The Black Lotus

So I sorta panicked and purchased this the day it came out… :)

Anyway, I definitely agree with an earlier description that this tastes expensive, because it totally does. xD

The scent of the tea is mainly that of Premium Taiwanese Assam, and the cocoa-y notes are dominant at the beginning. At the swallow you get refreshing fruity notes from the Darjeeling, and surrounding the entire flavor is the damp earthy flavor from the Congou Keemun.

What’s nice about this breakfast tea is that it isn’t incredibly strong and bitter like a lot of others. Instead it’s flavorful, and refreshing. I’m drinking this as a bit of an early evening pick-me-up and it’s doing the trick quite nicely! At the same time though, it isn’t so refreshing that it has a thin texture, it’s still nice and malty and is just right! It’s the baby bear of breakfast tea ;)

This is a nice blend. It’s smooth and sweet and malty, with notes of cocoa and earth. There’s a pleasant fruity aftertaste, although I’m not sure I’m picking up on anything distinctly citrus. I don’t know that this is quite bold enough to work as a breakfast tea for me (at least not during the week); Butiki’s Irish Breakfast is still my preference as far as that goes. But I’ll certainly be enjoying this as an afternoon blend.

I’ll chime in with other reviewers who were pleased with this very nicely blended English Breakfast tea. I was lured by the description on the website and the sale price and I’m so glad I placed the order. I love the smooth, malty, sweetness of it, and the lack of astringency/bitterness. Black Lotus is right up my alley!

Still good. This was the tea I should’ve had instead of the Hattialli Golden Paw Assam I made last night. That was more astringent than I was wanting. This is sweet and malty and just a hint roasty/woody. And no astringency.

I received this as a sample with my Butiki order and I am so glad I did and I now need more! It is a great tea…chocolate, almond, earthiness, a great breakfast tea. I brewed it as recommended and drank it straight and it was a delight…YUM!

This is an enjoyable breakfast blend. Since I am drawn to assams on their own and in blends, it is different from the breakfast blends I normally prefer. In my batch of this tea, the darjeeling dominates the blend (not the assam or the keemun). It is a blend worth buying – high quality and good value (I’ve been able to enjoy a strong resteep each of the three times I’ve prepared this tea).

Very good breakfast tea, but I’ll need to try it again to be able to pick up on all the different flavours. The last few weeks I drank a lot of chinese black teas with strong chocolate notes, I feel like this one is lighter because of the darjeeling and congou keemun.

This is of course delicious. Great as a morning tea because it has a little punch. It is malty with nutty, chocolate, raisin, and earthy notes. Those were the most prominent notes. There was also a tiny hint of a little floral in the background.

Oh boy, I think this is getting added to the list of all time Faves! It is delicious. I love Assam teas and this one has a strong influence of it, but the blend offers a sweeter, richer aroma. I had to do a double take the first time I smelled it. Wow, it smells like honey, raisins, melted sugar, gosh if melted gold had a smell this is what it would smell like, hah. If I inhale deeper I can separate the smell of Assam and the hints of Jasmine, and something sweet. So I steeped it strong (how I usually like my black teas) and on the second steeping added some rock sugar, it is delicious. It really seems to be a high quality blend, with lovely large, dark leaves and produces a dark golden, color of honey liquor. Awesome experience, like drinking pure honey, mind blown! Love it.

There is some thing in this tea that I’m not supposed to like…..I am a solid breakfast blend drinker. I went to teavana yesterday to try a few “properly brewed” white, herbals and oolongs….. They tasted like water out of a flower vase to me. I need earthy, malty strength to stand up to rock sugar and milk. But yet, here I am, staring at the puny little package that I bought from Butiki, KNOWING I will be ordering again.

First sip, I was a bit panicked. Something greenish and floral this way came. Eeeyyyeeew. I think perhaps it was the Darjeeling, which I don’t drink… But interestingly, instead of dumping the cup, I kept sipping. Watching Olympic hockey… The mug kept distracting me…. Really? From HOCKEY? The tea began to take on an almost beer-like maltiness and the offending green became more tempered… I don’t drink, but I imagine that this is the process that makes wine connoisseurs so avid. This tea was a wee journey for my mouth…. not a road I’d usually travel, but a road all the same . I’m glad I bought rock sugar yesterday, because I would have used honey, and it would have changed the subtlety I experienced.
As someone else posted, this wouldn’t be my choice for my early morning. My mouth isn’t awake enough to appreciate what this tea has to offer. It is more like a midmorning cup, when you don’t know how you’re going to get through the rest of the day work, and it’s only 10:30 in the morning. That’s when this cup of tea will be a nice change of scenery