Got this tea in a sampler I ordered from RLT…it’s definitely interesting. :)
Dry it smells vaguely nutty – almost like a bag of salted sunflower seeds – though I know how strange that sounds. It didn’t come with brewing guidelines, but my google-fu led me to believe that 200F for somewhere between 5 and 15 mins was appropriate.
5 minutes into the steep it’s a lovely golden colour – still smells like sunflower seeds – and is lacking in flavour. I’ll give it a few more minutes and report back.
10 minutes in it’s still lovely and golden – and still smells (quite strongly) of salted sunflower seeds…which seems to carry over into the flavour. It tastes like a bag of sunflower seeds smells…which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but not what I was expecting from a cup of tea. I’m going to give it another 3 and see how it goes.
13 minutes in the colour deepened to an amber hue and it lost just a bit of the salty tones from earlier. The flavour is still very reminiscent of sunflower seeds – and yes, it’s still weird – but it’s just starting to pick up hints of bitterness, so I’ll end the steep here.
It’s not unpalatable, but I’d consider it more of an interesting novelty than something I’d reorder and drink again. A definite meh.
