Queen Catherine

Lemme start by giving a great big ‘thank you’ to JacquelineM for a VERY generous sample (I mean, she must of bought a truck full and got sick of it “generous”). I really will resist the desire to rave on and on about the share package I recieved from her and will get on with the note.

I had a high expectation after reading several of the near forty posts on this tea. It seems, generally speaking, we like it- actually more than the creator who gave it a 75.

Being this sample resembled a purchase rather than an act of kindness (I’m just dying to reveal how much there is, but I’m sure that would be uncouth-not that I’m overly couthy) I elected to make a pressful= 8 cups. We normally reserve full pots of anything for the Asian grocery oolongs due to the cost effectiveness. I haven’t broken down the pennies to cup ratio as I’ve seen a few do, but it’s cheap. What the heck, I’m living it up this morning.

Where was I, oh yeah the tea. The tin, when opened, (another bonus, it came in a tin! I’m getting so big time with tins and everything! Thanks again Jacqueline) smacked me upside the head with the smell of a barn! Yep, a barn. It smells like dry hay that’s also very malty. Immediately when the water hit the tea my very ampley proportioned nose was filled with a leather like maltiness that made me think “this is going to be a strong cup”. Again when bringing the cup to my lips the malt smell was so apparent, yet when I took the first sip I was greeted by an amazing mix of flavors/impressions. There is a baseline of subtle malt that shares the stage with some smokiness and a faint creamy sweetness that actually stays with you as an aftertaste. Gentle yet bold.

The dry hay is there too, and thankfully it’s not a wet/green hay or this would not be the same tasting note at all. There’s almost a pu’erh thing going on in the backside if the sip (who am I kidding, it’s more a gulp). I can see where most other posts leaned toward a green/grassy descrition as one of the characteristics, though I have to stick with the dry hay choice. For me, it lacks the bitter,sometimes astringent, note I seem to get out of greener tasting teas.

I went ahead and steeped this a second time with fair results. It definitely lacked the complexity and the smokiness that it started with, yet was still considerable as an easy drinking tea. In other words, this second steep was better than some first steeps I’ve came across, and by no means was comparable to the initial infuze.

I’m so thankful that several- Jacqueline,Azz,and LiberTEAS have been so kind as to help me experience many other facets and types of tea that would have taken me months, if not years, to visit. AmazonV, MissMylin, and Autumn Hearth have all pledged to send samples my way as well (unless I already recieved AmazonV’s, which is still to be determined). What a wonderfull community to belong to (sniff sniff) and I appreciate it very much, so many kind and helpful people. OK enough with the sentimental mooshy junk, I gotta get another sample going-this will take weeks to get through.

tunes-the Black Keys=Little Black Submarines/Run Right Back/Sister…turns out the whole El Camino album. It’s all great, as nearly everything they put out is. I have a hard time naming who has more talent between them and Mumford&Sons, yet Black Keys have 7 albums whereas Mumford are just releasing their second.

This is… I can’t believe.. I… ack, this tea is beyond words!!!
Smoky and floral and rich, sweet and malty and bold… all balanced so perfectly that whoever crafted this must have used scales imported from Zeus.
Big thank you to SimplyJen for the generous sample!!!!!!!!
This is actually the second time I’ve had a cuppa. My first was so overwhelming that I truly had no idea how to pen a review. I still feel that way now, but am managing to push through it.
The first cup I had with milk, and it went so well together… but this time, the balance felt ruined by a spot of dairy so I kept it naked. No additions required! I think because I used a little less leaf this time.
Funny, I’m not usually one to go for blended teas. I suppose there is an exception to everything!
thank you again SimplyJen! you rock!!

The smell out of the sample packet is rich and delicious. It made me go “wow.” Chocolate! Coffee! Sugar! A tiny bit of smoke, and some planty earth.

Deep dark reddish liquor. The many fragrances of the dry leaves smooth out into a malty, Yunnany aroma. There’s a little bit of smoke but it’s not super smoky.

The flavor is strong, bordering on intense. I wonder how it would be steeping only 3 minutes. Will try that next time. It’s definitely an eye opener at 4. The flavor has the intensity of coffee. Wonder what milk would do?

It isn’t quite as smooth and mellow tasting as it smells; it has some… not really bitterness, more a lack of sweetness that is surprising given the aroma. There’s smoke in the taste, but it’s not strong. The consistency isn’t chewy but the impression is stout, like a dark ale. There’s a kind of cocoa note in the aftertaste.

This one is going to be worth spending an extended visit with to see what variations might be possible. It will be interesting to go into a second tasting at another time now that I know what to expect.

