This is another of those ‘all-bran’-looking teas and, in the water, the strands really swelled and opened-out so that you could clearly see that they were twists.
I made a mug of this with a heaped teaspoon brewed for four minutes (the instructions were ‘for up to five minutes’). In the mug it was a clear, medium intensity, orange-brown brew without any aroma that I could detect – unless, perhaps, the tiniest hint of rust. Sipping it, I got an immediate hit of chocolate quickly followed by smooth butter and a bright hit of orange, but not much of the generic tea taste. So it was pleasant but a little unsatisfying.
So I brewed the next, a heaped teaspoon again, for a little over five minutes. There was a definite improvement. There were touches of sweet hay and orange to the aroma. The flavours of the last mug were there, but that immediate hit of chocolate was gone and the chocolate element was now more blended-in as one of the strands of the whole flavour. There was also a touch somewhere between sweet hay and cut grass, and, most satisfyingly, the generic tea flavour was more evident. Brewing for the extra minute or so did not give the slightest hint of staleness.
This was a really excellent mug of tea – complex and satisfying.
