This tea has been extremely carefully picked out. It’s a celebration choice. I’ve had it once before when Wombatgirl sent me two whole samples of it. I used one then and saved the other for a special occasion. Then, in the enormous box from Pamela Dax Dean there was another sample of it, so now I can have it for the second time and still have one left to save for later. How awesome is that?
The first time I had it was after having reached 50K words on NaNoWriMo, so it was my celebration tea then. It will be my celebration tea again today for having looked at a huge flat with the boyfriend and decided to take it. And it is indeed huge, it’s bigger than my parents’ house. Used to be a grocery shop so it’s got a funny, quirky layout and an almost triangular room. Strangely enough that quirkyness is one of the things about it that really appeals to me. So we accepted it and are awaiting the contract for signing now. YAY!
If that is not call for celebration then I don’t know what is! So therefore, very carefully, I picked out something I knew would be fabulous but also in short supply (for me) so that it would feel extra-exotic to drink it.
The aroma of this is just awesome. So very malty sweet and grainy, just exactly that rye bread note that I’ve come to look for in particular when smelling tea. The same note that these days I seem to find in just about everything. A wee bit of prickly spicyness in it too, which makes me think of fresh pinewood.
Oh gosh, I just got a great big whiff of sweetness on the first sip. Something completely caramel-y sweet. Unfortunately the second sip didn’t give me that same note again, so possibly it was a fluke. It did have a cocoa-ish sort of note to it. A clear one, but not very heavy. It works awesomely well with the pine wood-y notes in the flavour. (The colour of this flavour is warm orange. Like the ‘meh’ face on the Steepster rating bar, only a bit darker)
The first time I had it, I compared it to the beloved Tan Yang Te Ji, only somewhat lighter in flavour. I stand by that comparison today as well. I can see some more differences between the two this time, I think, like for example the pine, but all in all it’s got that same sort of ‘root’.
I’m a big fan of this one. Go forth and try it out, Steepsterites.