Rating this because it has a lot of interesting things going on with it. Not sure how I feel about the intensity yet.

This is awesomely amazing! Absolutely amazing. So rich, malty, and delicious. Bold, a little smoky, and sweet. Well-rounded. Chocolate-y undertones, earthy, and with a good amount of heft to it – this one has some get-up-and-go to it.

Definitely a great tea to start the day.

oh man…. thank you so much Hesper June! Seriously…this makes me want to go place a Harney order now. I love this one even more than the florence that Hesper June was SO AMAZING about sharing (seriously folks, she’s pretty damn awesome). I’m not sure if this is exactly what i needed this morning or what but this is a damn fine mug of tea. It’s rich and smooth and chocolatey and malty and delicious! There’s another flavour going on in here too…almost like a breadier taste than the malt taste you get in say laoshan black. I don’t pick up on the “spice” notes that harney says are in this tea, or maybe it’s just that when i read the world spice my mind wanders towards things like chai. yep…i could easily move this into my morning black rotation with some of my other favorites.

Thank you again Hesper June

Okay, now I’m really getting concerned. I had to take allergy meds last night so I’m really dragging about right now. I decided that a strong black tea was my best option for a pick-me-up, and I’ve been looking forward to trying my sample of Queen Catherine given to me by the ever generous and beautiful QuiltGuppy.

All I taste is black tea and roses. This makes postivly no sense because all of the reviews I’ve read say that it has a chocolately almost coffee like flavor. AM I HAVING A STROKE? Wait… I’d smell burnt toast and taste bitter almonds if that were the case, right? Is it possible that Harney & Sons mispackaged my sample? Perhaps I actually have a sample of Rose Scented and not Queen Catherine. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not going to rate this tea because I may be having a psycotic episode and that wouldn’t be fair to Queen Catherine.

This definitely isn’t the first time I’ve brewed up a cup of Queen Catherine, but it may very well be the first time I did so without screwing it up quite badly. This is part of a swap with Simply Jen W from probably a year ago now. Clearly, punctual tea drinking is not something I put on my resume – though I do appreciate all swaps and samples, very much so!

This time I used a teaspoon of leaves, steeped around 3 minutes and have a much more pleasant seeming cuppa. (Last time it got busy at switchboard while it was steeping and I had a 15 minute steeped disaster). This is an odd duck. It doesn’t quite smell like black tea, there is another edge to it. It smells as if it should be bitter, but the first sips yield a slightly sweet liquor. Again, it’s not quite plain black tea, there is something different here. There is no bitterness (a bonus in my book!) but there’s not really a lot of character either. As it is, I would have no porblem drinking this but I can’t imagine craving it either.

Thanks for the chance to sample, Simply Jen W!

The combination of work and school has been keeping me extremely busy, and because of this my tea drinking and reviewing has fallen through the cracks a little bit. But on the bright side of things, it makes every cup of tea I get to have a little more rewarding.

I picked this up along with Florence and Boston also from Harney, and I was so disappointed with those two that I’m not even going to take the time to write a review about them. This one is a basic blend but it’s very good for what it is. It’s smooth, bready and a little malty with the faintest hints of smoke and chocolate sweetness in the background. Just a nice comfort cup.

I’ve got LOTS more tea on the way. I blew the majority of my first paycheck on tea, spending about $250 altogether on teas from Butiki, Mandala, and Verdant as well as a competition tasting set from Rishi. These things are my reward, and man they’re gonna taste so sweet.

Anyway, just thought I’d pop my head back into the Steepster world for a bit, catch ya later!

Delicious!

Mostly, I detect the slightly sweet almost sandalwood-like flavor of good Keemun. Then a rich, malty, breadiness. There is a bit of peppery smoke rounding it all out. Super smooth yet substantial. It has a wonderful, satisfying flavor and “chewiness”.

I wish I knew exactly which types of tea are in this mixture (it says “a blend of three Chinese teas”)—there has to be Keemun, I’m sure of it. The breadiness must be Dian Hong (Yunnan). Then the smooth/smokiness of…..Lapsang? _{(no—not that, there’s no “campfire” notes)}

I would swear there was Assam in this—with all its hearty, bready, malt. But, since Assam is Indian, what is the Chinese equivalent?

A yummy mystery, this tea is. :)

Overall, Queen Catherine is a beautiful, enigmatic blend!

Greetings Steepsterites! I have returned from the Big Wild Unknown, aka a summer house near the southern tip of the country with boyfriend and his parents. It was a good trip and we were there for a week doing a little touristing, some reading, and a lot of relaxing. Managed to finally get rid of my cough while there. Returned on friday, visited my parents saturday for the parents-parents meeting (went well also, it seemed) and then back to work monday. Boyfriend’s parents went back to the UK this morning. Boyfriend will also go to the UK next weekend, poor him. The weekend after that is planned out with no plans. This is sorely needed and has even been put in the calendar.

