Morgan Blend Tea

A complete surprise in the mail yesterday – this tea!
H.J. – now…who…would THAT be? Hesper June – thanks so much!!!

I’m a fan of most of the teas I have tried from S&V…so I was excited to try this one, too!

So the deal with this one is that they combined Lapsang Souchong with Earl Grey! VERY interesting!

Yes…the first thing I could taste was the smokiness of the LS. The product description says ‘mellow’ but I disagree – there is a good amount of smoke, here! After my 2nd or 3rd sip I grabbed the EG flavors, too! Once I picked up on those I was smiling! The bergamot does come thru more as the liquor cools naturally at room temp for a moment or two. It’s not really that the LS and EG are playing tug of war, really, but they sure are playing around to try and flaunt their stuff! The more I drink this the more I like it. But the primary reason I like this is because S&V has ‘balls’ – I think they really got creative and took a risk here and I think it worked out really well for them!

This is a neat offering and a robust flavored tea!

Many thanks to Hesper June for this tea! What a puzzlement when I looked this up, because I did got detect bergamot AT ALL which goes to show that I need a lot more development in my tasting ability!

I was making Snickerdoodles when youngest made this tea so I didn’t get to smell the dry leaf. Had I done so, I would definitely have picked up a lovely, fruity, juicy bergamot aroma. By the time I sat down at the tea table think we were trying two different plain lapsangs, the tea was made and I gave each pot a sniff. This one had the richest, most bacon-y aroma, nice and smoky for this chilly, rainy day. I tried this one first because I thought it smelled the smokiest and the best.

It was very good, with rich layers of flavor. It was heartening and delicious with our cookies. The result of this tea tasting was a bit of a surprise, though, as we ended up being joined by a new tea drinker halfway through who had fun lending his opinion as well.

The final word, both were great! Thank you, Hesper June!

So, I went out on a limb and bought a pound of this tea.
We shall see if I made a mistake or not.
Since it is blended with Earl Grey and has Lapsang Souchong, I was hoping that this was a tea that my husband and I could enjoy many pots of together (EG for me and LS for him)
Smelling the tea in dry leaf form, I can smell the bergamot and a hint of smokiness.
The tea brews up to almost a Maroon color.
Smelling the tea in the cup, and it smells faintly of bergamot and just a nice quality black tea. Not really smelling much LS smokiness at the moment.
Taste is a nice black tea, a hint of bergamot in the background, not much smokiness, but there is something else…there is a honey-like sweetness making itself present.
Very nice breakfast tea, I think I will enjoy it, but I don’t think there is enough smokiness present for the Hubby.

Thank you, Hesper June for sending me a sample of this tea I’ve been wanting to try from S & V. By the way the little containers she put them in are very cute.

So… this is a Lapsang and Earl Grey blend which is interesting, I never would have thought to put the two together. Lapsang is the first thing you notice about this, it is quite smoky. There is bergamot in here but it’s more of a background note. I’m not really a fan of Earl Grey on its’ own but I am liking this. I feel like the bergamot has a slight twinge of bitterness.

This tea is pretty strong and I needed it this afternoon. Today was supposed to be my day for laundry and cleaning, but I think I am catching a cold… fortunately I have plenty of tea and Zicam.

By the way, I did another blog post about Imperial Tea Court if anyone wants to read it: http://sanfrantea.teatra.de/2012/12/07/a-visit-to-imperial-tea-court/