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Bizarre little cake. The smells and the tastes are so different they get separate reviews.

Warming leaves smell of baby powder… some kind of department store perfume that reminds me of my aunt Nadine… definitely floral, but I don’t have the flower essence vocabulary to find it. Strong notes of raisin, dried fruits, sugar. I also periodically get some chlorine that resolves to alcohol vapor… kinda funny. The alcohol is rummish, like a rum and coke with the layered sugar and fruit notes. In later steeps, bread dough!

Taste is bitter as all hell. Not astringent, just bitter. Not tannic, just bitter. Green wood. And then, holy god, I forgot about a steep for a minute and it’s almost undrinkable. Doesn’t even taste like tea, more like kava… is this the “LME bitter” I’ve read about? I assume yes, and so keeping drinking to see if I can eventually get to the sweetness. The bitterness finally caves after about 16 steeps, but there’s not a lot left after that.

I wonder how much of the nose is coming from the rye barrel? What would compel a person to drink this if not for the smells?

Joke’s on me, I have 195 grams with which to answer this question. Bottoms up, buttercup!