I’ve had this one before and found it quite pleasant. QuiltGuppy included it in my recent package, so I’m reunited and all that. I couldn’t remember anything about it though, so I went back and read my previous post about it. Had a bit of a laugh as it seems I wrote that one shortly after the time I cut my finger quite badly and had to try and cope with nine-finger typing for a while. I remember it as having gone better than that. O.o
Anyway, back then I described it as being somewhat two-faced; one part Darjeeling-y and one part Assam-y, with the chasm between them never quite bridged, and gave it 80 points. Let’s see if I’m in agreement with myself.
There’s definitely nothing two-faced about the aroma. It’s thick and honeyed, but with a strong floral/spicy aspect to it. Again the former from the Assam-y part, the latter from the Darjeeling-y part. However, they seem quite well meshed here, each complimenting the other, and the strength and honey-notes are taming the Darjeeling-esque grasssy spicyness that I normally don’t care for quite well.
It looks like, however, this is very similar to my experience the first time.
As is the experience of the flavour. It’s still somewhat polar, with Team Assam on one end of the spectrum and Team Darjeeling on the other, with everything else in the middle trying and failing to mediate.
And yet, I do still quite like it, and I do still think it’s worth 80 points. Having cooled a little, the malty, honeyed notes of Team Assam is really coming forward and that makes it a surprisingly sweet sip. Like sweet sweet.
Before you think it’s deeply sugary, however, there is a strong floral note here, which covers the whole thing up. Like a sort of curtain that you have to go through before you can really get to the good stuff, but the two otherwise not having anything to do with one another.
If that floral aspect had been more involved with the ‘rest’ of the flavour, I would have piled some more points on this one. Seeing as it isn’t, though… 80 is still a pretty good score.
