Thank you TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea. I chose it because when I opened the box she sent, this was the tea I could smell. Mostly I grabbed it because I didn’t want to take the chance that keeping it around would influence the flavors of any of my other teas. I don’t generally keep a lot of Lapsang Souchong Teas here… with the exception now of my unsmoked Lapsang Souchong which doesn’t pose the same smokiness issue.
This is SMOKY. A few years ago, something this smoky in my cup would have elicited moans of displeasure as well as me dumping the cup out before really taking a sip… I might take a teeny sip and then out with the rest of it. But, I somehow have learned to like Lapsang. I do wish though, that I had rinsed this before the infusion. I think it would have given it a not-so-smoky and almost musty kind of flavor.
Under the strong smoky flavor, the sweet caramel notes are tasted. It is a pleasant enough tea, I think it would have been better if I was not quite so sleepy when it came to infusing it this morning so that I could have thought to do a quick rinse. As it is, it is just a wee bit too much.
