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Angrboda drank Earl Grey by Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea

1328 tasting notes

A&D ARE IN DA HOUSE!!! Sorry JacquelineM we’ll have to wait a little bitty while longer for your package.

Anyway, this is a company with very reasonable international shipping rates (about $11 world-wide flat rate) and I just WISH I’d found out about that sooner. It took Auggy sharing a sample of the awesome Caravan with me to make me desperate enough to go have a look. Now I’m sad that I missed out on the others series. Jackee Muntz and Thomas Sampson in particular. Oh well. I guess we can’t have everything.

This is going to be interesting. I have high expectations of this company, maybe to the point of foolishness considering that I have only tried the Caravan and since that was a smoky, I was predisposed to love it.

This Earl Grey business is another kettle of fish. I’m not really an Earl Grey fan. There are some that I have liked a lot (Kusmi’s Smoky Earl Grey is great for example), but it’s not a type I would generally go for myself. The Bergamot can easily become bitter and dusty for me. I did consider seeing if I could get someone to split a set with me so I got the Caravan and they got this one, but then I got greedy and wanted it all for myself.

The aroma of the dry leaves is very bergamot-y but not overwhelmingly so. This is a good thing. Clear bergamot, but not a promise of dusty bitterness. After steeping it’s the same. The bergamot aroma is very clear, but I can’t really pick up the tea. Just bergamot.

Hmmm… I’m in doubt, Steepsterites. Flavour here seems to be twofold. There is a fresh sort of sparkly flavour just at first. It’s familiar but I can’t really place it. Some kind of sweet citrus-y thing, I think. Without it being truly citrus-y at the same time. It just there for a brief, brief moment and then it’s all bergamot. Heavy, dusty and borderline bitter on the soft palate(*).

I like the little pang-flavour there at the beginning, although it because more and more difficult to find as I drink, as the heavy bergamot lingers in the aftertaste and drowns it out. The aftertaste is pleasant though. The heavyness goes away quickly and it leaves this citrus-y remnant that makes my mouth feel fresh and gives the tea a sort of summer-y image.

Considering the fact that I’m not an Earl Grey fan, I would say, “Yes, this is indeed a damn fine tea.”

(*) Note I said ‘palate’ there. Not palette, which is something a painter uses to mix paints on.

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Ang lives with Husband and two kitties, Charm and Luna, in a house not too far from Århus. Apart from drinking tea, she enjoys baking, especially biscuits, reading and jigsaw puzzles. She has recently acquired an interest in cross-stitch and started a rather large project. It remains to be seen whether she has actually bitten off more than she can chew…

Ang prefers black teas and the darker sorts of oolongs. She has to be in the mood for green and white, and she enjoys, but knows little to nothing about, pu-erh.

Her preferences with black teas are the Chinese ones, particularly from Fujian, but also Keemun and just about anything smoky. She occasionally enjoys Yunnans but they’re not favourites. She has taken some time to research Ceylon teas, complete with reference map, and has recently developed some interest in teas from Africa.

She is sceptical about Indian blacks as she generally finds them too astringent and too easy to get wrong. She doesn’t really care for Darjeelings at all. Very high-grown teas are often not favoured.

She likes flavoured teas as well, particularly fruit flavoured ones, but also had an obsession with finding the Perfect Vanilla Flavoured Black and can happily report that this reclusive beast has been spotted in a local teashop near where she works. Any and all vanilla flavoured teas are still highly attractive to her, though. Also nuts and caramel or toffee. Not so much chocolate. It’s a texture thing.

However, she thinks Earl Grey is generally kind of boring. Cinnamon and ginger are also not really a hit, and she’s not very fond of chais. Evil hibiscus is evil. Even in small amounts, and yes, Ang can usually detect hibiscus, mostly by way of the metallic flavour of blood it has.

Ang is not super impressed with rooibos or honeybush on their own. She doesn’t care for either, really, but when they are flavoured, they go usually go down a treat.

Ang used to have a Standard Panel of teas that she tried to always have on hand. She put a lot of thought into defining it and decided what should go on it. It was a great idea on paper, but in practise has been discovered to not really work as well.

Ang tries her best to make a post on Steepster several times a week. She tends to write her posts in advance in a word doc (The Queue) and posting from there. This, she feels, helps her to maintain regularity and stops her from making five posts in three days and then going three weeks without posting anything at all.

Angrboda is almost always open to swapping. Just ask her. Due to the nature of the queue, however, and the fact that it’s some 24 pages long at the moment, it may take a good while from she receives your parcel and until she actually posts about it.

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Contact Angrboda by email: [email protected]
Contact Ang on IM on Google chat

Find Ang on…
Steam: Iarnvidia (Or Angrboda. She changed her display name and now is not certain which one to search for. She uses the same picture though, so she is easily recognised)
Goodreads: Angrboda
Livejournal: See website.
Dreamwidth: Ask her

Bio last updated February 2014

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