I went tea shopping, oh it was fun, but I run out of tins and containers. I really got to continue the purge.
This was one of my new buys, and maybe the one I was more enthusiastic about. The dry smell is just sublime – almond, a bit of cinnamon, something gingery and something fruity (the passion fruit I guess).
Brewed, it is lovely, but I screwed up making it. The MF website says 95 degrees for 3 to 5 minutes. I was afraid of putting such hot water in a mix of green and black tea, used colder water and well I got to test doing as they say.
The taste is slightly different brewed up, the almond is still very much there but tamed. The cinnamon (and other spices?) go to the background. The fruitiness is dry rather than sweet, reminds me a lot of this maracujá, passion fruit, liqueurs which are typical from Madeira and which I rather like. I misguidedly put some brown sugar on it and that was a mistake. The almond and spices puts this firmly in my mind in Pleine Lune territory, and honey does wonders to that tea, but Balthazar is just a different personality, Pleine Lune´s older cousin rather than her twin sister.
Ah, I think this would make an awesome Christmas tea, if you do not require a lot of body from a Christmas tea. Its scents are so Christmas-y to me!
