Black Currant Nilgiri

Seeing as I’m quite enjoying the black currant flavoured black I bought from A. C. Perch’s, I found it natural to include the same flavour in my Chi of Tea order. It was actually my intention of trying this one yesterday in celebration of my newest cousin (a girl) being born. Huge age gap there! But in preparation for the upcoming UK holiday, I didn’t find the time for it. (Leaving sunday, returning monday next, is out of reach during that time, btw)

So, I’m having it tonight. I do have a few chores to do, but I can manage. I have to manage or I’ll go nuts. Therefore the choice of tea to have this evening was incredibly easy to make.

I tried comparing the aroma of the dry leaves between this one and my other black currant one, and I found this one to have a slightly sweeter, slightly floral character, while the Perch’s one was more tart. I can’t tell, though, if it’s a difference in the base tea or if it’s a difference in the flavouring. I can’t know for certain but I don’t think Perch’s uses Nilgiri as their base.

Actual side by side comparison of Chi and Perch’s will have to wait for another day though, and I’m counting on memory to see me through here.

After steeping there’s a slightly tart aroma, almost lemon-like, but although I can’t seem to pick out any aroma from the tea base, the fruit notes are surprisingly mild and discreet. It doesn’t seem to really be entirely logical, but nevertheless.

It seems like the Perch’s one is actually more heavily flavoured than this one. This seems milder, a little more subtle, where Perch’s strikes me as average flavour strength. It’s definitely berry, but I don’t think I’d be able to identify it correctly if I didn’t know what it was. I think I would be more inclined to guessing forest fruit. It seems light years away from the Perch’s variant, much sweeter and much girlier.

I can’t say which of the two I actually prefer. I’m finding it hard to compare them like this. My experiences with them are so different from one another that a direct comparison doesn’t really strike me as entirely fair. I do like this a great deal, though.

I generally don’t like black currants, but received this in a Chi of Tea order ages ago, unearthed it today and decided to try it. The dry scent is suprisingly nice – quite sweet and fruity. I can see lots of blackcurrant pieces in the leaf. The smell of the steeped tea isn’t very pleasant. I can’t find anything I don’t like about it, but something about it is a little off. This doesn’t translate to the flavour, though, and it tastes much more like the dry scent – sweet and black curranty. The black currant isn’t overdone, which is good, because I can still taste the body and depth of the nilgiri base.

I tried this tea this morning as my wake up brew. The dry tea smells like berries (raspberries, blackberries, etc.) It’s very pleasant.

boiling 1.5 min – I went short on this one due to the frequent oversteeping I seem to manage on a fairly regular basis these days.

The aroma is deeper. I can smell the tea, which is vegetal and fruity at the same time. The taste is pretty good. I can still make out the black currant without trouble. It’s not overly sweet. The tea did become a bit too vegetal for me, but it’s not taking over the tea. It’s not an overly complex tea, which is nice.