In other words, I’m pooped. Well, truly and utterly pooped. What I need now is a good heartening cup of tea, and as luck would have it I am now also in position to finally try some of the nommies that QuiltGuppy sent me before I went away on holiday. At last! A process, however, somewhat hindered by the fact that the kettle broke the other day, the on and off button breaking clear off, so making tea is a frightfully complicated business involving saucepans and good aim. (There are very good odds, though, that aforementioned boyfriend will bring home a new kettle from the UK on monday. There’s a long story behind this, which I will tell if you’re interested.)

I decided to start with Queen Catherine because it seems to be a steepsterite favourite and because other people’s posts on it previously leads me to believe that it is indeed a heartening cup.

I was surprised by the leaf aroma. It was much grassier and spicy-er than I had imagined it would be. A second sniffing also reveals something a little floral, a little grainy and almost a tiny bit pseudo-smoky, which makes me wonder what this tea is actually blended of. Right off the top of my head I would guess something involving a Darjeeling-ish type and a Keemun.

After steeping, I’m more thinking the hay-like notes of a Yunnan. How confusing is this! There’s still the grainy, semi-pseudo-smoky note, but the grassy note that reminded me of Darjeeling is thankfully gone. Self is not a Darjeeling fan, you see. All in all, it’s a very strong aroma, sort of forceful and serious. It really does smell like it will be just the heartening cup of tea that I’m looking for here.

The flavour was a surprise again. There’s that pesky grassy Darjeeling-esque note again! I have to say I was hoping my nose was playing tricks on my when sniffing at the dry leaf, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Oh bother.

That aside, though, it’s not a total disappointment. That Darjeeling-y note is subdued and tamed a bit by other darker and less perky notes. There’s something in here that has a resemblance to the very initial flavour of a medium-strength hot coffee. You know, the absolutely first bit of the flavour of the very first sip of freshly brewed cup of coffee, before the tongue really gets in on the business of tasting.

The grainy note is still intact as well, although without the touch of pseudo-smoke. It’s strong, however, and relatively sweet. Almost a little bit honeyed, I think. Possibly a wee bit fruity. This particular note is my favourite out of this tea’s flavour profile.

So we’ve got three primary notes here. Something that I’m not fond of, but which is held down and controlled by the other two, something which is basically more like putting down a base for the flavour in total than an actual note of flavour, and something which I’m very fond of and tend to look for in other teas, such as Keemuns or Tan Yang.

One should think these three, or especially the former and the latter, would even each other out and become something fairly average. This is not the case, though. That Darjeeling-like note, I can’t say I like it much, but when held in check by strong, grainy, bold notes like the other two, I find it surprisingly tolerable.

Queen Catherine reminds me most of all of Kusmi’s Samovar blend, only far less smoky. I’m quite pleased with it, and I’m glad I got a chance to try it for myself. You lot have all made me so curious about it and making it sound like it was right up my alley. And, it looks like, you were not mistaken.

thank you cteresa for sharing this blend with me.
I really appreciated it and wasn’t impressed by the high ratings because never heard about this tea before cteresa proposed to send me some. So didn’t get high expectations.

To me, it’s not so strong.Malty but not too much (thanks God it is Chinese teas, not an Assam) I get the chocolate but in a different way comparing so many teas, it’s perfectly balanced with other notes, floral & fruity.
The tea base is really perfect, no astringency in my cup, is there a keemun as part of the tea mix ?
I had this tea in the evening and had no problem to sleep, really fantastic.
A beautiful tea to get whenever I want.

The Queen!
She is here for breakfast.
I have heard good things about this tea and am delighted to finally get the chance to try it myself.
Dry leaf smells slightly smoky, and even a little floral.
I brewed this for 4 mins, instead of 5.
There was almost something about the dry leaf that hinted some astringency if brewed to long.
I am enjoying smelling this tea, this is a wrap your hands around the mug and inhale kind of tea.
I smell hints of smoke and maybe a bit of chocolate.
On first sip, I was surprised to taste fruity notes.
I don’t find this tea astringent at all, in fact next time I think I will go the full 5 minutes.
I am very glad that Queen C. is here, and I just think she might be someone I invite to stay around for a good while.

Ashmanra, who has patiently withstood more whining and mewling about current life conditions that any online acquaintance should ever have to do :) recognized that I need some bucking up and sent the Queen to do the honors.

