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This is a bagged tea that brews to a dark mahogany colour and smells of sweet potatoe, lemon and a hint of floral.
It tastes of sweet potato with a hint of floral, over malt. It is lightly astringent. The tea develops more malty, bitter tones as you drink down the cup and tastes mostly of citrus tones and malt, with very little sweetness. The tea is best drunk when hot as the flavour dissapears as it cools. However it does develop a nice potent dose of caffeine.

I must admit that i really like this tea, it capture the high notes champagne mixed with the fruity notes of slightly sugared crushed srawberries . It smells a little of strawberry cordial. The base is a fairly light slightly grassy sencha, whose grassiness is tempered by the chamomile that acts to also increase the fruitiness of the tea. I steeped the tea for about the two minutes suggested and the tea did not become bitter, there is a little astringency but all it does is act to mimic the dryness champagne can leave in the mouth.

The tea re-steeps well with the champagne weakening and the chamomile strengthening.

This is a tea that benefits from a little exta leaf and a slightly stronger steeping time than i use with tea, but once i discovered this i really do like it.

The base has a bright piny minty top note and is quite refreshing. This is a tea that has lots of flavour notes that you discover as you drink. At first you get a smoky flavour mixed with the minty pine that reminds me of the way that the air tastes when in a recent forest fire zone, this is followed by a bright and fruity citrusy note that lightens the tea and keeps it from becoming heavy. The lemongrass tones down any bitterness from the smoke and the minty tone helps to tie it all together. It does remind me a little of early mornings in early fall when I worked out of Racine Lake near Chapleau Ontario.

Just what I needed right now. A nice accomplishment a smoky tea that manages to be light and refreshing as well!

I needed a bit of a pick me up and I was craving something fruity but not overly desert like so I decided to try this tea. It delivers well on the first part after a cup I am pleasantly buzzing.

The dry tea consists of a nice dark congou blended with calendula petals and dried fruit. It brews to a nice maple colour. The scent of the tea very much reminds me of this peach apricot tea that I have:
http://steepster.com/teas/big-active/35473-essence-tea-yunnan-with-peach-and-apricot. However while the Posti tea is kind of rugged this one has a much smoother and subtle base and a lighter flavouring.

The tea smells more of mango than apple. It smells faintly peppery with a hint of that slightly starchy fruity scent that mangoes can have. The Mango becomes even more distinct as it cools with some bright accents peaking through from the apple

The tea base is very smooth with a slight hint of dark chocolate malt underneath a dominant top note that is very bright and light which melds with a mango note and something that is almost floral. The apple is not distinct but it might be contributing to the floral hint and helps to prevent the mango from becoming heavy and overly sweet. This tea is easily drinkable, but not heavily flavoured. The peppery notes become more distinct as you drink the cup. It has an interesting slightly raisiny aftertaste. A pleasant afternoon tea.

This is a very nice rose scented black that has a similar flavour profile to my favourite rose white:
http://steepster.com/teas/big-active/35474-white-tea-with-rose-petal
hence I’m already disposed to look on it favourably.

It brews to a bright copper colour, and has a scent of tea rose mixed with a deeper , slightly bready tea scent.

The first taste is of rose water with a slight metaliic ting. While it captures a similar flavour profile to my favourite rose white tea it lacks a bit of the sweetness and most of the citrus notes the white possesses. The tea underneath is quite smooth with very little astringency, just enough to leave a freshness in the mouth. The base tea has green vegetal that blends well with the rose flavour as top
notes that dissipate into a sweet fruity, raisiny base with biscuit notes. The tea is not powdery or overtly perfumy. It resteeps quite decently with the rose becoming a little more peppery and the base developing a faint hint of liquorice. I would enjoy keeping this tea in my cupboard.

The name of this tea is French Vanilla Bean but what it actually reminds me is of good white chocolate (which is a good thing, I like white chocolate). It brews to a clear copper colour and the liquor smells of cocoa butter, mixed with a buttery warm vanilla with a hint of baked almond and coconut over sweet potatoe finished with a soft floral hint.

