Harney & Sons

Chocolate, coconut and vanilla, what more could you want? This tea is a great way to start your day, being both decadent and powerful enough to get you going! Perfect blend, the chocolate isn’t as overpowering as it can be in many other teas; it makes a cameo, rather than commanding the spotlight.

Hi Steepsterians! I apologize for being MIA lately. So many different things going on. But don’t think I haven’t been drinking more than my fair share of delicious teas and miss you all! My apologies, I will be more diligent in the future, I promise!

So now that the time for Iced tea has come and gone – it’s great to welcome the fall. It’s amazing to me that I can have so many different teas with this flavor palette and still appreciate them distinctly. David’s Checkmate being one of my weekly go-to’s for a morning cuppan, I was hesitant to try this one as well. However, being that I work and spend most of my time in NYC (as well as being a frequent visitor to the Harney Broome St. Store) I felt somewhat obligated to try.

To my delight, it is decidedly different and unique. I get mostly the chocolate, balanced out by the coconut and light-yet-present florals. It is delicious! I have since incorporated it into my weekly routine. Although I enjoy it plenty now I can see it being a perfect winter tea.

Light and refreshing. Great Stuff.

Good Stuff. I made a Tall Cup (16oz tumbler, 2 satchet) and it was slightly much, but good flavor all around.

Update: Added a bit of sugar and it lessens the stomach weight.

One of my teeth broke in half yesterday, probably caused by many years of chewing pens while working. I always rationalized that it was a safer habit than smoking cigarettes. Apparently the pen chewing addiction has its own repercussions (besides accidentally swallowed pen caps and the occasional mouthful of exploded ink).

Anyhow, I am anxiously, without access to pain pills, awaiting my high noon dentist appointment today to get my broken tooth fixed. However, my dedication to tea tasting (when I have new teas to taste) is greater than the pain in my mouth at the moment. So, I took one for the Steepster Team and prepared this Harney & Sons tea for testing.

When I opened the tin, a strong bergamot scent became instantly recognized. The tea inside was short and brown, like particles from a damp pile of raked Fall leaves.

I brewed the tea for five minutes at 212 degrees as recommended. I was struck by the absence of bergamot aroma in the brewed beverage. The color was a dark golden brown.

When I took my first sip, the next thing that was obvious (besides the stabbing pain in my damaged tooth), was the extreme understatement of bergamot flavor in this selection. The flavor is nice, smooth, and like that of an English Breakfast tea. However, the Earl Grey component is well hidden. In fact, I detected more bergamot in the aftertaste than in each cautiously directed sip (to the opposite side of my mouth from the screaming tooth).

All in all, this is a smooth and tasty tea with no bitterness. If you can take or leave Earl Grey, or you like the fruity flavor of bergamot in small doses, this tea may be quite satisfying. But, if you like bergamot to be the overpowering ingredient in this variety, you may feel short-changed.

Wait a minute, if I already logged this months ago, that means that H&S gave me two samples of this. Not complaining!

It’s a reliable one. Full-bodied, malty, and well-rounded. I’m enjoying this with some 1% milk and brown sugar.

I’m sitting down to a breakfast consisting of this tea and, wait for it, pumpkin pancakes! Made from fresh pumpkin and loaded with spices. So tasty.

This is a bold cup. It’s quite brisk, but not too much. Perhaps I’m just ultra sensitive today, but having just drunk a cup of this has made me feel ultra wired. The maltiness is oh so inviting though.

Overall, this is a well-balanced Assam if you’re looking for one on the bolder side. Not too astringent at all and very smooth considering how assertive it is.

Noooo, I just spilled a cup’s worth from the pouch. This is the fourth time drinking this though so I already know that I’ll need to purchase more in the future, anyway.

Cranberry, you say. The dry leaf smells more like raspberry to my nose. Like a chocolate raspberry cordial.

Simply put, it tastes like it too. I haven’t tried it with additives yet but only because I’m enjoying it so much black. As this cools down, the almond comes out a little more. A perfect autumn cup on a cool, rainy day.

One thing I especially appreciate about H&S teas so far is that they’re not overly sweet. Many of my flavoured teas have simply been too sweet for me lately, and I’ve been craving unflavoured teas, especially my holy grail genmaicha, but I don’t have any in the house, nor have I found any in this city yet. Boston at least is more balanced in the world of sweetness.

