Scheherazade Send Message

077/365

I heard good things about this one, so I decided to pick a box up on my last trip to the supermarket. After my disappointment with Salted Caramel, I’m glad I did – this one is so worth it! Twinings surprise me sometimes. I mean, a lot of their teas are fairly low-quality bagged affairs; very heavy on the hibiscus if they’re fruit blends, and pretty much always fannings if they’re black. I don’t mind their Everyday as exactly that – a gap filling “normal” tea that I can drink without concentrating and not feel bad about, but they’re hardly renowned for producing brilliant tea. They’re a supermarket brand, after all.

Some of their green teas are a different story, though, and sometimes it feels like they’ve concentrated all their effort on those at the expense of other parts of their line. They can still be hit and miss, but the hits (and there are some) are really worth trying. This is one of them. It absolutely nails lemon drizzle cake, beginning with a sweet lemon flavour, moving into beautiful creamy, spongy pound cake notes, and finishing up with a heavy dose of icing sugar. It’s a brilliant dessert tea, and a flavoured blend that really and truly lives up to its name. Lemon can be a hard flavour to get right – sometimes it tastes like bathroom cleaner or cough syrup, and that’s hardly desirable. Here, it manages to walk a line between artificially candy-like and too sharp/sour, resulting in a pretty perfect lemon flavour. It’s like lemon you might have baked into a cake, tempered by the sweetness it’s surrounded with, but not overpowered by it. The cake and icing sugar flavours could rival any produced by high-end boutique or gourmet brands, but what it makes me wonder is this:

If they can flavour teas like this, why aren’t they doing it all the time? There’s a lot of filler among the killer in Twining’s range, and this blend proves that they can do better than they let on. Unless it’s just a happy accident, but somehow I doubt that.

Make more teas like this one, Twinings!

076/365

Nothing fancy today, because I have an absolutely awful cold and basically can’t taste much of anything. This one’s an old familiar comfort tea for me – I know exactly what it’s like, and it doesn’t matter that my tastebuds can’t really do it justice. I should probably add that fate conspired this weekend, because I had picked out some other teas to try, then I got sick, and then my neighbour came round and asked if I wanted her tea selection box since she doesn’t like tea, and I was obviously all over it. More so because it means I can save those other teas for a time when I feel better.

Anyway, the tea. It’s sweet and malty; classic assam. Is it the best assam I’ve ever tried? No. But it’s one of those formative teas that got me interested in the first place, so I have it to thank for that. As a bagged black from a large supermarket brand, it’s pretty good.

I’ve been drinking this one exclusively as a latte, because it’s so good like that. Today, though, I finally got the cold that’s been threatening for weeks. Since this one contains eucalyptus, and I have a lack of other cold-appropriate beverages on hand, I figured I’d give it a go straight.

It strikes me initially as one of those aggressively herbal blends – they’re usually really pungent in terms of scent, and brew up to this swampy brown/gold/green kinda colour that’s distinctly unappealing.

To taste, it’s fairly surprising. It’s sweeter than I expected, and even though it’s mostly aniseed providing that sweetness, it’s not artificially sweet in the way that it sometimes can be. The main flavour is the spearmint, which also helps on that front, being pretty sweet anyway. The eucalyptus is less of a flavour, and more of a background coolness, and the coconut…well, is there any? The mint is pretty powerful, and to be honest the coconut didn’t really stand a chance against it.

I really like this one. I prefer it as a latte, since it highlights the best qualities (sweet, mint) and adds a decent dose of creaminess that’s really complementary. It’s fine straight up also; more cooling, but also a little more average. Mint is mint, after all.

I’d buy this one again if it makes an appearance next winter.

075/365

Continuing with Dark Matter! This is another roasted oolong, and another which has made me reevaluate my thoughts on dark oolongs in general. This one brews up a delicious honey-gold, and tastes (quite literally) like liquid digestive biscuit. It’s a touch nutty, with a grain-like flavour, quite creamy, with a touch of honey, but mostly it’s biscuit. Now that I’ve got that comparison in my mind, it’s difficult to shift (and difficult to taste anything more precise, because digestive biscuit.) Love it!