This tea has backbone. I am a lover of good, stiff black teas and this is, but the subtle coffee-cocoa-smoky-floral chaser I’ve read about in many of these reviews keeps Catherine from becoming a merciless harpy. Perfect with no additives, but I can see that a little milk would tone this down nicely for afternoons.

(Is it a sign that you’ve gone completely over the edge of your saucer when you start attributing human qualities to your teas? I’m blaming on the heat!)

This is one of the teas I have built up in my head, and was so afraid to try! Today, I took the plunge! My fears were totally unfounded because I love it! It’s perfect sans additions, and it has that chocolatey, sweet, chewy, smoky thang going on that I am now wild about! I am enjoying it as a morning tea, but I think it would suit me even better in the afternoon! When I try to think of descriptors for this tea, the words sophisticated and intense come to mind. I picture someone like Simone de Beauvoir taking this tea every day as her favorite, as she reads and writes, and she serves it as sort of a litmus test when she has visitors :) If it is too much for them, maybe she is too much for them ;)

I was conservative and steeped it for 3 minutes, but I am totally going to take it to 4 next time.

Makes a good resteep too!!!!

Many, many, many thanks to ashmanra for introducing me to another tea that I’m in love with! Oh Mr. Harney (and Sons) you are going to be getting SUCH an order soon! I actually have the catalogue beside my bed with a ton of post its in it. Oy!

I keep reading amazing comments about this tea, so I’m having a quick cup to see for myself before leaving for class. I was surprised at the aroma of this tea. The dry leaves smell earthy with a hint of rich cocoa. The tea liquor smells malty with a little hint of smokiness. The flavor is very robust with a light smokey aftertaste. Adding a little sweetener brings out some nice honey notes. I like this tea, but probably won’t purchase more than this little sample pack. I like the honey and malty flavor, but not the smokiness.

-Dry blend has medium black and brown tea leaves and twigs.
-Dry leaves smell like earthy black tea with a hint of cocoa. Tea liquor aroma is malty with a little smokiness.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium golden brown color.
-Strong and robust flavor and finish with honey notes. Light smokey cocoa aftertaste.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Good tea. Malty and smokey flavor.

Made a cup of this while I was getting dinner ready (pineapple chili). I’ve been in the mood lately for lots of black tea, and I’ve been sipping on Harney’s Malachi McCormick blend just about every day for the last week.

This is both surprising, and delicious. I was not expecting the smoky flavor at all. Having just recently tried a lapsang souchong, I was instantly reminded of that flavor but toned way down. No campfire sensation, just a hint of smoke. On top of that there’s a dark cocoa flavor along with a bit of honey-like sweetness and the slightest hint of malt. This is not astringent at all. Like the Malachi McCormick, this doesn’t knock my socks off, but it’s a really well done black tea blend.

I’ve been wanting to try this for a while now. I’ve read so many rave reviews about this blend. Thankfully, my book club swap buddy Josie Jade had some to share. :)

Heavy and earthy. Reminds me a bit of keemun and yunnan. Smokey and sweet. Like rock sugar and raisins. Savory umami flavor as well. This is an intriguing blend indeed. I have to say though, I don’t like it all too much. Too much savory for me. I’m still learning so much about black tea. :)

I was tempted by Harney’s most recent promotion to pick up one of their new “Ambessa” teas, along with a couple others that had been on my shopping list for awhile.I’m not assigning a numerical rating yet because I’ve been away from Steepster for quite awhile and will have ot remind myself how Queen C compares to everything else I’ve tried :)

Steeped at work, with a rounded teaspoon in a ~8oz mug, I think I got lucky right off the bat – from others’ descriptions this might be easy to oversteep, but I’m finding it quite drinkable plain (yay!).

Very smooth, I’m not getting a lot of smoke though there is a dryness that reminds me of smoke; the taste is sweet, but the flavor reminds me of more savory things in general – buttered popcorn? Salted caramel? Clearly, more experimentation is required!

Thanks to Ashmanra for this sample! This was a light and pleasant tea- I was not suprised to learn that it was a blend of Chinese tea. However, as I would typically drink this in the morning, I may prefer a bolder blend to start my day….I still have some left so I need to give it a try one more time…

ANOTHER THANK YOU to Doulton!!!!

Once it starts infusing I can start smelling a very faint hint of smoke. It’s a deep burgundy brown. The taste isn’t what I expected and that’s not a bad thing…it’s certainly your typical black tea taste but then I got like a semi-bitter/semi-sweet berry type taste at the end of the sip! It was a surprise but I kind of like it! YUP! I like it! It doesn’t say it has berry in it but I can certainly taste hints on the tongue…Ahhhh! The magic of tea!