Moscow After Hours

This is a surprise final stop on my current world destination tea tour after hitting Florence, Paris and Tokyo. This tea is still in development, but Shui Tea sent me a sample with my recent order.

The raw tea is dark with specks of red safflower petals. The fragrance is subtly smokey, but there’s also the presence of a fine, exotic perfume. I know this is the citrusy bergamot and florals, but they combine to make something unique to this tea.

The brewed tea is utterly dark and rich. There’s some great body here and neither the lapsang nor the bergamot overpowers; they compliment each other well. This would be similar to having a citrus glazed food grilled on an open fire.

With my two favorite tea styles of all times blended, Lapsang Souchong and Earl Gray, this scores high with me.

A short post, as it’s before dinner tea. In dry form it smells rather like Kusmi’s smoky Earl Grey, but with spices in it. After steeping it’s still the smoky EG, but not as spicy. More sort of slightly sugary sweet, and then a little spice underneath.

Taste wise, it’s still the smoky EG with spices. It’s not very heavy on the bergamot, which I approve of, and it’s got a heatlhy amount of smoke in it, which I also approve of. And then the spices just adds a little touch of the unexpected. A little exotic pinch. A bit of hey-where-did-that-come-from? It leaves a very slight burn on the tongue, as if I’ve just had something with a pinch of chili in it.

Quite nice. I’m glad I was recommended this one. It scores pretty high and would be a competitor to aforementioned Smoky EG from Kusmi. Wether I prefer one over the other, though, or they are more or less interchangable, I haven’t yet decided.