While grocery shopping today I strolled along the tea isle and was excited to see four flavors of Talbot teas! Unfortunately they didn’t have the Chocolate Almond and unfortunately they were only sold in bags, but oh well! The bags are made of Soilon, and look like the silken mesh tea bags that are supposed to be biodegradable, but I kept finding whole in my garden bed after going through the compost pile. I looked it up and they are made of corn starch. I’ll try tossing these in with the compost and see what happens, but I’m fully expecting to find these bags chilling in my veggie garden.
Onto the tea! The first cup I brewed was at 3.5minutes in boiling water. I filled my cup 2/3 of the way with water thinking being bagged tea it was likely to be a little weaker, but it wasn’t. I went outside with it where I couldn’t easily add more water and drank the whole cup even tho it was way too strong. It wasn’t really bitter, but it had that bite at the sides of my tongue that dilution was likely to resolve. My second cup was steeped for 3 minutes in the same amount of water and was an improvement in the concentration factor, but may be lacking in the flavor arena. I’m getting strawberry as the dominating flavor in the sip with chocolate being more of an aftertaste and the whole thing is pretty smooth. The problem I’m having is a flatness in the sip that is cardboard like. I’m betting if I brewed it right the first time, it would have been a much more enjoyable cup. I have 11 more bags to try it with, so I’m sure I’ll get the chance to brew it better in the future.
