Portland Blend

I visited the website of Strand Tea Company this past weekend, because I was looking for a new Yixing mug, and I discovered this blend, so I had to try it. Portland is just minutes away. (Another nice thing about Portland being so close, my order arrived so quickly)

This is a delicious breakfast blend. A lovely malty flavor. Smooth, rich and delicious. Warm and cozy on this very rainy Northwestern morning, but also has some strength and heft to it.

I noticed one or two rose petals in the blend too, which is appropriate… I actually expected more rose petals since Portland is the city of roses, but, that’s alright. A very good breakfast blend!

I don’t know why it took me so darn long to try this tea, which is named after my stomping grounds, but I finally got around to it. I got this in a care package ages back from LiberTeas. It’d been sitting in a tea case for months, unopened. This morning I was desperate for a pick-me-up, so I turned to it. It was black, it was there, and it was new. Done.

As far as black blends go, it was surprisingly even. The Chinese blacks certainly dominate the profile, in my opinion. There may have been a little bit of Darjeeling muscatel on the forefront, but it was nigh on subtle. The rest of the tea’s character was bold, smooth, woody, middling-to-malty, and astringent at the end. A decent enough blend.