Aaaah. This is my kind of Monday! I’ve finally got a new tea to taste and review. I’ve been so busy getting married and keeping up with work tasks that I’ve had to push new teas down on my priority (and financial) list. It’s been a while since my last tasting note so my typing fingers and brain are a little rusty. But, here we go anyhow…

I’ve wanted to try Harney & Sons teas for quite some time. I’ve heard and read great things about their products. But, until this weekend, we didn’t have a local outlet from which to purchase them. I thought their on-line shipping charges were a little steep (no pun intended) so I didn’t buy any from their website either. Now, thanks to our local Fresh Market, we can purchase Harney & Sons English Breakfast and Earl Grey teas at discount prices.

When I opened the big black tin, the aroma that burst forth was like that of pipe tobacco in a tobacco shop. It was sweet and rich.

I steeped the short black leaves for five minutes at 212 degrees as recommended on the tin. I didn’t notice any particular smells wafting from the teapot during this process. The color of the liquor was a bright golden amber.

At first sip, the flavor was sweet and a tad earthy. The taste intensity was medium. The flavor remained mostly consistent after subsequent sips, but I did notice slight twinges of malt and the tell-tale woody and leathery flavors of keemun later on. There was no bitterness present in this brew.

Although this tea does not have bold flavors, it is, nevertheless, a smooth and pleasant beverage for those mornings when you don’t need something shouting at you to wake you up. There is still plenty of good flavor to get your morning off on the right foot.

I made cookies today and this was the perfect addition!

I may well be on my death bed right now. I woke up alarming sick with flu symptoms. Fever and chills flu, not stomach, which I am very grateful for. But, I had little to no desire to eat or drink anything until just now, I want black tea. I’m not about to drink a caffinated tea at 6pm when I hope I’m in bed in 3 hours.
Enter Vanilla Comoro, never a bad time for the decaf piece of heaven. I’m going to get back under my blankets and enjoy this while I catch up on season 3 of ‘The Big C.’

I simply love this tea. I love that I can drink a black tea, that tastes like a black tea, at 9:45pm! I wish there was a caffeinated tea like this!

I had this at dinner the other night. I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to smell the dry leaves as they were already infusing in a pot when it was brought to my table.
I remember the liquor being a beautiful dark red, with pronounced floral and fruit smells. Really quite a fragrant tea. Unfortunately the tea smell is lost to this.
The taste is smooth and heavenly. Somewhat sweet even.
As with all teas, this was consumed straight up.
I’m not sure this is a tea I’d want to have everyday, however it is definitely an enjoyable afternoon/evening tea that I’ll be ordering again!

Today has been such a rollercoaster. On the upside, my H&S order came in, so I have a ton of exploring to do! On the downside, I’m not having a very good time in one of my courses. Paradoxical expectational kind of stuff. Yay.

But this tea is a pleasant surprise. I’m on the same “Whaaaaat, decaf?!” boat as everyone else. The dry leaf smells incredibly sweet. A little on the artificial side, but it’s a similar vanilla I’ve smelled in other vanilla teas. Sugared vanilla.

Very strong sugary vanilla aroma too. It makes you get it straight, that hey, you’re about to drink some serious vanilla tea here.

The taste, like those cubes of vanilla caramel wrapped in plastic. SO that to the tenth power, yo. It’s nice but glad I only got a sample pouch. A bit too cloying for my tastes.

Tonight’s a Pink Floyd kind of night.

On opening the tin the Assam leaves were mostly dark with few lighter tan leaves and small, broken and almost granular, similar to the type of Assam you might see in a Masala Chai. I couldn’t detect much Assam scent from the tin. After brewing the leaves still looked broken and granular, nothing like the open pieces of leaf you’d find in a pot of quality loose leaf Assam.

I used a teaspoon in a single cup pot and boiling water for 5 minutes as recommended on the tin. The liquor had a nice color and some tea scent and taste – but not an Assam scent or taste and had a somewhat bitter bottom taste.

Okay, I’m going to upgrade this tea a bit after a few more brewings. A bit more tea a bit less brewing time and it did produce a bit more Assam top note taste. It still lacks the malty bottom but it really is okay for a decaf.
I’ll probably finish the 4 oz tin I bought, just to see if I can get it to taste better, but I probably wouldn’t buy it again. If you’re looking for a decent decaf black tea, try the Harney’s Ceylon decaf instead.

