Hide

Welcome to Steepster, an online tea community.

Write a tea journal, see what others are drinking and get recommendations from people you trust. or Learn More

Queen Mary from Tea Desire

Steepster Score 1 Rating Rate This Tea

75/100

Queen Mary

Black Tea by Tea Desire

A bracing tea from the world’s top tea gardens. A round cup. Good flavour tempered with malty and floral notes.

3 Tasting Notes

AJ
70
AJ 3 tasting notes

Thank you vague description that gives me no clue into the black teas used in this blend! You forced me to guess wildly at the steeping time.

It was marketed as an afternoon blend, but is said to have malty tones, so I couldn’t figure out if it might have some Assam in it—which would have had be reducing the time a bit. Floral notes as well, so.

I find that I prefer plain black teas over flavoured. Mostly tea blends—if they’re all black tea, or some black and green teas. I enjoy them more. Flavoured blacks are a bit more of a novelty. I enjoy them a lot as well, but.

The tea is quite a deep red, and has a distinct Assam black kind of smell to it. However, the taste is very mild. …This may be because I burnt my tongue earlier today, being in a rush. There’s definite notes that do remind me strongly of Assam teas, but lighter, and there is a sort of baky vegetalness that makes me wonder if there isn’t a bit of some oolong tea in here as well. I figure that taste is what they meant by the ‘floral’.

I’d suggest taking what I say with a grain of salt, because really, my tongue is quite burnt and that’s probably scewing my taste considerably. But I don’t know, I rather like it right now.

Actually, tasting this, I think I understand more what it means for something to be ‘malty’ than I ever have drinking just marketedly ‘malty’ Assams. Huh. And this still goes down very smoothly, with just touches of astringency as it cools.

Drank this a few times, wasn’t sure if I liked it, but I think I do. It smells like a strong assam, but it’s really quite mellow in comparison to most of them. Or at least it is at three minutes steep time (although I steep most assams at two). I think there is some darjeeling hiding in this blend as well. It lives up to “Afternoon Blend”. I should be drinking this one more.

Unrelated, Damn Fine Teas has released Series 5 and 6, and I didn’t even notice. Now there’s no way I can get their Christmas blend in time (ten days to transfer money to paypal, order, at least two weeks to ship to CANADA). Damnit.

I’ve found I LOVE the idea of Christmas tea blends. I want to collect them all. Sadly, no marketplaces around here seem to want to sell the Christmas blends of the standard tea companies. I really want to try Stash’s Christmas Eve and Morning, and White Christmas. But no places sell it! And the site’s shipping to Canada is outrageous.

Finally finished this one off today in a little cast-iron teapot from my sister (she got it way back when she was in highschool, but soon lost interesting tea; she recently gave it to me). It gave everything a slightly off taste, and hot metal has a peculiar smell.

Ahwell. But this’ the last of THIS tea.

Show 2 more