This tea has a medium body tea base which is sweet and slightly fruity with a touch of mild bitterness dissipating into a mix of cocoa butter and vanilla. I think that for me the coconut and almond seem to be working together to make the flavour that reminds me of cocoa butter as this tea does not taste like coconut and is not strongly nutty. The vanilla in this tea is a little bit heavier and warmer than other vanilla teas i’ve had with a faint aftertaste of vanilla and yam. As the tea cools it becomes less bitter, and bright red fruit tones appear in the base tea. A warm vanilla with floral hints and an intensifying sweetness lingers in the mouth for quite sometime after drinking. The tea is not astringent, but I think I will reduce the brewing temperature and time the next time to see if I can bring out more of the creaminess and sweetness often present in green tea. Very nice.

This is a really nice blend that offers the calming impact (for me a sophoric)of Jasmine with the cleansing and refreshing impact of mint blended so both are muted to create something that is deeper and sweeter and fresher, over a creamy slightly smoky sweet green tea with hints of spinach which creates a nice mouth feel and adds depth. The tea has a really nice body and the flavours blend nicely. The second steep still has a nice creamy body with the jasmine a little more prominent but the flavours still compliment and blend nicely. The scent of the dry tea at first reminds me a little bit of graveyard blend which is ironic as their is no licorice root either in the blend or the flavour. Their is a mix of green teas including some with really beautiful long twisted blades and the tea brews to a light saffron colour. I’m off to enjoy a third steeping.

This tea brews to a blush pink / beige colour with a scent of citrus accents over sharp berry floral and something slightly earthy that
gives the tea some depth. There is a sweet almost minty undertone followed by lemon verbena and a slight tartness. There is also a sweet fruity floral with a bit of slightly deeper tang as a result of the citrus peel, rosehip, and hibiscus. The oolong lends a fruity sweetness to the tea and smooths out the base and gives the tea a slightly thicker creamier body. It has a pleasant tastes almost like a well balanced herbal that leaves you with a feeling of pleasant alertness. The floral taste is almost like the scent of yarrow and leaves a slightly earthy aftertaste, so it reminds me of sunny days and picnics in the countryside. I re-steeped this tea four times. This tea tastes a little bit like sumac lemonade if you’ve ever had that.

I am trying to rate and review some of the teas I’ve had for a while before opening new ones. I’ve had this one for a while now and while it is enjoyable I still find myself making my own chai when I want spice rather than drinking my chai influenced blends so I am better off not buying them. Saying that this is a nice representative of it’s genre.

It brews to a copper colour and has a scent that reminds me of graham crackers mixed with gingerbread cookies. It smells of cloves and nutmeg and a biscuit tone with a hint of ginger over something sweet with a hint of vanilla. It smells closer to the store bought pumpkin pie I’ve had rather than the homebaked ones in my family which usually smell brighter in someway.

The tea has a smooth slightly sweet and refreshing base over laden with cinnamon, then the deeper tones of nutmeg cloves and vanilla mixed with vanilla that remind me a little bit of cream followed by a bittertone from the base tea mixed with hints of sweet pumpkin. There is an aftertaste of cream, spice and sweet tea and pumpkin.

The spice especially the cloves are not overwhelming as they can be in this type of blend. However this blend still makes me think more of graham crackers mixed with a slightly stronger bite of ginger and cinnamon rather than pumpkin pie for some reason. It re-steeps decently well, maintaining a decent body and has a nice spicy flavour.

This is the second straight Keemum I’ve tried. The first I tried (Zen teas) was a little picky if over leafed or steeped too long it was very smoky but when you got it right it had a nice body and an interesting mix of flavours but it isn’t something I drink on a regular basis.

This one is quite nice. It is very sweet and refreshing and the smoke takes a back seat. I brewed this tea in a western style according to the instructions on Whispering Pines website. 1 tsp per cup for 3 minutes at boiling water. It brews up to a maple colour hinting at copper. The tea smells of smoke, mint, sweet caramelized potato and plum hinting into cherry with a hint of lemon.

