Assam Harmutty

Queued, written March 24th 2014. And RE the woes of tea provided by work, I have learned since that if I take a bag of English Breakfast and a bag of something fruity (I favour black currant) and steep them together, they make up for each others’ short-comings and produce something which, although still not even within sight of ‘lovely,’ is at least fairly easily drinkable.

I had the sort of day today where, when I came home, I showed Husband the last dregs of a to-go coffee and a half eaten cake and said, ‘this is my lunch today.’ CRAAAAAZY busy! Luckily, or unluckily whichever way you look at it, I was right on the other side of the door from the coffee-vending machine at work, so although I never got to have either of my breaks, I still had tea.

Of sorts.

The hot water coming out of that thing isn’t actually very hot. No more than 70°C or so, I expect. The selection of teabags is cheap Pickwick. I didn’t really care, though. It was that or nothing, as I didn’t have time to go and make some in the thermos. I tried the orange flavoured one, which tasted strongly of orange, but in the way that a borderline mouldy orange smells, and a strawberry flavoured one, which I used to love as a child but now struck me as uncommonly sweet and not very strawberry-y. It probably didn’t help either that both bags were steeped to kingdom come in order to get anything out of the leaf in such cold water with a side-effect of a fair amount of astringency. They both tasted horrible, but as I discussed with someone recently, as an act of desperation, it’s fine. Those two cups in fairly quick succession took care of my thirst and kept my slight caffeine-deprived/stress-induced headache at bay. (For this alone, those two bags would probably have been worth at least 95 points on the enjoyment scale!)

I’m home now, though, and I want some proper tea. Therefore I chose this one. I seem to be getting a little interested in Assam these days. Not hugely, but a bit. I bought this one with my recent TP order. Just the one sample. Not hugely interested. Just a bit. :)

The leaf smells lovely. A bit spicy and a bit tobacco-y and a lot raisin-y. I’ve noticed that in Assams before. The best cups of Assam I’ve ever had in my life were all heavily raisin-y in flavour. After steeping it doesn’t smell that much like raisins though, which is a little bit of a disappointment. The aroma isn’t actually superstrong in this cup, but I am getting some malty notes and something kind of dairy-like. There’s a cream-ish quality to this, even though no additives have been put in there.

It has a very sweet and honey-like flavour, which made me nod in a sort of satisfied way. I quite enjoy that honey-y note. I’ve noticed it before in breakfast blends, but I seem to forget that Assam can create that note as well. It’s not actually all about the raisins.

I’m getting that Assam cardboard-y aftertaste, but there isn’t really very much of that. It’s mostly the honey note right at first, paired with something a bit malty and sort of wood-y, and then a mild paper-y aftertaste.

After a few sips, a slight and pleasant astringency appears, and it becomes clear that this is actually a rather stronger tea than immediately believed. This is good, because that is exactly what I need. If I was an additive-adding kinda gal, this is the note that would have carried the milk, I expect. At this point they honey-sweet note has also transformed a bit, becoming more malty and borderline raisin-y. It’s getting there, but it isn’t actually raisin.

This is a lovely tea, and exactly what I needed at this point in time.