Tanzania GFOP Tea by A C Perch's

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Angrboda 3 tasting notes

A while ago I posted about a Kenyan black from Harney&Sons that QuiltGuppy had been so kind as to share with me. That one was quite a hit in this household, and since then I have become interested in the African continent. Teas from Africa are still rather rare here though, especially non-Kenyans, so when the boss and I made our latest AC Perch’s order for work and I saw a Tanzania, I jumped at the chance. I’ve only ever had African tea from Kenya before.

Like the Kenya it’s quite strong and full-bodied. I got distracted while drinking it so instead of writing the post and paying attention to it, I was doing all sorts of other things, but I’ve had it a few times so I feel fairly confident in making this summary.

As mentioned, quite strong and full-bodied. It’s an excellent morning tea, as it really gives a fair kick. However, it’s not a very complicated tea to drink. It’s relatively uniformly tea-flavoured with not a lot of specific characteristics that I’ve been able to find so far. A pleasant strong black for times in need of extra strength and it would probably carry milk quite well, but also a fairly anonymous flavour profile.

The rather non-descript taste of it might actually be to its own advantage, because that means one can drink it when in need of something strong and powerful to get back on one’s feet, and still not being something one has to pay a lot of attention to enjoying while drinking when one really doesn’t possess sufficient energy to do so.

It gets lots of points on being interesting as well as a good cup. With a relatively high caffeine content, it’s an excelleng Gah-Caffeine-Me-NAO!-tea.

All in all, I’m quite pleased with this purchase although I did prefer that aforementioned Kenyan over this one.

2011-10-16 07:00:57 -0400

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Inspired by Indigobloom who enjoyed a Tanzanian black the other day, I decided to start the day with a cup of my own. As I mentioned in my comment to Indigobloom, tasting this one for the first time was a sort of ‘hey this is strong, no wait, this is lovely!’ experience. It’s so honey-sweet! With this particular pot, I have somehow really managed to hit that point where nice turns into lovely. I remember the first time I ordered it, half for work and half for home because the boss was uncertain about whether she would enjoy it. It’s not possible to get less than 100g from ACP’s webshop, so no samples.

This particular cup comes from when I bought another portion of it for home and that’s nearly gone as well. Although I am quite enjoying it, I’m not sure if I’ll buy it one more time (when, after July, I may) though. Maybe I’ll give that one a little break and use the space to try out something else. I have my sights on a Nothing But Tea order when that time comes, I believe. And Teavivre, I think. Although… with tax, customs and import fees being a constant threat on anything coming in from outside the EU, that’s a bit uncertain. It depends on how large an order I want to make. For smaller orders, it’s just not worth taking the risk these days.

2012-04-06 03:11:53 -0400

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And that’s the end of the Tanzania.

I have really enjoyed this tea, and to her vast surprise, so has my boss. This was actually one we bought for work. My interest in African teas was very new then, so I had to have it. My boss was sceptical because of the relatively high caffeine content. We compromised. The smallest amount of loose leaf AC Perch’s will allow you to buy from the webshop is 100g, so we bought the bag of 100g. I then divided it up into two equal portions, took one to work and kept one at home. My boss then only paid me back for half of the work-portion.

Now that it’s gone, though, I am definitely going to want to stock up on it again. As mentioned, even my boss found that she liked it a lot more than she had expected. Her own surprise was clearly audible when she told me this.

This was the last of the home portion. The work portion disappeared a long time ago. I would prefer to stock up on it at work rather than at home, I think. I found it an excellent work tea, and before you ask me what sort of qualities a work tea should have, let me tell you that I don’t know. It’s something to do with how it feels in the situation, so it’s not even something I can try to predict. We’ll see if the boss is interested in another batch of it. If not, I’ll probably get it for home.

2011-12-11 02:35:18 -0500

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Angrboda is awesome…I just need to remind people of that! :) Really…she spoils me! Thanks so much for this one, too!

I LOVE trying teas from Tanzania (and more recently Kenya, too!)

This one smells a little malty and a little bready. The black tea strength is that of a medium black, probably. The flavor is semi-bready/semi-malty, a little astrigent but in a good way, and has slight notes of some darjeelings I have enjoyed. Towards the end of the sip I got a few specks of peppery notes which were neat. Two thumbs up on this one, too!

2012-01-23 09:47:48 -0500

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cteresa

This is from a very generous sample sent by Angrboda, thank you so much! I had sent her some tea from Mozambique, and was interested to compare with other different African teas. Kenya tea I have had before, Tanzania never.

Not sure why it took me so long to try this. Breakfast teas are usually the ugly ducklings of my tea cupboard – I only dare have them in the morning, but I never have tea at breakfast, so mid morning at most, and to brew loose leaf, I got to have my things. Loose leaf breakfast teas have a very narrow niche of opportunity with me. Here goes this one though.

First thing, I think I brewed it wrong. About 5 minutes with boiling water brought just below boiling point. It was too long or too hot, this brewed up a bit too tanninic, too astringent for my taste. Got to experiment with it, definetely a bit colder brew.

Other than that, oh this is tea indeed. A nice cuppa, so to speak. A lot of body, a lot of taste (though like Angrboda points, a sort of generic tea taste, no real individual notes), and I think a lot of caffeine (will be surer of this in a couple hours). It reminds of Ceylon teas mostly, and it´s a pretty different thing than the Mozambique tea I know – which is more like an afternoon tea almost. I think this would make an awesome base for flavors. And I really got to tweak those brewing parameters, this is worth getting right.

2012-12-03 06:46:48 -0500

205 °F / 96 °C

5 min 0 sec

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