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TeaEarleGreyHot drank Uva Highlands by Harney & Sons

178 tasting notes

Returning to this one after almost year, making this canister of leaf over 4yr old. I still smell the wintergreen in the dry leaf! In an effort to elicit softer flavors, I reduced the steep temp to 190, and infused 3g leaf for only 1 minute. This produced a less astringent and no longer bitter, but still flavorful, cuppa, so my plan from last year worked! Sadly, the wintergreen still dominates and gives me the impression of waxy mothballs, even though I know what pure methyl salicylate smells like. It must be the cedarwood notes in combination that gives me this effect. The lingering finish is pleasanter, having what I think of as a “Ceylon tea” flavor. I will boost my rating here by another ten points, to 65, and recommend it as an interesting and quality tea, despite being not my favorite.

Flavors: Cedar, Malt, Tea, Wax, Wintergreen

Preparation

190 °F / 87 °C 1 min, 0 sec 3 g 8 OZ / 236 ML

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Martin Bednář
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Uva region seems to be best for me. I had a few teabags from Basilur and Mlesna; amd first one was delicious. I want to try more from this region, maybe looseleaf, but most of the vendors offered too big amount to sample. And/or offered just one tea from this region.

TeaEarleGreyHot
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@Martin, I’ll be happy to send you a bag of my Harney Uva Highlands tea (as a gift). And if there is anything else you’d like me to send or obtain for you, don’t hesitate to mention it. Please just email me your current address, as I’ve lost track of it. Note my email has changed slightly, by adding two underscores: Tea_EarleGrey_Hot (at) AOL (dot) com. :-)

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Martin Bednář
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TeaEarleGreyHot
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Life is too short to drink bad tea!
Pan-American: Left-coast reared (on Bigelow’s Constant Comment and Twinings’ Earl Grey) and right-coast educated, I’ve used this moniker & Email since the glory days of AOL in the 90’s, reflecting two of my lifelong loves—tea and ‘Trek.

Now a midwestern molecular biologist (right down to the stereotypical Hawaiian shirts), I’m finally broadening the scope of my sippage and getting into all sorts of Assamicas, from mainstream Assam CTCs to Taiwan blacks & TRES varietals, to varied Pu’erhs. With some other stuff tossed in for fun. I enjoy reading other folks’ tasting notes (thank you). I’ve lurked here from time to time and am now adding a few notes of my own to better appreciate the experience. Note that my sense of taste varies from the typical, for example I find stevia to be unsweet and bitter. My dislike of rooibos may be similarly rooted in genetics, which impacts perceptions of many flavors, from asparagus to stevia to cilantro.

I don’t work for a tea vendor, and I’m not a professional tea sommelier. And I don’t taste every nuance, hint of flavor or note of aroma, nor am I trained to describe those that I do detect. But I taste enough to have opinions, and do my best to be descriptive. Sensory preferences can shift from day to day and person to person, so numerical ratings are kinda bogus, especially between and among various people. But there are individual trends, and I try to reflect that. As reference points for my ratings, I give Lipton Black Tea bags “orange pekoe and pekoe, cut black” a score of 65 because it is widely available and profoundly consistent. I view it as just okay. I would give plain, hot, quality spring water a rating of 25, and I buy Crystal Geyser brand for brewing because my local well water is stinky and discolored, and my filtration & softening system leaves it salty and unpleasant. Tea should make the commercial Spring Water better, not worse, so a rating below 25 speaks for itself.

I am conversationally friendly but absolutely not here looking for dates or money, nor to sell anything. If I’ve started to follow you, I don’t mean to be creepy, it only means you posted something I liked reading, or it was about an interesting tea or event. And I’ve recently discovered that the Steepster system only notifies me of new posts written by people I follow. If you follow me, I won’t assume anything. If I do not follow you, it isn’t a snub—you’re still a good human being!
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Avatar:. Arrival in Athens, Greece, on vacation.

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