I am thoroughly enjoying this tea.
I went to the store to buy some Orange Pekoe (which is quite nice itself, btw) and was offered this one. I got the OP but then after giving it some thought I went back a couple weeks later for a tin of this one.
The first thing you notice is that this is obviously hand-rolled – the leaves are very long and twisty.
The aroma of the leaves is very pleasant, a bit malty and floral like a really nice breakfast tea.
The colour of the infusion is a deep orange but not too dark.
The flavour is reminiscent of Black Needles (Yunnan red/black) in its honey/sweetness but then also like a really nice breakfast blend (Ceylon/Assam).
Very, very accessible and hard to say anything not nice about it. :)
This tea even cost less than I expected because it’s so light that the tin could only hold about 86g – the girl at the store even had trouble shutting the lid (I cringed at the sound of her crushing the tea leaves, not to mention the fact that she spilled a bunch when she was filling the tin.. tsk tsk tsk.. :P )
Notes on preparation: I’ve been doing all of my black tea lately in kind of a “modified gong fu” style – I use extra leaves, and first do a quick infusion off the boil (up to two minutes), then later a second infusion at boiling, leaving the leaves in indefinitely (or at least 5 minutes).
