Today I decided to have a change of name, specifically username. If you see me floating around social media, no longer am I SoggyEnderman, now I am TeaNecromancer. Still super dorky, but now with a more tea themed flair, as it should be. This review is going to be as a pirate, the internet requested and how could I deny that! Ben, ever the story-teller, helped me with the pirate speak!
Avast, ye lubbers! Let me tell you a tale of a lost tea of the high seas – the fabled Black Pearl of Gramercy Tea! But be it a treasure fit for Hong Beard, or a mere watery grave? I set sail to find out.
Me map was incomplete, so I know not what port the tea hails from – my keen sea-dog’s nose caught a hint of Yunnan on the breeze off the Black Pearl, which suited me well enough. I’ve a great fondness for those shores. But don’t hold me to that, mates – the Black Pearl’s scent is light as a mermaid’s sigh, and as varied as the haul of a fat merchant freighter. Cocoa, molasses, malt, peanuts… the tea played coy with the smell of such plunder, but what I could catch was robust and pleasant.
It was a long and bloody battle to claim those pearls of tea, and get them loaded into me pot for the long voyage down me throat, and into Davvy Jones’ Locker. I’ll spare the squeamish of ye lubbers the details – but I will say that as that tea steeped, the air grew sweet, as the molasses, peanuts, and malt from before were joined by honey and sweet potatoes. As for the tea itself, it was a thing of toffee, peanuts and caramel – with a molasses and cocoa finish, which almost distracted me from the terrifying sight of a veritable kraken rearing up in me own tea gear! Clearly, there was a fearsome curse upon these pearls, and if I’d be lucky to finish the session alive.
But no captain could show fear in front of their crew, and I led the charge into the first steep. Though it was light as a breeze with a smooth mouthfeel, it held tastes as rich as any galleon, from the start of molasses and honey-coated peanuts, through a cocoa middle, to a finish of yams with honey aftertaste.
The crew, though, were afeared of the tea kraken, and I knew they plotted mutiny against me – they were in it thick as thieves, though still less think than the second steep, richer than the first, with a cocoa and molasses aroma, tasting first of molasses and malt, then cocoa and peanuts, before finishing with the very taste of the pine wood deck me own first mate smashed my face down into, as he pressed the Black Spot into my hand. I chuckled for a moment, savorin’ the irony of our predicament, along with a light honey-yam aftertaste, before I shot the scallawag dead through the heart.
I’ll not lie to ye, mates – few of me crew lived to taste the third steep. In a way, that’s just fine – devouring their bodies kept the beast busy as I sailed away, and after all the taste was all but a twin what had come before – though a twin who spent a little more time in the malt, if you follow me. On the other hand, it was a bit of a shame to kill so many old salt dogs, when we could have shared the treasure among us all – it holds several good steeps in it, and is a fine bowl steep for a day caught in the doldrums.
Now isn’t that a tale worth the tellin’?
For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/07/gramercy-tea-black-pearl-tea-tea-review.html
