Golden Moon Sampler Tea #18:
I actually grabbed this this morning for my morning cup, but apparently I hadn’t washed out my mug quite thoroughly enough after “enjoying” Twinings Blackcurrant, Vanilla and Ginseng tea (one that I was too lazy to tealog, especially since I’d have to add it to the database first. For the curious, it was actually quite pleasant but I let it steep too long and the nice currant taste turned into a weird vegetal blargness) for lunch yesterday. So what I actually got was mostly black currant with a tinge of “generic black tea” underneath. Now the combination was actually quite tasty and has given me a pretty awesome idea for iced tea, but it was hardly fair to the Sinharaja.
Naturally, I made a second cup this afternoon (taking care to clean out my mug thoroughly this time), and I have to say that I’m glad I took the trouble, because this is some pretty great tea. Now, I’m not always able to differentiate between just straight black teas unless they are pretty aggressively different, but for some reason I don’t have that problem here. This has character but it doesn’t overwhelm, it’s…quietly confident, to anthropomorphize a bit. It has a noticeable but not overpowering malty note as well as a separate underlying sweetness, and a surprisingly rich overriding tea taste.
I may need to get more of this.
