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Light yet complex, Sikkim teas are similar to those produced just to the south in the district of Darjeeling. Sikkims have a pleasant tannin level that is often accentuated by a natural fruity note.

A well-made tea, with an abundance of white leaf buds. The cup has floral notes and muscatel nuances. This particular type rivals many of the top Darjeeling selections and shows the full potential of Sikkim teas.

No milk or sugar needed.Be gentle in terms of portioning…

By the way, i enjoyed it together with a Chinese ‘mooncake’.That is a rather sweet pastry that gets mainly produced for the Chinese mid-autumn festival.The taste of the cake and the tea are a perfect match…!

…my latest tea for early mornings (5.30am kind-of-stuff)…nice with milk and sugar. Very awakening. But I am missing those profound flavors that the “English Breakfast” blend from Twinings is able to produce on my palate.Especially when it comes to aftertaste…

One needs to be quite generous when it comes to portioning here. The tea has a good nose.Hints of rose blossoms or hibiscus are pushing through…although they are very shy and fade away quickly.
It will require a couple of trial runs until a deceant cup is produced with this particular kind of leafs.The steeping time can be longer then on a usual Oolong.

I personally overportion the tea now and then balance the flavor by adding hot/cold water.As one would do it when working with a Samowar…

…it has been quite a while since I drank it the last time. Even though summer may not be the right season for this warming and rather spicy brew I could not resist in opening one of those teas last week.

Except a shy hint of mandarin scent the tea hasn’t go much nose. The color of the first brew, I drank it from a highball glass, was good. As rich and dark one might describe it.
I kept the steeping temperature below 80 degrees Celsius which created a kind of velvety effect on the tea while I drank it. A very, very smooth but intense brew when it comes to flavor. It always amazes me how it heats up my body. Very awakening.
With the second brew I always tend to be a bit more bolt in regards of the water temperature. The color of the tea turns extremely dark. It almost seems as if the liqueur became more thick and rich, too.

I guess one might get a endless amount of brews out of one single portion from this leafs. It probably would get one through a whole day if desired.
I personally stick with two brews per tea a day. Usually a green tea between 10.00am-11.00am and then a dark tea (Oolong, Pu-erh or English blacks) in the afternoons. Three or four times a week a strong milk tea in the early morning.

…After reading in several books through how much effort Japanese tea growers go with this particular kind of tea…well, I was a bit disappointet I must say.
The leafs look very inviting…dark green and juicy.But after brewing there is not much magic going on. The strong awakening effect that one is used to from drinking Sencha is not happening at all.Also that fruity flavor notes from Japanese green teas is missing here.
Although I was quite generous with the portioning of leafs for each brew…I only got a very shy glimps of spicyness out at the end.

…a very elegant tea. The refreshing hints of lemon are pushing trough in a rather pleasant kind of way. The flavors of the Lapsang are balanced perfectly and very harmonious which still allows one to detect all the other notes that are part of this blend.I am extremely pleased to find that there is no astringency going on…something that is normally quite common with Lapsangs. However, it seems to me that, if brewed with water on boiling point, the tea tends to come across a bit rough.
If one keeps the water temperature below 85 degrees Celsiuis the tea starts to unfold it’s fragile flavors in a very gentle manner…the whole story becomes soft and silky.
It would not be my first choice for breakfast as there is no strong awakening effect…but it is a great tea for late afternoons…

…size of the leafs is almost as fine as on a regular English breakfast blend.But one can be a bit more generous with the portioning of Bois Cheri as it comes across less awakening.
Needs to have milk and a bit of sugar…without milk it’s to bitter and the sweetening brings out the vanilla scent in quite a nice way.

Great tea as base for ‘home-made’ chai blends…even just a bit of ground cardamom does the trick and let’s one fly off to street bazars of India or Mauritius.

http://www.travelmauritius.info/bois_cheri_tea_factory.html

…the leafs look very appealing. The fragrance, as soon as one opens the tin,is very nice.

As with all THE O DOR teas it would be a mistake to rinse the leafs as this could cause the flavor to decline. Obviously a strong indicator that parfumed oils were used to stabilize the tea’s flavor.

One can be quite generous with the portioning which allows to keep the steeping time short.As a result of this three to four tasty brews can be made out of one portioning (…I am using a Gaiwan here).
The short time of infusing a fairly bold amount of leafs is a very Chinese way of treating tea indeed.It brings out all qualities of one’s brew and allows to see different aspects of the changes in taste, nose and color over the time period of as many infusions as one portion of tea can take…

This blend creates a very smooth drink. The flavors are interesting…although not quite as impressive as I was hoping for.The peppermint and the almond notes, which the company claims to have used for this tea, are almost invisible. The apple is there but in quite a funny way.
It remembers one of hookah smoking Arabs on London’s Edgware Road…very artificial apple & vanilla notes…in London as well as on the tea drinker’s tongue here.
The jasmin however, hand in hand with the osmanthus, pushes through pleasantly.
The teas that were used as base for this blend have a nice way of carrying all those herbs and spices.
The aftertaste is nice…a fragile roughness which is quite common with THE O DOR blends.This perhaps is the main reason why one might keep drinking there blend as it let’s one wonder how to tame it, how to find words to explain it…almost like all this hundreds of small alleys in the heart of old Istanbul…interesting,fairytale-like, magical…

…the shop owner told me that those leafs are from last years harvest. If I want to have fresh leafs than I’de have to come back at the end of April.
Well,as I was very eager to taste this tea I bought 35g of it and went home.

I rinsed the leafs and used boiling water.
The taste insures one that probably 9-10months ago this tea must have been ’rock’n roll’…
However, still fruity, still those hints of rose blossoms…profound,smoky Oolong notes which become sweeter and sweeter as the infusions go on.

Will be back at the shops doorsteps in April…

…the leafs mixed with dried flower pedals look very inviting. The fragrance is great.
The spiciness, this rhapsody of flavors is almost overpowering. Although I like this blend a lot and keep on drinking it like a madman…I can not help thinking that someone over-did it in the vanilla department. There is not much room anymore for sencing the jasmin and the bergamot (…until today I haven’t found anything that goes even near something like citrus…).