This tea is from the TTB. I am not totally certain it is Harney & Sons. The tea came in a small attractive black tin with a picture and an elegant description: “A simple Chinese black tea that has been made over 200 years. The brew is a nice easy-going tea that is round in the mouth. It is a favorite at our Tasting Room where its simple charms are appreciated.” These words do not come up via a Google search, although the first two sentence do come up as a description of tea sold at the Cincinnatian Hotel for afternoon tea.
This small black tin resembles a miniature Harney & Sons tin and has the same type of black tape so I’m going to assume that it is likely to be a Harney & Sons tea with different and creative packaging.
I took it from the TTB because there was so little. It was a very skimpy teaspoon.
With tea, I am like Julia Child with cooking wines and liquers. I tend to add more than the “recipe” calls for. I taste the dry leaf; I fool around a lot. The dry leaves here were about 3/4 of what I would use for one serving. Keeping that in mind, I used less water and did not make a full cup.
The results are pretty decent. It seems to be a very smooth, medium-bodied “basic black” with a pleasant aroma. Perhaps its biggest virtue is that it is not offensive in any way, but it also lacks some of those distinctive properties that make me fall in love with certain blends. I wish I had some more of this to muse upon.
