East India Company

I drank this in triangle teabag
Nice muscatel aroma and flavour, slight tannin, anyway it’s a typical Darjeeling

Smokey Ceylon with a Fruity finish. Smell of wet paper on the nose

1.25tsp for 275mL water at 85C, steeped two minutes.

Much sweeter with a shorter steep. I know, I know, what sort of barbarian am I, steeping white tea so long? (The first time reviewed this, I steeped the tea four minutes.) This shorter steep bypasses the briny and vegetal notes I’ve tasted before and instead gives something sweet and even a little sharp. Muscatel floats in and out like a ghost. Floral, with a slight vegetal and then mineral finish, almost like a light oolong.

Delicious. I’ve been hoarding this one.

1.25grams to 250mL water at 85C, steeped four minutes.

I received this as a gift fr a friend who was justin London.

Dry leaf is long and twisty, various shades of green: very inviting.

Dry aroma is white tea, slightly floral, and the finest bit earthy.

Wet leaf is pale, pale green, liquor a pale rosy-beige.

Aroma is more vegetal than I expected, closer to some green teas. However, the tea yields that lovely muscatel note of many Darjeelings and Nepal teas. Crisp mineral finish with some floral and vegetal lingering.

With cooler water and a shorter steep, it might be a bit sweeter. I;ll try 80C on the next one.

Just lovely.

Siberian Ginseng and ginger definitely come out strongest here, but this tea is really nice and mildly spicy (not overbearing.) I drank it before bed and it tasted good but then I had really intense dreams and wonder if the tea was the cause!

As a recent convert to Darjeeling teas – my previous experience went no further than Twinings Darjeeling with a light lunch – I was quite looking forward to this.

I recall when I first arrived in London as a rather naive 23 year-old I was looking for my perfect cigarette – something that would invoke bygone eras of smoking jackets and private members’ clubs in St James Square. And so, I started smoking Mayfair and Pall Malls under the rather naive notion that such a fancy name would match its product, only to find that this was the house brand of the sink estates and dole queues.

The point of this rather self-indulgent rambling? Despite the name and despite being sold from a store in Mayfair, East India’s Ceylon and Darjeelings teas taste like some vile, adulterated product served in a service station cafe in the ninth circle of hell. I have, at least, a nice tin which I have filled with a 2nd Flush Darjeeling tea from the Tea Centre. Shame it cost me AUD$30 for the privilege.

Avoid.

East India Company sells a selection of their teas in the gourmet food section of a major Sydney department store. It immediately caught my eye with their nice little tins – printed directly onto the tin rather than the usual sticker on plain aluminium – and the name that evokes long-distant memories of the Raj and a life of decadent leisure.

I rarely throw away a cup of tea unless it is completely undrinkable or totally oversteeped, but after two mouthfuls this tea went down the sink. I absolutely adore Ceylon teas, but this was so acrid and full of tannin it tasted like burnt sugar and dishwater. The dubious honour of the worst tea I have ever tasted belongs to Fortnum & Mason Christmas Tea, but this is a very close second.

A nice chai. Quite strong finish of spices.