I finally found a decaf that actually tastes like real tea.

On opening the tin, the Ceylon looked like real tea. Long decently well shaped leaves of dark brown and tan. It even smelled like tea. After brewing it became apparent that there were more stems than it appeared at first, but still with decent sized pieces of leaf attached.

It brews up a nice looking characteristic Ceylon colored liquor. The taste is quite nice (considering it’s a decaf of course) and is actually quite satisfying. I might even bring some to the office to drink during the afternoon when I want a cup but not the jangle. This is the closest I’ve ever come to a decaf that tasted and satisfied like real tea.

I think I wrote a good number of tasting notes for quite a number of backlogged holiday teas for the entire month of December. whew. I do love my holiday tea collection… but those are usually on the flavoreds side… except for possibly Andrews & Dunham’s ‘Holiday’ tea which has always went insanely well with cookies. And there are too many cookies around here so I will definitely be steeping ‘Holiday’ a couple times to go with these cookies.
On to this tea: A smaller recent Harney purchase. I couldn’t help it with the holiday sale and the free shipping and my love of supporting smaller companies. But I’m not sure now… if their tea is found in grocery stores… is Harney a small company? I tried a harvest of this tea years ago. I remember it much darker and smokier. Now the black leaves with hints of gold are actually much lighter with a very fruity note… sometimes noticeable plum, sometimes some other fruits. The smoke is entirely gone in this harvest. It does have a starchy and slightly sweet potato note under all that fruit and it’s also very sweet anyway. I think others could pick out a billion other flavors here. The color of the brew is more amber than midnight murky. I will miss the older harvest. This one is very different but very good. My rating would probably still be an 88 for this harvest, but it seems a completely different tea now.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons // 12 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 min

I could have swore I already tried this once since Nicole was so kind to share (thank you!) but if I did, this second cup was definitely different than the first time I tried it! I steeped for four minutes and it was nice and smokey, so I’d have to disagree with the description for this tea. I have no idea how the description could call it not smokey… that is its main characteristic. It definitely is smokey (but not as smokey as some teas I’ve tried), but also very sweet. I almost chose a russian caravan tea this morning, so I was pleased that this one was smokey anyway. I think the first cup I had was astringent, but this time it wasn’t, which leads me to believe that I oversteeped the last time and maybe the smokiness disappears if it is oversteeped. It was just a tiny bit astringent when the last bit of the cup got cold. (Where does astringency come from anyway?) I definitely would have remembered the smokiness before. So this one is sweet yet smokey. I love it.

Rain, rain go away! It is pouring down buckets here this morning. Making my office more and more like a cave. Yuck! Thanks to the rain (stupid cane/aircast) I couldn’t stop for my usual cup and conversation at a local cafe. But thankfully I had a sachet of this in my desk.

I’m really liking the fruity flavors of this black tea and the bergamot. Oddly enough I did like bergamot much in the past. But these days I truly enjoy it in my teas (when the flavoring works). Now if the sun would just come out even for a moment!

This is another mild, coconutty green from Harney & Sons, although it does have its own personality. The main flavor I get here, as you can guess, is coconut, along with a fresh, light, green tea. There is a slight smooth strawberry hitchhiking along with the coconut, but it’s not in the forefront by any means. I do not taste the popped rice. Very pleasant. I’ve had it with sweetener and without. I think it needs sweetener to bring out the flavors, but take that with a grain of “sugar” knowing that I have a major sweet tooth! :-)

OH! And I’m glad I bought it, because they donate half of every sale to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis fight against AIDS. Love Life!

For some reason I have it stuck in my head that I don’t like black currant, but the truth is it’s delicious. Lots of sweet berry flavor and a good black tea to go with it. Not sure why I have such a mental block about it when I’ve had this tea multiple times and enjoyed each cup.

And now I can confirm that this tea is especially tasty with biscuits and homemade marmalade! :)

I’ve had quite a few mugs of this tea today. The black currant is nice, but what I really like about this tea is the base tea. It’s strong, smooth and rich. There’s no bitterness. The black currant flavor is nice. It’s not over the top, but it is constantly present.

The more I drink fruit flavored black teas the more I realize I want to taste the fruit, but I don’t want it to drown out the flavor of the tea. Especially when it’s such a good tea.