golden tip assam

I think I over-steeped this tea, but it is still smooth. Just a bit too bitter now. It has caramel and malty notes. I will have to make another cup and try not to brew it too long!

This is a very unusual Assam. There’s some bitterness at the end of each sip, but it’s gentle, not unpleasant, and it only enhances the malty caramel sweetness of this tea. There’s also surprisingly little astringency, and a relatively light body. This makes me think that perhaps milk would overpower its subtle flavours. A very good, atypical Assam

Unlike most of the teas on the site, this is a tea for milk and sugar. It’s a very high grade specialist tea, a tippy golden flowery orange pekoe picked before dawn (hence the golden tips) on a single Indian estate in the mountain state of Assam. One of the two finest black teas you can drink. Needs long steeping to bring out its deep malty richness.

Sold in London’s friendliest tea shop, Postcard Teas (just off Oxford Street), the shop includes a little cafe with lovely cakes, a great selection of loose leaf Indian, Chinese and Japanese teas and some classy tea paraphernalia. I have two of their Japanese tea caddies, gorgeous air-tight brass jars adorned with a single kanji ideogram that darkens with use over the years. Highly recommended.