At first sip it tastes of caramelized burnt sugar and sweet potato, opening into a fresh smoky and slightly minty flavour, underneath a slightly sour sweet plum taste with a hint of artichoke. The tea is pretty refreshing and might make a nice ice tea. Later sips reveal floral notes of rose as a top note. It is a fairly smooth tea with little astringency and a thin to medium body. There is an aftertaste of burnt sugar/ dark honey, with sour stone fruit notes. This tea is a nice mix of sweet and sour and refreshing. The mint might be the result of contamination from a tea it was shipped with or might be how I detect the pine notes this tea is supposed to have, but it actually is a nice addition to the tea if it is. This is a nice everyday tea.

This is a strong tasting and very fruity version of a high mountain Jin Xuan that has not been flavoured. It is quite resilient and can last well over 10 steeps with strong and pleasant flavours. Throughout a brewing session there are dominant flavours notes of pineapple, peach, cream, and gardenia with notes of peaches and cream corn, clover, hay, lemon, artichoke and grass appearing through out the brewing process. The tea retains a relatively thick and creamy mouth feel for about half of the brewing session. This tea would probably be enjoyed by those who love fruity green oolongs, the floral notes are present but remain mostly in the background blending into the cream. On taste alone I would probably rate this tea around 95. However at $38.00 per 150g it is hardly the most affordable Jin Xuan available. Mountain tea’s option is $13.00 for around the same amount and Teavivre’s would cost around $17.20 for the same amount. I am curious to compare this to Mountain Teas once I open it and will probably adjust my ratings then.

Below are more detailed notes

Dry leaf – lime to spruce green tightly coiled leaves, with a fruity, peach, pineapple, cereal/hay scent.

steeped at 60s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 65s, 80s, 85s, 90s, 95s, 105s with water temperature between 85-95 degrees Celsius (increased for later sessions)
Tea consistently brewed to a bright green gold yellow colour.

60s scent – sweet pineapple peach, cream, hint of gardenia and corn.
taste – pineapple tempered by warn peach, hint of cream, hint of gardenia hint of hay, smooth, medium to thick bodied, light freshening feeling at front of mouth. Aftertaste of pineapple and hay.

40s scent – pineapple peach, hay, cream faint floral notes
flavour – stronger vegetal notes of hay ,and floral spice of gardenia, still strong notes of pineapple and peach, creamy buttery mouth feel with stronger hints of cooling at top and front of mouth. Aftertaste is similar to original with slight floral notes.

50s scent – cream, peach pineapple faint hay
taste – gardenia mixed equally with peaches and cream with a hint of pineapple over a faintly bitter vegetal note. Slightly thinner body but still creamy.

60s scent – same
flavour – fruit/gardenia and hay thinner and slightly more astringent, clean feeling in mouth including back of mouth, aftertaste of eating peaches with clover. sweet and slightly spicy.

65s scent – fruit and gardenia and cream
taste – cream, peach mixed with gardenia and faint artichoke, slightly less sweet, and more vegetal with a hint of bitterness.

80s cream gardenia and faint fruit taste consistent with smell plus a hint of hay and a vegetal bitterness. slightly more astringent aftertaste of peach and pineapple and clover.

85s scent – same as above with a hint of lemon.
taste – thinner still with a light creamy floral note over peaches over a now stronger bitter artichoke note and a hint of grass. mildly astringent.

90s smell – sweet cream with a hint of floral
same taste touch thinner with slightly more grassy aftertaste.

95s same scent
taste – more sweet fruit with a hint of floral spice mixed with artichoke.

105s scent – corn, cream and a hint of peach with floral note
taste – sweet green tea with fruit and cream tones followed by bitter tones followed by spicy floral notes with a slightly grassy aftertaste with a hint of lemon.

spent leaves – fairly large with hints of brown along the edges.

Still beautifully sweet, fruity, and floral, this is probably my favourite Jasmine green.

