bai Mudan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_Mudan) tea. It's a white tea, so lightly oxidized after picking, made from both young leaves and plant shoots. (Drinks, shoots and leaves . . . . yeah, it's a grammar book joke, so sue me.) Some of the flavor notes in the White Ambrosia clearly come from the tea itself, and not just the additives. A flowery quality frequently attributed to Bai Mudan tea, so I'm clearly not off base in finding this tea to be more floral than fruity.
I have to end with a shout-out to The Urban Muse (http://www.theurbanmuse.com/), my favorite day spa, located in Denville, NJ, for turning me on to this tea. They offer Tea Forté teas to customers while they are waiting for services and sell a decent selection of these teas in the shop.
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