074/365

From Dark Matter 2016. This, I think, is the least impressive of the Dark Matter teas I’ve tried so far. It’s a decent black, with a pleasantly sweet maltiness, but that’s really all I have to say about it. There’s nothing that strikes me as particularly unusual, or unique, and it doesn’t seem to have any deeper flavours. It’s a little woody, perhaps, in the way that honeybush sometimes is, but that’s not really a recommendation. If raw wood shavings are your thing, this is for you? I don’t think so.

Nice enough, but that’s not enough.

Tried this one again today, in my timolino while I host nursing interviews away from my usual office. I know it’s supposed to be a pancake blend, but that’s really not what I’m getting from this one. I get chocolate and caramel, on a pleasantly malty black base. It’s great with milk, and an excellent dessert tea. But it’s not pancakes. I find it odd that the ingredients list cinnamon, because I can’t taste that at all.

I like this one, but I feel like I’m not experiencing the same thing as everyone else?

073/365

From Dark Matter 2016. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one, but it wasn’t what I got! For some reason, I had it pegged as either a pu’erh or oolong, but it actually reminds me most of Laoshan black. It brews up surprisingly light – a sort of golden amber – but it has flavour in spades. Straight off, it’s dark chocolate and cocoa; not bitter, but slightly drying. The mid-sip adds a flavour I can only describe as charcoal, but it’s not smoky or particularly earthy. The end of the sip lifts a little in terms of sweetness, with a lightly malty, baked bread kind of vibe. Only slightly, though.

It’s another I’d be happy to drink all day, and I can tell it’s going to be a great resteeper!

072/365

Another from Dark Matter 2016. This is an odd one to describe, because it’s complex without being obvious. That seems an odd thing to type, but sometimes when a tea has a lot of flavours, it just has a lot of flavours. They’re easy to pick out, and you can list them. Not so here. It’s difficult to work out exactly what I’m tasting, and (of course) it’s all coming from the tea rather than added ingredients/flavourings. Regardless, I’m going to have a bash.

The initial sip is sweet, in the way of brown sugar. It’s not as dark or as deeply flavoured as molasses, although it’s heading in that direction. The mid-sip is woody and earthy, quite a contrast with the opening sweetness, and that develops into a mild smokiness that lingers into the aftertaste. Running underneath all that is a soft creaminess.

No single element becomes overpowering, and it’s perfectly smooth with no bitterness or astringency. It’s not my favourite of the Dark Matter teas, but it’s certainly a thought-provoking, take-your-time kind of tea. It wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be a daily drinker for me – it’s the kind of tea that needs contemplation, and not a hurried work day rush. Worth trying – when you have the time!

071/365

Another from Dark Matter 2016. It smells like navy rum, straight out of the bag, and fortunately it doesn’t lose that once brewed! I was a little surprised by the leaf, which is finer even than CTC – more like powder than anything. As a consequence, it brews up pretty dark pretty quickly. Not to worry, though, because it’s incredibly smooth with absolutely no bitterness or astringency. I get a sweet malt base, a prominent rum flavour that dominates most of the sip, and a touch of spice towards the end of the sip. Mostly, though, this is about the rum. I’m glad for that, because it’s delicious.

If there’s a good way to drink rum at work, this is it!

070/365

I read back over my previous tasting note for this one, and it looks like I actually enjoyed it. That surprises me, because this time I found it ridiculously over-sweet and very cloying, and I didn’t manage to finish the cup. It was caramel, but quite an artificial flavour on the whole. Mostly, I found it to be like drinking a cup of melted butter, minus the oily texture.

I’ve revised my rating down significantly, because today’s cup was, honestly, fairly awful. Perhaps they’ve changed the recipe?