Silonibari, BPS(CTC)

When dry it was highly aromatic. I thought it would be a strong, astringent tea that was best served with milk and sugar but it was nothing like that. It’s surprisingly sweet, smooth, and very fruity… I would actually love to drink it straight! :D

This is straight up tea. The kind of tea that you enjoy after overdosing on the chocolate mint pumpkin spice koolaid melange that sounded so good when you ordered it. I drank this with a touch of soy creamer and some sweetener, which added to the whole this is a tea for someone who wants tea vibe. Lupicia suggests using this tea to make masala chai, which I plan on doing eventually. (I have a bottle of their spices for tea.) Meanwhile, while I’m dealing with a month in which everything that could go wrong IS going wrong, this is a nice, non-bitter flavorful way to start a Friday morning.

Standard CTC black tea good for tea latte, but nothing special.

Tricked me. Thought it was Ceylon; reminiscent of the stuff we had at home. Pretty good cold or hot, and it should be good with milk too.

I don’t have much control over my tea prep at work – the hot water is whatever temp the hot water comes out at, it steeps a variable amount of time if I get interrupted by email or phone or co-worker – so it’s good to have a couple of very forgiving teas in my cubby.

The Silonibari is one of them. It will take just about any abuse and still taste pleasant, go down smoothly and definitely improve my attitude. It does well straight or all dressed up with milk and sweetener and can easily be steeped two or three times without losing much.