I still don’t drink black teas too much yet for fear of the caffeine messing with my stomach, but I’ve been craving some dark malty goodness lately and this morning I had to have a cup of this. This is a sipdown – I have soo many more verdant black teas to try in my possession so I won’t be reordering this immediately, but it is definitely a possibility in the future :D
I decided to try this western style this morning because I’m not fully awake enough to fiddle with short steeps lol. I used the remaining half of my sample with boiling water for 3 mins. Mmm for some reason, the steeped smell is taking me back to my childhood, to my grandparents when the alfalfa plant would be going in the morning, it’s not unpleasant just a vague memory popping up. Must be the toasty maltiness of it, Mmmmm. And the slightly charcoal note, a bit of a burning smell, but not a bad burning. Haha, a bit difficult to explain.
This tea. Ugh it makes me wonder again why I don’t drink more black teas! It’s SO GOOD. Dark Chocolate, with a hint of maybe hay? Ah, just looked at the description, definitely the barley. And malt, and toast, and yummmmm. Perfect balance of sweetness.
Overall, I slightly prefer the shorter steeping method, a little bit more variety and pop, but that could also be because it was my first time having this lovely tea. I will have as many steeps as I can get out of the leaves and very much consider getting an oz of this at some point. I did just order some Laoshan village chai, and im pretty excited to see how this tea plays in it.
ETA: Second cup at 3 mins is soo yummy too, a bit softer, more chocolate, not quite as much malt, still delicious. Mmmm happy I get to drink this for most of the day :D