Kusmi’s St Petersburg reminds me on some sips of a monks blend with its mix of vanilla, from the caramel, and red fruit, but as I drink further on you get a more dominant tang and a hint of floral from the bergamot.

The caramel is buttery and creamy with a hint of vanilla and I can see why people love Kusmi’s Caramel tea. Later on in the cup, I smell the red fruit more than I taste it. There are hints of cherry and currant and blackberry.

The base is quiet and unassuming, it is quite smoooth and sweet but it doesn’t seem to have a great deal of complexity. There is a touch of bitterness that adds a bit of depth to the tea but otherwise is fairly thin. The flavour of this tea is fairly subtle it is not strongly sweet or creamy.

The second and third steeps are more bergamot and red fruit, with the caramel fading and the bergamot leaving a tingling on the tongue and it tastes at times slightly metallic.

The kusmi tins are certainly useful and fairly beautiful and the tea comes wrapped in folded plastic inside with a nice presentation.

This is a pleasant tea that makes a nice afternoon tea especially for those who may appreciate a lighter bergamot earl grey with deeper fruit tones. I think I still prefer a tea that has a stronger more flavourful base underneath it.

This tea in a some ways reminds me of starburst orange candies and orange milkshakes and a little bit of childhood. It makes a nice creamy orange rooibos honeybush blend for someone who wants one that is neither tart, overly sweet, or that is not a chai.

The tea brews up to a beautiful peachy deep orange tone. With an orange, vanilla and peach scent over a slightly powdery sweet tone from the base.

The flavour is a nice blend of fruit and vanilla. Orange is the top note followed by peach settled in vanilla. The base is pretty well hidden by the flavouring. The vanilla makes the tea taste fairly creamy and the peach acts to sweeten the tea and temper any tartness and bitterness from the orange. The vanilla is nice, it is not syrupy nor is it a cool vanilla. There is a faint powdery aftertaste from base, but it is not medicinal and is partially hidden by the tang of orange peel. The aftertaste is of creamy orange. The tea re-steeps pretty well. It looses most of the vanilla but the fruity tones remain strong. This tea would probably be really nice with cream or milk and might make nice popsicles in the summer as it tastes pretty nice when cooler. When cooler the peach comes out a little more.

Altogether this was a nice introduction to LuxBerry Teas for me. It is much more a fruit tea than you would expect from its name.

I really don’t have much information on this tea the Company name I gave above is the only thing written in English on the packaging. I don’t know where the provenance of this tea is, so I don’t know if it was produced in traditional regions known for biluochun or whether it was grown in Yunnan and made in the style of this type of tea.

The dry leaf is fairly tightly coiled with about 25% of the leaf showing the creamy yellowish hairy bud and the rest being a sage to spruce green colour. The dry leaf smells of wood smoke, and a spicy fruity green scent.

This tea is quite resilient and can easily brew up 6 or more times starting at 40s and going up by 5 second intervals if one is careful with water temperature. I was told to use a slightly cooler water temperature than I normally use for greens in order to bring focus to the fruity tones of this tea.

This tea brews up to a pale golden yellow and smells of grilled peach with a hint of pineapple mixed with smoke, salt, and a nutty tone blended with a sweet floral note.

It tastes of grilled peaches and smoke, creamed chestnut, the sweet tone of artichoke blended with the robustness of spinach, salt, and a slightly sweet at times lemony floral note. There is a light astringency at the front of the mouth though the tea tastes creamy with a medium to thick body.

The tea remains quite consistent in flavour throughout the steeping though the smoke looses it’s dominance and the tea does become a little lighter, brighter and lemony in later steeps.

This is a pleasant rather full bodied green tea that I will enjoy drinking.

I was excited to get the chance to try this Earl Grey because Assams, or an Assam rich blend are my favourite bases for this type of tea, mainly because of the chocolate, or biscuity tones that they often have that nicely support the citrus notes and secondly because they usually have a thicker body to them that I feel better supports the Strong Bergamot Earl Greys which are most often my favourites.

