First Flush Darjeeling FTGFOP1

Okay this is the other tea in my backlog from yesterday, and also kind of a sipdown, seeing as I gave the rest of it away (to my partner, but still).

This was the second ever loose leaf tea I bought, after Whittard’s afternoon earl grey, and I thought I should probably use it as it’s getting on a bit now. I remembered it being light and floral, and a little citrusy, and even though it’s technically a black tea it kind of reminded me of a green earl grey a little. This time, it was a lot more earthy and I’m not sure if the taste has changed or my memory of it is wrong… Anyway, I wasn’t too keen on it this time around, it was a bit too astringent and earthy for my taste, and I didn’t want to add milk or sugar so there wasn’t really much I could do about it. There were little to no floral or citrus notes, although they may have been lingering in the background if I wasn’t in such a hurry to swallow it.

I probably would have enjoyed this more if I had been expecting a deep, earthy flavour, but as it is, I ended up giving the rest of my mug to my partner, who luckily loved it (despite him not really being a tea drinker) and he now has the remaining 2/3 of the pouch, which was going to get thrown away otherwise. One I can remove from my cupboard, although I need a light floral Darjeeling to replace it now!