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Hmm, this one is weird. A little too intense for me perhaps. The aroma is very mushroomy or reminiscent of a rotting log. The taste is not too far off either. After a few steeps, it starts to mellow out a bit and acquire some sweetness beneath the heavy forest flavors, but for me each sip took a good bit of effort lol. Does have some nice flavors if you can get through the first few steeps, but not really worth it to me. Maybe would be good when you’re sick, as the flavor is very strong and each sip cleared my sinuses right up by its sheer strength.

This tea only really shines when I use 7g in a 100mL gaiwan. With 5g, the flavor is kind of flat, and feels like it gives up pretty quickly. With 7g, I had notes of fruit (I got apples and orange rind) with a hay aroma and decent level of bitterness in early steeps. The fruitiness faded after a couple, replaced by a bittersweet honey/hay combination. The honey flavor soon became floral in character, and I was treated with a number of softer, floral tasting steeps in which the bitterness gradually faded away. In these late steeps, I also noticed a slight cooling effect in the mouth. The tea felt slick in the mouth and had an appreciable body. Not the most amazing I’ve had, but pleasantly complex and tasty, especially for the price ($22/400g cake (!)).

Definitely my favorite of the Discover Assam set. Really rich tasting, maltiness. I suppose it does taste a bit like chocolate, but not as much as some other black teas I’ve tasted. Body was very nice, and the steeped out leaves look gorgeous.

This is a pretty good black tea, mostly getting really deep malty flavors. Reminded me a bit of coffee, especially when I first sipped it. Not a “bright” tasting black tea, more of a deep flavor. No astringency.

Wasn’t a huge fan of this first go-round, which is unexpected. Flavors seemed that they’d be right up my alley, but it had an odd sweetness to it which was almost unpleasant.

I think I just didn’t use enough leaf last time, so the flavors were a bit odd. Used 5g this time, and it was much better. Very sweet hay and earthy flavors on most steeps. Some of the later ones had a kind of “fluffy” sweetness which immediately brought to mind marshmallows. Pretty tasty, but not the easiest to drink, as it’s almost sickly sweet at times. Wouldn’t be an everyday tea for me, both due to taste and price, but a fun and pleasant deviation from the norm.

With boiling water, a different flavor profile comes through. Less herbal, more nutty. Or almost kind of like bread. Leaning towards bitterness, but not there. Still getting a bit of sour tang in back of mouth, seemed to be more of a problem with shorter steep times. Boiling water with longer than normal steeps seemed to produce good flavor. Body still not particularly impressive.

Not too great, but not bad for sure. Seems to need 2 rinses to get thru a bit of weirdness at the start. Brews up nicely dark for ~4 infusions, then lightens up. Nice woody/earthy taste without much of any sweetness. Body is moderate. Need some more sessions to try to determine other flavors I might be detecting.

Creamy but not super sweet. Woody of course. Notably different aroma and flavor from other ripes I’ve had.

Very hard to make this one bitter. Very gentle flavors, but could still feel the power of this tea.