So after 3 steepings, the tea STILL smelled good. And we had the leftover leaves (only steeped once) of Florence (Harney & Sons). My wife had a good idea – we mixed the two teas together, covered them with ice, and let them sit the rest of the day.
That evening we had a nice, cool cup of chocolately, semi-hazelnutty, semi-toasty/roasted tea. The two flavors actually went pretty well together, though I’m afraid the tencha-kuki probably wouldn’t have come through if it had been our first steeping of the Florence.
I am curious to try these two together hot though. Definitely a fun experiment, and another testimony to the quality of this tea (Tencha-kuki), as we got 3 hot steeps and one iced out of it and had flavor every time.