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Did I really just backspace myself out of another tea-crazed and long-winded note? Dang it, derk, you dolt.

Something akin to the original note:

A good while ago (who knows when, my sense of time is all screwed up these past few years) I fell in love with a black tea that Leafhopper extracted from the depths of her “Tea Museum”: https://steepster.com/teas/what-cha/56348-malawi-bvumbwe-handmade-treasure-black-tea That tea just lit me up in all the right ways.

I searched high and low for this Handmade Treasure from Satemwa, the Malawi tea estate that in the western reaches of the internet is famed for its white teas. I ended up finding Handmade Treasure last year?? at A Thirst for Tea’s online store but didn’t order because for some reason I had the sense that the business was no longer operational. Possibly because, looking at the site now, the aesthetics feel more rooted in an older generation than the soft, round and minimalist yet somehow noisy sites of most current vendors. Anyway, I could’ve had this tea in my own tea closet back when I originally found it but I am a reticent dolt who rarely communicates with tea vendors.

Under the influence of supposedly toxic Brazilian pink peppercorns (totally up for debate if you ask me; I’m severely allergic to poison oak which, like this plant, is also under the same familial umbrella as cashews and mangoes to which I exhibit no allergic response) while visiting my mother in Florida a few weeks ago, I finally took a gamble and ordered from A Thirst for Tea.

This self-professed tea addict Frankee, whose business flies under the radar, clearly wants curious sippers to appreciate the world of loose-leaf teas. The website offers a lot of information on many of the teas, including some rather long descriptions, backgrounds on the tea farms or style of tea and detailed preparation notes. For each tea I ordered, a full 8.5″×11″ print-out accompanied it. Every tea came in a high quality, thick roll-top bag. I do wish harvest seasons were offered on all the teas. I did put my faith in her judgement to not sell stale teas considering she’s an ITMA Certified Tea Master (again this could’ve been a non-issue if I had simply asked). Oh, and she wrote a full paragraph in the lost communication form of cursive, expressing thanks and adding a description of the sample Nepal black included in the box.

Anyway, this low-oxidized black tea is a near facsimile to the 2014 shared by Leafhopper. I even wonder if it’s the same harvest and kept well stored for nearly 8 years. So far I’m 2 for 2 with this company, one being this beloved black tea and the other a brand new experience with a type of green tea I had not yet tried before.