This was my first ever tea from Samovar and I was quite excited to have this experience!
I rinsed the leaves like Samovar suggested, then let the 2nd infusion steep for 3 minutes (Samovar suggested 2-5). The resulting liquid was deep, deep brown. Unfortunately, I smelled the fishiness that some people have talked about. Not so much just fish, but a whole seafood store whose air conditioning broke in the height of summer. And some seaweed.
From experience, I knew that smells can be very deceiving when it comes to tea, so I wasn’t afraid to take a sip.
This one is a bit difficult to describe, as well as being surprisingly tasty and very complex. It is earthy, dirty, but not in bad way at all. It works for this tea. It doesn’t taste sweet right up front, but the aftertaste is lovely and lightly sweet, just enough to make you want to take another sip. And of course, the fishiness isn’t a part of the actual taste, but the seaweed is.
Overall, this is probably the most complex tea I have tasted to date. And I like it.
Oh, and if your immediate thought after hearing that the tea tastes like seaweed is one of revulsion, don’t be turned off! Seaweed is an ingredient of ice cream, after all.
