Upton included a free sample of this with an order that was given to me as a Christmas gift. As others who have reviewed it have noted, the strong scent and dark color of this tea left me surprised at its mild flavor. For me, that was a good thing—I’m not a big fan of strong black teas. Nonetheless, although it was enjoyable enough, there was nothing about this tea that would compel me to want to buy it. In the past, I have been able to significantly improve my ratings of some black teas by adjusting steeping time and/or temperature. In this particular case, I feel like I hit a decent balance in the first steeping, and there’s probably not much I can do to extract more flavor without making the result overly astringent.
Preparation
Boiling
3 min, 45 sec
5 tsp
24 OZ / 709 ML
