Farm Fresh Fare

My wife and I were at a street festival on Saturday. Besides sampling a lot of great local baked goods, we stumbled upon some interesting loose tea packets at one of the booths.

I decided to purchase a small packet of Royal black tea, packaged and sold by Farm Fresh Fare, a local store based in Fort Mill, South Carolina. I occasionally pick up small samples of tea when visiting street festivals. Some I really like, some not as much.

In this case, the unbrewed black leaves smelled like Ceylon to me. I steeped them for five minutes in boiling water. The final liquid had a slightly honey-sweet aroma. The color was a dark reddish-gold.

I was somewhat surprised by the bold, yet quite smooth taste of this tea. I didn’t detect Ceylon in the flavor. Instead, it was more like Yunnan or another Chinese tea. Whatever the exact tea is, it is quite tasty, flavorful, and goes down effortlessly like water. There was no astringency and the aftertaste was equally pleasant.

I am more than satisfied with this tea and am already planning to purchase a larger packet next time. This was one of those times when taking a chance paid off. Maybe this would be a good time to buy a lottery ticket?