Richmond Park Blend TB86

YAY! YAY! My order came! Woot!
It will never get old getting tea in the mail! EVER!
Even with my tea stashes I was in need of more black teas – so – I bought some!

This is the first of many-new-to-me-teas!

I try and not drink teas back-to-back by the same company but I prob will the next several days or weeks – at least in the mornings!

I LOVE that this one has 3 different teas blended into the base! YAY!

It infuses to a medium brown. The smoky notes pop thru a bit more than the others when I sniffed it.

This is a nice medium-strength black tea combo and I like it just fine and dandy. There are aspects of it that are smoky – but not overly-so and others that are crusty/bready but again just hints.

This is pretty good!

This is the fourth and last of the teas in the British Blend sampler. I have to say I really like the little tins Upton uses for its sampler sets. They’re very cute.

The darjeeling owns the smell of the dry leaves here, along with a little smokiness that must be from the Keemun. Fruity and smoky. Yum. The Ceylon seems to be coming out more in the steeped tea’s aroma. I am getting that sort of berry undercurrent I’ve found in other Ceylons.

The tea is flavorful and medium bodied bordering on full with a mouthfeel that is thicker than water but not thick enough to feel like it’s coating your throat. I didn’t try it with additives yet. It doesn’t really need it, at 3 minutes of steeping. There’s nothing harsh or bitter about it. It has some astringency.

It’s deceptively simple tasting. It seems to me sort of a Rorschach inkblot of black teas. If you want to find a chocolate note in here, I think you can. Vanilla, probably. Fruit? Definitely. Nut, I think so. Smoke? At tad. Wood? Some. Earth, probably. Name some other things you typically find in tea and if you let your mind wander during the tasting you can probably convince yourself it’s there. At least until you’re more highly caffeinated than I am this morning, as this is my first caffeine of the day.

Surprisingly, this is not vile. I know, I know. I’ve turned out to be so anti-Upton. I don’t mean to be. I’m just constantly disappointed by them. For the most part I’ve either not liked their teas or liked them enough that I would pick them up at a grocery store but not go out of my way to order them online. (There are a couple of exceptions that I would possibly order online but there are better versions at other vendors so I’d ultimately go to the other vendors.) Anyway, enough Upton-bashing (I seriously don’t mean to, it just happens.) On to the tea.

Without additives, I was kind of prepared to have to add sugar and milk to it to make it drinkable but nope, drank the whole cup straight. It’s surprisingly smooth with zero bitterness and a decently full flavor. The only problem I really have with it is the main flavor was kind of… fresh, young tree limb. I think it was the Darjeeling in there but it made me think of a Nilgiri (though a bit smoother) and that’s just not a flavor profile I’m in love with. It makes me think I’m munching on plant-life.

It’s definitely a mellow tea and that’s kind of nice but it makes me wonder how well it would truly hold up with milk and sugar. Though I gave some to the husband steeped for 4 minutes with milk and sugar and it was good enough that he was surprised when I told him it came from Upton. So apparently it can hold up to sugar and milk. Though I’m the type that likes to pee on the electric fence myself so I’ll try it later just to be sure. Until then, this rates as a decent tea that I would have no trouble drinking but would only buy if 1) I could find it at the grocery store and 2) There were no other better options there.

i don’t know. i drank 2 cups of this today trying to get to know this tea. but it just wouldn’t open up to me. i’ll try again in a few days. some teas just aren’t quick to trust.

This is such a well balanced cup, I get a bit of sweet cocoa from the Keemun, there’s a winey buzz from the Darjeeling, but mostly I get the high cider note from the Ceylon that unites the two. I don’t know where I get this cider Ceylon association, but I just finished my second steep and it was like a mulled cider, with just a bit of spice at the end. Going for a third! (Edit: didn’t translate well into a third, or a fourth, :shrug:)

I was really slogging my way through this sample. This tea is mostly boring until suddenly it tastes a bit like kelp. Is that vegetal? Sea vegetal?

I’ve tried it a few times now and it only gets worse. Musty and pickley and undelicious. I tossed out the rest so I wouldn’t do this to myself again.

If anyone can tell me what tea in this blend imparts the undercurrent of seaweed nastiness so I can avoid it in the future, I’d really appreciate it.

Had this a couple of days ago, but I was having loading problems, so I wasn’t able to log it. So I’ve had several cups since, and I’m actually rather glad, because I learned something: This blend is super, super forgiving if you accidentally oversteep it for, say, 12 minutes. Oops. Most of them I’ve gone a little over 5 minutes, though.

