I’ve just had a fresh batch of this, after being without it for some time, and I’m just drinking my first mug – a well-heaped teaspoon brewed for four minutes, boiling water.
It isn’t really much different to my last tasting notes except that, where I wrote of the taste of warm butter, I now think that element is better described as a touch of toffee.
It’s just as excellent as the last batch and really is one of my three, possibly four, all-time favourites.
Incidentally, I’ve edited the dealer information above but I don’t know how to edit the name of tea – it should be ‘Natela’ with an ‘e’.
I can’t resist writing another note on this. The last one was on a small sample I had and I liked it so much that when the site got more in stock I ordered a couple of hundred grammes. This is my first mug of that order.
I used a well-heaped teaspoon. This is difficult to judge as it’s very light and long and straggly (I doubt I could get a 100gms of it in one of my 200gms caddies) and difficult to spoon out; but I put in what looked like a good spoonful and added a little more to be on the safe side. I steeped with boiling water for three minutes.
It’s an intense but clear brown-orange in the mug with quite a difficult-to-pin-down aroma. I think I get warm butter (as on your hot toast), cooked cauliflower, a metallic tinge and, possibly, nettles.
The flavour has good basic tea in it. It has a warm, round element which has touches of rum, liquorice and the smell of loose tobacco to it – something in the middle of those three, say – and the buttery element again, giving a pleasant ‘smoothness’. All this warmth and smoothness is balance by a slight, invigorating ‘bite’, something like the smell of nettles but more fruity – perhaps half-way between the smell of nettles and the taste of oranges.
I know everyone’s taste is different, but I really can’t praise this highly enough – it’s really captivated me.
