Oh boy oh boy oh boy!!!
(No, not for this tea…though it’s pretty good! This excitement is due to my Adagio order arriving today. It’s my first go-around with them (re: teanewbie), and so I decided to order a whole slew of samplers to start familiarizing myself with tea types I’ve never had before…and I’m going to work through them all. This is the first one. Whee!)
I like this. What I like most about it is that it lacks any bitterness whatsoever, which surprises me, because it seems as though it should have some. I can vouch for the mouth-dryness mentioned in some other tasting notes, though it’s not parching or intolerable.
The smell of the tea as it was brewing was wonderful, but maybe some of the wonderfulness is due in small part to memories out of my childhood. I spent a lot of time with horses (as a lot of little girls seem to) and the smell reminds me a little bit of the scent of hot bales of alfalfa hay in the sunshine…a sort of earthy hay sweetness and warmth that I have no analogue for. If I had to make another comparison, I might say raisins, but not sharply sweet raisins…more like the aftertaste of raisins.
I got a little bit distracted during the second steeping and I’m not sure how long the leaves were in the hot water, but I know the temp was down to 208 instead of 215 when I poured it in. The flavor is more black-tea this time, weaker but still tasty. I’m looking forward to steep #3, but I suspect I’ll be done with it after that.
I’m still fussing with my ratings…I’ve rated so few teas that it’s hard to know where to place this little marker. Stuff is subject to change for a while…