In Silky Earl Grey, Teajo comes close to creating my ideal earl grey. It has a really lovely Assam Base, paired with a heavier sweeter bergamot. I would like just a bit more of a spicier bergamot to create my ideal Earl grey.

Dry Smell
- fairly strong , spicy and sweet bergamot, hint of lemon rind and cocoa.

Brew Colour
– nice, clear, classic amber colour.

Texture
- Tastes quite smooth at first, finishing with a drying effect at the front of the mouth. The tea has a medium bodied mouth feel.

Flavour – A nice balance between a sweet bergamot baked goods taste, sweet red fruit in the tea base, and chocolate undertones. The base tea has enough depth to support the strong flavouring. The re-steep contains a flavour consistent to the first steep, with just a little bit more malty, chocolate tones shining through the lemon pound cake with custard smell and taste. The third steep was sweeter with less citrus notes but still a rich flavour.

Aftertaste – lemon(the taste you get when you drink lemon in hot water), lavender, with bitter sweet chocolate notes and a hint of malt.

This is a really nice strong and fruity Earl Grey with a great deal of flavour and a natural sweetness.

Thanks Piccolo for the chance to try your tea! It has a really lovely base and I look forward to trying some more once I make some room in my cupboard.

I don’t know why I don’t drink more mate, I like the kind of mellow alertness it tends to leave me with, different than the buzz I tend to get from coffee or strong tea. I suppose It has to do with a bad experience I had with a jarring tasting lemon mate I had once, where it tasted harsh and unpleasant. However my other experiences were positive. My first experience with mate was at the debriefing after a contract I had in Ecuador. One of the other people I was with had been in Rosario, Argentina and she shared a pleasant sweet tasting mate with us while sharing stories of riots in the streets after the bank collapse there. In Ecuador I had very little tea but I did have some great coffee, even the chain coffee was great. Anyways that first experience was pleasant and mate is a really nice tea to share among friends.

Anyways, I think this tea has helped to cure me of my mate aversion. It is really quite a pleasant and balanced tea. Once brewed the tea has a scent of green tones from the lemongrass and the mate, and hints of ginger, lemon, and of something floral from the calendula. It brews to a nice light amber yellow.

Flavour wise it has top notes of lemongrass and lemon (creating a toned down baked lemon flavour), and ginger. There is a sweetness provided by the mate and calendula. These notes are all over a sweet and savoury vegetal note. Everything is done to a nice balance, neither the ginger, nor the lemon or the mate over power each other. Ginger provides a light bit of warmth but not too much heat and the lemon and mate help to create a sense of alertness and clarity. I am quite enjoying this cup and it would probably be nice cold as well.

This is a really nice banana flavoured black tea that avoids the traps of
tasting artificial or overly sweet. Throughout the cup it tasted of green fresh bananas, a banana smoothy and a good quality banana muffin. It’s really tasty, but still lets the qualities of it’s base shine through. Thoroughly enjoyable.

A more thorough discussion of this tea is below.

The dry leaf is black and wiry with pieces of fruit and some pieces of calendula petals. It smells lightly fruity, but not of distinct banana, and has an almost chocolate like smell.

I steeped this tea for around 3 minutes.

Brewed tea is a copper colour.

There is a scent of chocolate, a slightly savoury spice like rosemary from the calendula, and dried banana.

At first sip there is a taste close to slightly green fresh bananas, or the flavour of a banana smoothy, or good quality fresh banana chips. It is not artificial tasting and not overly sweet. The tea base is smooth, sweet, with a faintly vegetal undertone melding into a taste of a semi-sweet chocolate. The calendula lends a brightness and a spicy taste to the tea and makes it taste like fresh banana. The tea has just enough tannin to give it some body. It leaves a slightly drying feeling in the mouth but is not overly astringent. The flavour compliments and blends well with the tea but does not overpower it. There is a hint of raisin and biscuit in the base. It tastes a little bit like really nice banana muffins towards the end of the cup.

The re-steep has an indistinct sweet baked good flavour with a hint of floral, and chocolate. Pleasant but not really banana. The base looses its astringency.

Tasty.