I started the British Blend sampler from the end because I am contrary, and this proved a bad idea because I’ve just been drinking this one and have yet to touch the rest. But it’s really good! It’s good, smooth cup with this really nice hint of smokiness to it. If it was decaf, I could drink it all day. It could stand to be a little stronger, but I guess then I couldn’t steep it for 12 minutes and have it come out still drinkable, so that’s alright.

Another note: When I ordered the sampler, I thought the price was a tiny bit steep, but wanted to try Upton so I bought it anyway. Then, when it arrived, I realized that each of the samples is more than an ounce of tea, closing in on 1.5 oz. That’s a lot of tea for a sample! So it gets a thumbs up for that.

My only complaint is that I like to smell my tea and none of the Upton blends in the sampler, this included, has much of an aroma dry or steeping. It’s not completely absent — that would be weird — but it does take some of the fun out of opening the tin, to not get deliciousness wafting right up to your nose.

Continuing on with my British Sampler, and we come to this one.

There is a very faint hint of berry flavor, but then in the next sip you taste the Keemun cocoa flavor. The good thing about this blend is that it is so well balanced that none of the constituent teas takes precedence. Contrast this with the Baker Street Blend where you definitely taste the Lapsang Souchong in it. This is the kind of tea you drink continuously while working on a writing project — fill up the Zojirushi and re-steep each batch in the tea maker three or four times. It’s a satisfying cup that doesn’t distract you with “hey look at me” notes but is still deep enough to not be boring after two cups.

No astringency in first half of cup, and only slightly after that. I put in my standard 2 tsp of rock sugar but I think it needs a 1/2 tsp more. (Oh, I might want to mention that I typically drink a large mug full, 12 to 15 ounces, so the 2 tsp is not out of line. Anything less than 12 ounces is for wimps, unless you’re drinking $60 / ounce pu-erh.)

The fourth in the “English” sampler from Upton. Richmond Park is not one I would probably have ordered on its own, had it not been in the package, but its not bad.

In the tin: Smells like black tea and old, stale campfire. I’m guessing that’s the Keemun.

Brewed: Smells like black tea, and thankfully, none of that stale campfire scent came with.

I added a healthy dose of sugar and had a very drinkable, if unremarkable, cup for lunch.

I think this could use a bit of lemon as well. I will have to pick one up next time I’m at the grocers. I rarely put lemon in (hot) tea.

I might try a very small cup of this with a bit of milk, but so far I don’t think milk is needed.

More Upton thunderdome-ing. Today it’s TB70 Finest Russian Caravan (India, China, Formosa) against TB86 Richmond Park Blend (Keemun, Ceylon, Darjeeling).

This one’s greener, grassier smelling dry. Whoa, this is weirdly tart and bitter. A very odd tea, and while I like being open-minded to teas that don’t taste like anything else I’ve had I’m pretty sure I would not seek this one out again. Some milk and sugar helps a little but it’s still weirdly tangy in an unpleasant way. Worse than Finest Russian Caravan (which was merely disappointing), probably worse than anything I’ve had from Upton. This is one of the first loose teas I’ve had where I’m struggling to want to finish the cup. Bummer.

EDIT: Anyanka put it so well when she said it was pickle-y. Yes! That’s a good way of describing the strange planty tanginess it has, which I was struggling to find words for.

This tea was a real surprise for me. I am a hardcore coffee snob—own a coffee press (including a travel one to bring with me on the way into the office), whole beans only thank you , etc. Tea to me is nice, but most of the standard blends were never as satisfying as the flavor seems to fade into something unpleasant after the first few sips.

To cut down on my daily intake of half and half I have started to explore better quality loose tea and gave the British Blend a whirl, After all, wouldn’t you expect the brits to have a good handle on blending a good tea.
This blend if my first experience of a tea that is as satisfying to sip as a cup of good coffee. Its strong, bold has body but not bitter AT ALL. Even as the softer more complex notes of the tea fade as the cup cools a bit this tea is still pleasant to sip. It stands up well to sugar and milk and tastes just as well straight up.
I finally understand why brits drink tea more often than coffee.

I first tasted this tea as part of a sampler set (British Blend Sample SB11) that I purchased last year. This tea alone was good enough to convince me that I ought to try some other teas from Upton. I have a hard time explaining why I like this blend so much. I remember saying something uninspired along the lines of, “It tastes like tea!” So many mild afternoon blends are so bland that they end up tasting like slightly stagnant tap water. The Richmond Park Blend tastes like tea. It still tastes like tea if milk, honey, or sugar are added, but I usually drink it with a splash of soymilk and no sweetener.

Not a big fan, really. I’m not sure that’s because I drank this in the morning while still half asleep and slightly moody but nevertheless, it tastes dull.

Vey slightly astringent, which I like. But that’s all. Perhaps a slice of lemon would add some character.