Picked up a packet of this tea to split with Indigobloom and Sil, as it sounded interesting.
And interesting it is! First off, it looks like a CTC tea. No long, thin, wiry leaves here; the leaves aren’t even as intact as they are in crappy flavoured loose blacks. Nope, it’s practically powder. Naturally, that made me super wary of bitterness/astringency. A sniff of the tea, which smells fairly mild, made me brave enough to actually use nearly 1.5 tsp for my ~8 oz. mug, which I wouldn’t have done for a CTC (but at the same time, I didn’t want it to be too weak!)
The second interesting thing – while this tea was brewing up, I sniffed at the brewing basket, and it smelled exactly like squash! Like my cup was filled with cooked squash. I’m not entirely sure which type of squash, but not a particularly sweet one. Just kind of… nutty. So squashy, though – it was strange!
Third, the flavour. Of course, a tea that smells so strongly of squash… yes, also tastes of squash. And it actually quite a bit milder than I would have expected. It’s fairly smooth, and the squashy flavour ends with a black tea sweetness which is quite nice. Not being a huge black tea fan (nor always a huge squash fan), I’m rather glad that this is a sneaky sort of sipdown for me (in that the packet of tea only has enough for about 4 cups, and I’ve had my one!) Super interesting to have tried, though!
