Notting Hill

I’ll be another steepsterite to wonder at how lovely this tea looks like. Everytime I open the bag or small tin I’ve filled with this tea, I am amazed by the colors. The black tea leaves are lavishly sprinkled with blue, yellow and dark orange petals; there are also a few dried pieces of fruits: I recognized some strawberries and some light yellow, that may be apricot? It’s indeed one of the most beautiful teas I’ve had the opportunity to brew and that makes the experience all the more pleasant.
The smell of the dried leaves is very fruity, with a strong apricot-peach tone.
Once brewed, the flavors do not disappoint and are in line with the smell. This makes for a very sweet and mellow brew. Really lovely end extremely pleasant, but with unfortunately no wow factor to make it unforgettable.
I’ll have to compare this one to MF Bolero, for which I still have a few teapots left at the bottom of the bag. I believe this one will be slightly more fruity with more distinctive flavors, while the other should be more balanced.
I know it should not be very difficult to finish this bag and that I might rebuy this tea some day.

When examining my Yumchaa purchase options, this one really struck me with how delicious it smelled and how lovely it looked. While in London I was staying in Notting Hill, so it was a good enough excuse to pick this up. I finally got around to trying it this morning thanks to a pre-set Breville before work.

I was a little worried as when I opened the bag it wasn’t as fragrant as I remember. But, it is very flavourful! The black base brewed up very dark and while it was nice and full it was quite mild. No bitterness, little astringency. Again I’m happy with Yumchaa’s tea bases. The apricot and strawberry were there loud and clear. Sweet but tart, and the flavours tasted very natural as if I’d squeezed an apricot and a few berries into the cup.

Another great tea and one of the five samples cteresa sent me in a swap. She included this tea for comparison to the Place Saint Marc of Theodore. Great choice, thanks!

Whereas the Place Saint Marc smells heavenly, I was disappointed by the taste when brewed. While not bad, the taste just was significantly less good than what you would expect based on the smell. This tea is the exact opposite. The smell – although not bad – was not exactly loose-your-socks-heavenly. The taste however exceeded my expectations.

In short: it is a very well balanced tea.

I just reviewed the 4 fruits rouges from damman freres. This tea is remakably different from that tea. The 4 fruits rouges is very fruity. The red fruits dominate the tea. This tea is more complex. The black tea base is much more noticable. In addition the flavouring doesn’t consist of just fruits, but also of flowers. It makes for a more complex and full bodied taste than the 4 fruits rouges.

Don’t get me wrong however: both teas are lovely. They just have amazingly different characters.

It is shallow of me to start by how a tea looks, but I need to remark: this tea is incredibly pretty, both the dry leaves but particularly the soaked remaindered, pretty open leaves, the marigold petals and whole cornflowers and little pieces of fruit in the middle. All Yumchaa teas are pretty with big fresh leaves, but whenever I brew this I am struck again by how pretty this is.

The taste is also very pretty – while the presence of marigold and cornflowers is visually obvious, I am not sure I can detect their taste, but the apricot-strawberry flavour is delightful and tastes natural. The tea underneath does not feel too strong, though perhaps one can up the dose a bit. It´s not one of my Yumchaa favorites, but competition is fierce for that and it is a lovely flavoured tea indeed.

I love this tea. My brother in law brought it home to me when he was sent to England for his Reserve duty. I had to reorder. It is the greatest iced tea. Dont need sugar and it does not have the pucker effect when made into ice cold tea.

Here’s another lovely tea from Yumchaa. And what better way to start off a gloomy morning than with some glorious black tea. Love it. :D