Pipachá / Port Wine Tea from Niepoort

[slateshalehead]

About a year or so ago I had seen something (perhaps here, but now I can't find it) about the Niepoorts partnering with an oolong tea importer to age oolong leaves in used port wine barrels. While I was in Porto and on the Niepoort Temple tour, my wife picked up a bag, which they call Pipacha. Although I don't normally drink oolong, this was a very nice, delicate tea with the promised notes of honey and some dried fruits on the first steep. The second steep was slightly more robust in those same flavors, with the addition of a slight woody note, and a slightly darker hue. Nothing in particular leapt out at me as tasting of port wine, although it is certainly a nice brew.

This seems to be one of the newest ventures Niepoort is taking in their long history focused on import/export more than production, as evidenced by their lodge store in Gaia, nearly a quarter the stock of which were not their own wines or products. This one seems to be a bit more of a gimmicky product though, at least in my view.

https://imgur.com/a/pipacha-5E6tMqE

[Glenn E.]

The tea aging room in the lodge is a wonderful place to just stand there and breathe.

[Andy Velebil]

If memory serves and nothing has changed, the tea part is Dirk’s wife’s project.

And like many producers, Niepoort is the Portuguese distributor for other wines.

[Glenn E.]

If memory serves and nothing has changed, the tea part is Dirk’s wife’s project.

That is my memory, also.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I thought that the tea matured in the Port barrels (which I think is delicious) was grown in Portugal. I recall Dirk telling me that they are the only people in Europe who grow and process only their own tea leaves.