The cherry taste is there in this tea but I think I had too much hibiscus in my scoop, as this cup tastes too sour even with sugar. I can smell cherry, and a sweet berry scent, part of the smell references cream soda and cherry popsicles, but the taste is hidden by the sour aspects of this tea (ie hibiscus, rosehips, red currants). The sweet fruit accents become more apparent in the tea as it cools as a slightly candyish cherry taste ( similar to the notes found in cherry scented green tea), leaving a bright fruit note. However this taste is still buried underneath the sour notes. I will try this tea again after removing some of the hibiscus and try it cold brewed to try to bring out the cherry notes and reduce the sour notes. It is supposed to be a sour cherry tea but as it is this brewing was so sour that this over shadowed all of the other flavours.

I decided to do a comparison between two supermarket earl greys.

Twinings and Ahmad Special Blend.

Cost Twinings between 5.49-6.99 CAD for 100g tin.
Ahmad 6.99 454g box

Dry Leaf
Twinings The bergamot smells more of baked lemon with soft powder floral accent, bop leafs are larger and coarser than Ahmads with a light baked goods smell to leaf.

Ahmad The bergamot is slightly lighter and smells of fresh lemon rind with a floral accent(lavender and rose), and ginger, dry leaf bop ceylon blended with other black teas.

The teas both brew to the colour of maple wood.

Scent of brewed tea

Twinings bergamot(lemon foral) over slightly woody, slightly orange scented black tea smell including rind with a hint of ginger and a cinnamon like scent.

Ahmad strong scent, of malty lemony tea with deeper lemon scent with a hint of ginger, and floral notes.

Taste Twinings Tea is slightly vegetal, with slightly malty tone underneath a citrusy top note. Hint of lavender present, mixed with lemon rind taste, It brews lighter than I remember with less of a rich tea taste. This tin tastes like it is using the same base as Lady Grey.
It is thin bodied with a spicier bergamot. I like the spiciness but I wish there was more citrus. It is a light tea. Relatively smooth and relatively insensitive to steep time. It leaves a spicy floral with hint of citrus aftertaste.

Ahmad This tea has a malty undertone, with hints of red fruit mixed with orange (almost a shirley temple cocktail note), not quite as spicy on the tongue as twinings, with a hint of cooked lemon mixed with orange and rind, rose, and lavender. This tea is more tannic. The tea has more depth than twinings. I would like more spice. It benefits from a shorter steep time as it risks getting bitter and astringent. It leaves a citrus aftertaste.

Both of these teas lack either the rich sweetness of the tea base in the cjay earl grey http://steepster.com/teas/cjay-tea/36148-earl-grey or the bright citrus of the big active tea http://steepster.com/teas/big-active/35256-essence-earl-grey-superior-with-rose-petals.

This tea had small entire leaves lightly scented with a fruity smelling jasmine. The brewed tea requires slightly more leaves than I normally brew with (about 1.5 my normal), and a lower brewing temp or the tea brews very dark and bitter. If you use too little the tea base contributes nothing. The tea smells of a light fruity jasmine and a
fruity black tea with hints of berry and cherry, and a heavier undertone like burnt sugar, and is lightly floral beyond the jasmine.

The taste develops its strongest flavour when lukewarm or cool. It might make a decent ice tea. This tea is not for someone who requires
their tea to be hot. On first sip the tea tastes weak, but develops into an interesting mix of bitter, earthy, malty undertone like charred bread toped by a cool floral, followed, by a sweet, dark red berry flavour with a hint of burnt sugar.

The tea is tannic and when brewed at higher temperatures astringent. I might try brewing it for a little longer at lower temperatures again. I find that if I doubled the leaf at boiling the bitter tones intensify and the mouth feel is almost like drinking coffee. The jasmine is quite light it bends into the flavour of the tea and while its smell is quite fruity it tastes more of a cool floral. It does not taste powdery though.

