Oh, I don’t know what to say. I got this tea because a while back, when I first heard of lapsang souchong, I thought it seemed like an interesting idea. Today, I saw the mini 10 packs of this for sale at the supermarket, so I thought I’d give it a try. I had it with sweetener and soy milk.
The aftertaste of this, especially at the end of the cup, reminded me of when I was young and stupid and used to smoke sometimes. That’s not a good thing to be reminded of, because as a firm non-smoker these days, an ashy taste in the mouth is pretty repellant. Otherwise, this tea smelled a bit like bacon before brewing, which was also not promising to me. But I do love the smell of burning wood, and mixed with the creaminess of the soy milk, it was kind of cool. I think this tea could be better mixed with something vanilla-y, like a black tea with vanilla, or some vanilla bean. The smoke element is very strong here. Maybe it wasn’t a good choice as a first lapsang souchong, but I got it mainly because I didn’t want to spend heaps of money on a fancier one when the smoke could be a deal breaker from the get-go.
I’m going to drink this at least one more time, for a better review and to really get my thoughts about the combination of tea and smoke together, but it’s really weird. If you don’t eat meat, it might make a good thing for cooking, because it’s strongly flavoured, and the smokiness is reminiscent of smoked meats and wood smoke, which is always good in savoury stuff.
