Lady Bedford

This is one of three favorite black teas from Todd & Holland (www.todd-holland.com), along with Abbot’s Blend and German Breakfast. I like Lady Bedford after dinner or in the afternoon; it’s not a morning tea for me.

For my 900th tasting note, I thought I’d taste a tea I haven’t tried before.

When I look at my tea stash, it’s pretty clear that most of what I have is black tea or oolong. I have far fewer green teas and fruit or herbals. I may have more white tea than I do green tea. I don’t know whether this accurately reflects the mix of what I bought, but I think not. I do love black tea, but I can’t drink it much after 1 in the afternoon, and I love oolongs, but I don’t always have time to do them justice, so I don’t drink them as much. Greens, whites and herbals/fruits are probably the ones I drink more often because of time of day considerations, but I also think I just bought fewer of them.

In any case, I have a lot of Todd & Holland samples, many of which are black teas. This is one of them. It’s malty-smoky in the package with surprisingly light colored green leaves. The liquor color is a dark sienna color and clear, quite lovely. It has a sweet, malty aroma with berry and chocolate notes.

The taste isn’t as sweet as the aroma, and there is a bit of smoke in the flavor but it isn’t strong. Like the aroma, the flavor has a maltiness and both fruity and chocolate notes. The fruit note is something on the order of blackberry or rasperry, or perhaps black cherry, and the chocolate is a lighter, mild note suggestive of milk chocolate.

It’s very tasty and it has a lot of “personality.” I can’t quite figure out whether I’ve tasted something similar in a Harney Blend, or whether it was some other tea company, but the flavor is familiar.

Am I the only person who finds it almost impossible to keep track of all the black tea blends I like, particularly over long stretches of time?