I put milk and sugar in as it was steeping. The colour is very mild. I like my black teas to have that roux, and this is kind of a chantarelle.
Really interesting smell. I’m used to an orange pekoe for my straight black tea (a la Red Rose.) This almost has a horses quality to it. Like, you know how horse poo is gross but doesn’t smell bad? This tea is kind of horse-pooy.
Interesting mouth feel. It’s a lot thicker than I thought it would be. Almost to the level of a rooibos. Really inoffensive tea. I can see sipping this in morning traffic and getting a tiny sliver of zen before I resume screaming at the douchebag who cut me off/won’t let me in/is driving like a tool.
It smells and tastes like there should he a substantial aftertaste, but it isn’t there. Kind of a twitching at the sides of my tongue, but no aftertaste per se.
I don’t know that I’ll rush out and buy a gigantic bag of this; I still prefer my Red Rose. But it’s a nice inoffensive tea. It’s appropriate for using to warm my body up while I’m working*.
*my “office” is an office chair at the dining room table, but our dining room partly sticks out of the side of the house, and there is INSUFFICIENT insulation in the floor for that. It’s probably a solid 2 degrees colder than anywhere else in the house. So it’s usually my Sesame Street slanket and a big ‘ol cup of tea while I’m working.
