Continuing my black tea a day experiment. This was the tea I took to work today.
This is more my style. This isn’t perfect, I’ve had better black teas than this, but it is more in the style I like. It’s bolder, deeper, maltier, than the darjeeling that I had yesterday, I didn’t really get any of the astringency – maybe just a hint but that could be bad steeping (I was at work). I still feel let down by this tea, it just doesn’t got far enough. I would say it’s about half way between the darjeeling I had yesterday and something like Laoshan Black. It’s just not dark enough, I was looking for the hints of cocoa and just couldn’t quite find them (not sure if they were really there or if it was wishful thinking). This did resteep pretty well. I got a solid 3 western style steeps, added a bit more leaf and got two more. That’s pretty good in my world. All in all this is ok, I will drink it, but the search continues…..
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Hi Bonnie, that’s not good news. Here I thought I was being smarty trying to learn about the different types of blacks and you think this isn’t a “classic” nepal black. LOL how am I suppose to narrow my search……..
What are you looking for? There’s usually one or two people at least who know a lot about certain tea’s. (I’m not very knowledgeable for instance about Japanese Green Tea or Korean TEA or Darjeeling extensively).
My ‘thing’ has narrowed to Chinese black teas, puerh included… some Nepalese and a growing interest in a few African black tea’s. I do like a few Darjeeling and white tea’s and some green tea’s. I have a variety of Oolongs.
There is a long story about Nepalese tea because only recently have we been able to buy it. Wars prevented tea from being sold outside Nepal. However, tea was easily moved across the border, sold cheaply and mixed with darjeeling and sold at higher prices as Darjeeling tea. I know some people who are helping tea farmers sell their tea and it’s a labor of love. You can get a selection of samples from the tea company I mentioned. They are a non-profit so I don’t mind plugging them at all!
Thanks Bonnie. I jumped right into the deep end of black teas without learning how to swim first. I don’t know anything. I have and have tried several “popular” black teas, but I don’t know anything about them. I decided to take a step back and learn some basics (or so I thought). I bought an Assam, a darjeeling, a Yunnan, a Kenyan, and this Nepal from Davids to try and learn what the specific teas taste like. I had commented that this wasn’t like darjeeling, and you said Nepal teas are usually like them. Now I’m rethinking my plan. If this isn’t a typical Nepal, how do I know if the others are “typical” of their types.
I love this site and lots of people are helpful. Ifjuly has been giving me some advice on my note about Second Flush Darjeeling from Davids – the tasting note before this one on my log. I was just trying to narrow “what I liked” before I went out and bought a 100 black teas at random.
Good idea. I began reading top black tea reviews almost two years ago and started there, then tried samples from verdant, butiki, teavirve and so on. Takes time. Swapping is helpful too.
That’s what I have been doing also (reading the top reviews) and then deciding what I may like to try.
When I had this tea yesterday, I only re-steeped once – I’ll have to try more next time. I do have a cup in the fridge to drink cold later though.
One of the things I love about tea is the uniqueness of every cup. I can say I love Assams for example, but it’s such a generalized statement because they don’t all taste the same, whether it’s because of the soil they were grown in, the weather that year, the slight difference in processing techniques, or whatever. Just like snowflakes or fingerprints. That’s why I’m on a lifelong quest to sample ALL of the TEAS!!! Especially all the black ones!
Hi Bonnie, that’s not good news. Here I thought I was being smarty trying to learn about the different types of blacks and you think this isn’t a “classic” nepal black. LOL how am I suppose to narrow my search……..
What are you looking for? There’s usually one or two people at least who know a lot about certain tea’s. (I’m not very knowledgeable for instance about Japanese Green Tea or Korean TEA or Darjeeling extensively).
My ‘thing’ has narrowed to Chinese black teas, puerh included… some Nepalese and a growing interest in a few African black tea’s. I do like a few Darjeeling and white tea’s and some green tea’s. I have a variety of Oolongs.
There is a long story about Nepalese tea because only recently have we been able to buy it. Wars prevented tea from being sold outside Nepal. However, tea was easily moved across the border, sold cheaply and mixed with darjeeling and sold at higher prices as Darjeeling tea. I know some people who are helping tea farmers sell their tea and it’s a labor of love. You can get a selection of samples from the tea company I mentioned. They are a non-profit so I don’t mind plugging them at all!
Thanks Bonnie. I jumped right into the deep end of black teas without learning how to swim first. I don’t know anything. I have and have tried several “popular” black teas, but I don’t know anything about them. I decided to take a step back and learn some basics (or so I thought). I bought an Assam, a darjeeling, a Yunnan, a Kenyan, and this Nepal from Davids to try and learn what the specific teas taste like. I had commented that this wasn’t like darjeeling, and you said Nepal teas are usually like them. Now I’m rethinking my plan. If this isn’t a typical Nepal, how do I know if the others are “typical” of their types.
I love this site and lots of people are helpful. Ifjuly has been giving me some advice on my note about Second Flush Darjeeling from Davids – the tasting note before this one on my log. I was just trying to narrow “what I liked” before I went out and bought a 100 black teas at random.
Good idea. I began reading top black tea reviews almost two years ago and started there, then tried samples from verdant, butiki, teavirve and so on. Takes time. Swapping is helpful too.
That’s what I have been doing also (reading the top reviews) and then deciding what I may like to try.
When I had this tea yesterday, I only re-steeped once – I’ll have to try more next time. I do have a cup in the fridge to drink cold later though.
One of the things I love about tea is the uniqueness of every cup. I can say I love Assams for example, but it’s such a generalized statement because they don’t all taste the same, whether it’s because of the soil they were grown in, the weather that year, the slight difference in processing techniques, or whatever. Just like snowflakes or fingerprints. That’s why I’m on a lifelong quest to sample ALL of the TEAS!!! Especially all the black ones!