This tea while offering value for the money is not as flavourful as the bagged jasmine black I recently bought. I think I prefer a slightly sweeter, stronger flavoured base underneath the flavouring and I prefer a sweeter fruitier jasmine. The hunt continues for my preferred jasmine black, I’ll keep looking although this is not my favourite
flavour in tea I find it quite sophoric and the other jasmine black I own actually can put me to sleep.

Tastes of hints of popcorn and butter, canned pastuerized pineapple juice, and a cool vanilla that is pleasant but in someways acts to take away the crispness that pineapple can have. The apple acts to add to the sweetness and tartness to the tea. I don’t notice the pepper but then I have eaten Traditional hot homemade curry in Rajhastan and have a high tolerance for hot spice. The white tea does provide a creaminess to the tea and both the green tea and white tea provide a thicker body to the beverage. The base teas also provide a sweetness and a nuttiness. The first 2 steepings atually reminded me a bit of popcorn covered with a fruity buttery coating. Later steepings are more creamy fruit tasting. Nice for when you want something fruity that is not overly tart or sweet.

This tea made a nice introduction to this class of teas. It is yet another one I found at the local Korean grocer and is packaged and sold by a company that controls a Taiwanese grocery chain. It comes packed in plastic within a cream carboard 60g cannister with a green label. The plastic did not seem to contaminate the tea.

The dry tea smells like raisin dominated dry fruit and contains long olive to forest green leaves. I brewed it 5 times but it still had a little life in it.

35s 1st steep – scent- sweet, slight raisin, soft sweet floral and sugar and cinnamon, colour, pale yellow.
– Taste more intense than smell, buttery, sweet cooked apricot and clover nectar. sweetness intensifies as it is held in the mouth and becomes almost candy like, hay, light spice hinting at cinnamon.freshening feeling towards back and top of mouth, Aftertaste of sugar, cooked peaches and clover.

48s second steep- scent -strongerand slightly more of dried stewed fruit.
– taste sweet dried stewed fruit, sugar, hay and strong sweet floral notes like honeysuckle and clover. Tingling ay bak of mouth, still buttery with hints of cinnamon. aftertaste cooling with sweet, floral with slight hint of cereal vegetal.

50s third steep – taste- more floral with a mineral vegetal note that is slightly bitterand a hint of yam. still buttery and slightly sweet. freshening feeling in back of throat and sinuses.

120+ fourth and fifth steep – tastes of a pleasant slightly sweet green tea with a thicker mouth feel, and a slight reference to seaweed and peach. still lots of flavour.

I was surprised how naturally sweet this tea was. On the first steep the sweetness almost tasted like Stevia. However this tea is unsweetened. It tastes pretty nice on its own and this tea is affordable enough that I don’t feel guilty experimenting with blending with it.

Borsapori Estate has a sustainable farm certification given by a
subsidiary of the Rainforest Alliance, which means that it meets
certain standards with regards to fair and ethical treatment of its
workers and he surrounding community, does not employ child labour, and
has introduced several standards with regards to environmental and
wildlife proection, conservation and sustainable agricultural practices. For more information see here:

http://sustaiablefarmcert.com/?page_id=172
http://sustainablefarmcert.com/?page_id=23&idD=1471
http://www.sanstandards.org/sitio/sections/display/2

The dry tea leaves are quite pretty with silvery dark grey brown with a
lot of golden tips that smell of chocolate and raisins. It brews to a
beautifully clear rosewood colour, and smells of milk chocolate and
spice (cinnamon) with a floral note. The tea tastes of bitter sweet
and milk chocolates. It is a smooth tea with little to no astringency.
The tea also has a powdery floral note and a hint of cinnamon and
sandalwood. This Assam has a strong flavour without the astringency,
and leaves afreshening feeling towards the back of the mouth. The tea
develops a faint fruity note such as ripe plum as it cools sweetening
the tea a little, however chocolate remains the dominant note. The
aftertaste is of milk chocolate with a slightly bitter note, and a
cinnamon floral.

The second steep is a little bit more fruity with the chocolate, floral spice remaining dominant. It is quite a nice tea and is robust enough that It will hold up well to milk. I however pretty well always take my tea black.