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Used up the last of my New Vithanakande and only had about 1/2 what I needed, so I made up the difference with Earl Grey Supreme (all these from Harney & Sons). Darn good! I ended up with a slightly cloudy brew that had an oil sheen on the surface (Earl Grey?) and a mild bergamot taste while hot. About 1/2 sat until it was cold and Surprise! it was very good cold as well. Medium body, very slightly astringent…enough to add some pucker, not enough to consider it mouthwash

I swear this has some green tea….perhaps its the Darjeeling thats still green, but I can see it floating in my tea strainer.
A bit different, more mello…I recommend it for a sampler to check it out.

brewed a bit strong today…2 packets of sugar and its perfect

Finally got this one right today and it is particularly good. I like the fact that the tea leaves are in large pieces, leaves no fines the cup.

mmmm good. Needs no sugar. If you don’t like sweet tea, don’t drink this one…its sweet without doing anything.

Backlogging yesterday…Indian Spice by Harney & Sons. This is a “psuedo chai”. I call it that because all of the other Chai’s I’ve had are a combination of black tea and physically identifiable spices, like cardamon seed, clove buds, cinnamon bits, ginger, and one even had black peppercorns. This tea is what it claims…“Flavored Black Tea”, not what I expected when the word “Chai” is used (yes, I know chai means tea). Ok, disclaimer’s aside, this is a good tea. The spice is nice and well done, more in the vein of a mulling i.e. it doesn’t have that sharpness associated with ginger or black pepper. Visually, this is a deep black, processed tea. It looked like a black “gun powder”. It produced a transparent, deep red/brown liquor with a lot of fines in the bottom. The fines settled out quickly and nearly completely, even when agitated. I also had a resteep and, while milder/paler, it was good as well. I could see this tea being the basis of some good winter holiday beverages.

Classic estate Ceylon tea. This tea is consistent with other “Kenilworths” I’ve sampled. Kenilworth is rapidly becoming my benchmark for “good tea I like”. There are some better, a lot worse, but so far Kenilworth seems to be a consistent product that I like to drink.

This tea has a little white blended in…the “Ceylon Vintage Silver Tips” from the description (btw harneytea, you’re busted on your generic tea picture…it doesn’t show any of the Silver Tips"). I don’t know that the Silver Tips does anything much for the tea other than add visual appeal to the mix. The tea is smooth and mellow with no “grassy” finish (unlike Viennese Earl Grey by Harney). It doesn’t have much of a bergamot smell, but the flavor is definetly there to taste. A very good, high quality Earl Grey.

This is a very mild, mellow tea with a light Earl Grey smell. Good stuff, probably better suited to afternoon tea than morning wakeup. Has a mild grassy aftertaste as it cools. Not enough to detract from the overall experience.

I tried a resteep of this one from this late morning. I let it go extra long on the steep, 15-20 minutes, as I expected to pour it over ice for iced tea. It steeped to a good, dark color. But, once over the ice, there just wasn’t anything there. Funky colored water. eh, it was a resteep experiment..sometimes they fail. I did discover a nice side benefit. This tea gets its cinnamon kick from dried orange rind soaked in cinnamon oil. After two steeps, the orange rind was good to chew on! Cinnamon orange breath freshener!