Since it went so wekk with the tropiucal explosion, why not move on to one of these poor neglected Doulton teas. Thjis one I was really excited to receive and that’s a big reason why I’m having it first. I was reallyu curioius about it the first time I saw someone post aboiut it, but then it seems to have gone ouit of fashion and I forgot about it. The brand is unavailable to me so it was one that I had given up on getting to taste.
The leaves had a really funny smell. The smoke and the silver tips were most dominent in the aroma and smoky white tea is exactly as weird a smell as it soiunds. My nose had quite an identity crisis trying to suss that one out.
I wnet and skimmed through some of the posts about it and it would appear that it would be a good idea to let the water cool off a bit before steeping, so I’m doing the same thing.
After steeping I’m getting a string malty aroma, but not really any smoke. There is a grassy sweetness to it that I can’t decide if I think it’s the darjeeling or the silver tips. I’m leanjong tiowards the former.
Okay, this is going to sound weird. There’s a certain bitter bite to this, like it’s a bit overdone. At the same time the fkavour is kinda watery as if I didn’t use enough leaf for the amount. If I used both too much leaf and not enoigh leaf at the same time, I must have got it just right.
But the flavour does seem to have two faces. The mild, grassy white and darjeeling one and opposite the slightly bitter darker astringency of assams and ceylon, and the more ‘middle-ish teas’ such as the oolong and the nilgiri aren’t really managing to bring the two together. They may be reaching out to each other but not quite touching.
I’m liking it thoigh. It’s not a revelation of awesomeness and I’m a littke disappointed that I’m notr detecting any smoke, but it’s definitely a quite nice tea and I’m glad I got to satisfy my curiosity.
