I had planned to bring some tea home with me for the holidays (I have a whole 2 weeks to spend with my parents, which is lovely) and then I completely forgot. So while in Thunder Bay on the way home I picked up a couple of sampler tins from the International House of Tea – the Black Tea Sampler, and the Premium Tea Sampler. They were okay, but all the black teas in the sampler are Indian, and I find I’ve been craving a good malty Chinese black tea recently. We don’t have a lot of options for loose leaf tea in this area, so while out running some errands with my mom today I decided to brave the Teavana in the mall to see if they might have anything. I ordered a cup of the Golden Monkey to try it out – I didn’t see how much tea she put in, or what the water temperature was, but she steeped it for 3min.
It wasn’t bad, though it definitely wasn’t anywhere near the best I’ve tried of this type of tea. It was malty, with a bit of sweet potato. The girl in the store claimed it has chocolate notes, but I didn’t get any of that at all. There was a bit of bitterness that I didn’t like – I wonder if it would have been better steeped at a slightly lower temperature. The 16oz cup turned out to be a little over $5, which I felt was crazy, and I definitely wasn’t about to pay $16 for 50g of it, which is the smallest quantity they’d sell me. I guess I’ll just have to wait… I ordered some tea from Tealux’s Boxing Day sale for my parents, so hopefully it arrives soon. :)
I miss International House of Tea. I don’t know if they still do it, but when I lived there years ago, they had a tea room that I went to all the time for tea and scones. We don’t have anything similar here in Winnipeg and that makes me sad.