Okay, so I’ve steeped this at work and obviously under imperfect conditions. However, I have, to the best of my knowledge, steeped this for just under three minutes and the water was hot, but definitely NOT boiling. The dry leaf smell is extremely mild…I was smelling a number of black teas yesterday and this was the faintest every time.
Steeped, I get an initial sweet black tea smell, something I am finding typical of China blacks, but underneath that I actually get a hint of bitter/hoppy/malty scent. Almost as if it were burnt or over-steeped, but I don’t think so. I hope not, at least!
First sips retain that sweetness I get in the smell. It’s almost as if this tea has been sweetened, but it has no additives. It doesn’t quite have the honey touch I found in the Borengajuli I had yesterday afternoon, it is more of a sugar sweetness. I’m actually astonished that a plain tea can be so sweet!
As it cools/I get deeper into the cup I am getting more hints of the “over-steeped” flavour, which I think is actually termed as astringency. In general though, this is a sweet and surprisingly juicy cup, reminiscent of some mild fruit flavoured blacks I own. It is very similar to my memory of Sawadee’s Borengajuli, I’ll have to do a side by side testing someday.
The taste echo is a little more bitter than I would like, so I think maybe 30 seconds less steep time would do a world of good for my preferences, but this is really nice. Pricier than I would prefer (100g for $12 = 1oz for $3.40), but definitely nice. I’ll be picking up some of David’s Tea’s black teas tonight so I’ll have something to compare to.
