Dimbula BOP Blend TC20

Drank this again iced and decided that it is a pretty tasty black iced tea. The thing that would keep me from buying a ton of it for summer iced tea is the size of the tea leaves. The tea leaves are like coffee grounds. I had to pour it through my metal filter 2x and still had a significant amount of leaves floating around.

I received a sample of this from Upton with instructions for brewing it as an iced tea. I did it the “traditional” way, brewing it hot and then mixing the hot brew with a roughly equal amount of cold water and serving it over ice. I used 4 teaspoons of dry leaf, brewed it in 16 ounces of boiling water and then strained it into a thermos and added a teaspoon of stevia to sweeten it. Then I poured it into a pitcher holding two and a half cups of cold water.

This Ceylon is a solid choice for an iced tea — not minty or flowery or super-special in any way, just a good iced tea with plenty of body and some astringency. I realized while drinking my first glass that I neglected to add a squeeze of fresh lemon! I will remedy that situation for Glass No. 2.

Drank hot instead of iced for breakfast. Deep copper color, palate-cleansing astringency, mellowed with a touch of milk. A surprisingly delicious welcome to the morning!

Ordered this at the beginning of September and here it is a month later that I get around to drinking it. I brewed two cups for the recommended three minutes, transferred the tea to a warmed pot with some milk already in it, topped up with cold milk until it was the proper tawny milky color, and took it to a morning meeting. On the first sip I was immediately reminded of the tea served to me when I was bumped up to first class on British Air in the late ‘80s on a flight from London to Edinburgh. I was tired from the trans-Atlantic part of my journey and the tea was so tasty, so nourishing and calming at the same time, and, barely out of my teenagerdom, I felt so sophisticated enjoying a proper cup of morning tea in a real china cup along with my complimentary wee packet of Twix bars, as we looked down on grey clouds and smidges of England below. It wasn’t fancy but it was gooood. Made the difference in my morning then, just as this tea did on a dull Thursday morning meeting these many years later. Just for laughs I brewed a second pot from the spent tea, using only one cup of water and brewing it for five minutes. It tasted dusty — just like a cup of tea made with an okay teabag.