teakruthi

Sipdown (1183)!

I am apparently craving sweet teas this morning, with a side of brisk and traditional black tea. I ended up finishing off this CTC with a hearty amount of maple agave – arguably a little bit too much maple agave. It was a good cup though aside from the super prominent sweetness. I liked the really robust and malty black tea with it though; I was getting notes of baked brown bread and walnut with this molasses-y undertone and all of the really complimented the maple notes exquisitely.

Sipped this afternoon while I was working and to be honest I don’t remember much about the taste of the tea, but I do remember feeling really grounded and appreciative of the texture of the liquor. Pleasantly coating with this gentle astringency on the palate that was a little like the short lived dryness on the tongue from biting into certain fruit skins; pear, peach, etc. It subsided shortly after the initial feeling, but something about it helped keep my mind from totally wandering into the ether as I plugged away at my laptop…

I’m behind on tasting notes again, so gonna try to get through a bunch tonight…

I had this one at work today with a little squeeze of honey. I’m definitely on a straight black tea kick right now (and really just black tea in general), so I brought a bunch with me to enjoy during the week. Last week I brought the majority of my work tea stash home with me, and I’m slowly getting some new teas at work and into the assortment. I was growing a little sick of what I had there…

This was really solid though – super full bodied and brisk with all those thick malt, cocoa, and fresh baked bread notes that I adore in a straight black tea, especially a Sri Lankan one. The honey complimented perfectly. Some milk would have been great, to give this more of a breakfast blend kind of vibe, but since there’s only about five of us working from the office right now (and no receptionist) there’s no one placing milk orders to fill the lunch room fridge with – so, no milk at work right now…

Third tea I tried out of the samples provided by teakruthki!

I’ll be honest and say that I generally avoid CTC grade teas – I know that leaf grades are only an expression of appearance/processing and don’t inherently indicate whether a tea is of lesser or higher quality because of being a specific grade, but I’ve had some pretty damn lousy experiences with CTC teas. They steep up REALLY quickly/strongly because of the increased amount of surface area from the smaller cut, which is why they’re usually recommend to have with milk and sugar, and often have an intense astringency and bitterness as a result.

All of that said – I was actually very impressed by this one. It’s certainly really full bodied and strong, and it would support the addition of milk/sugar and still be a really cup of tea in my opinion but it’s also pleasantly drinkable without any additions to it! There’s a light astringency present that’s actually really nice texturally, and as far as the taste goes I thought this tasted rich and dark – like that of heavier wood types like oak or mahogany, with a nutty undertone and wisps of prune and bitter baker’s chocolate.

Very good CTC, and one I will really enjoy finishing off.

Gongfu Sipdown (703)!

Decided to finish this tea off Gongfu to see if I could draw out some different flavour notes and improve my overall impression/experience with this tea. I’m very thankful to teakruthi for the sample and giving me a chance to try this tea (and the others they sent) but I’m also sad to report that I had an even more negative experience drinking this tea Gongfu than I did with my first tasting.

I experimented with a couple different things throughout the session – such as steep times and water temperature. However, a consistent seemed to be that when drinking this one Gongfu I kept drawing out a very, very bitter taste from the leaves. Not really much else sadly, aside from a bit of a mulchy/grassy note. I’m thankful for the fact I was also eating Prickly Pear at the same time because the mellow sweetness of the fruit was really helpful in tempering a lot of the sharp bitterness of the tea – but once I finished off the fruit it was mostly downhill from there.

Largely, I’ve found a lot of success with my samples from Tea Kruthi – but not this one. You can’t love everything (it’s just not realistic) so no hard feelings; but I am a little glad to have finished this particular tea off now…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B2nKabrgmgI/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMwOnjk0ux0

This was the second tea that I tried from teakruthi – I made it on the same day that I tried Lemon Kandy, but instead of just making a cup for myself I actually made it as a large teapot of tea to be shared among everyone else working in the lab with me for the day.

I chose it in particular to share because one of my coworkers is Sri Lankan and worked as a plantation manager for a period of time before moving along to do other things in the tea industry – he knows Sri Lankan teas very well and I was curious to get his perspective on some of these teas. When I asked him which he would most want to try he identified the oolong, as it’s a tea type you don’t really see produced all too much in the country.

I was riding a pretty nice high following the Lemon Kandy, and I have to say that made the fall all the more rough. To be honest while also being kind, this was not a great oolong. There were four of us who tried it, and we were all within the range of feeling like it was average to feeling it was just bad – but no one who loved it.

I didn’t really get any off notes from the infusion itself, but following steeping the tea the infused leaf had an almost fishy/oceanic aroma that wasn’t really bad but highly weird for an oolong tea. The appearance of the leaves look somewhat mulchy, and have a relatively uneven oxidation. The tea was pretty flat/dull and just didn’t have a lot of flavour to it in the first place – kind of a stagnant greener note, like plucked dandelions lying on pavement on a really hot summer day. I could see it being something you’d drink to still have some caffeine intake/hydration while doing other tasks that otherwise command your attention/focus – it would be easy to mindlessly consume this tea.

In my honest opinion, this is a tea I would recommend passing on if you’re considering placing an order though – of the five teas I’ve tried thus far it’s been the least pleasant. It’s a nice sort of novelty, and I can understand wanting to be able to cross off “Sri Lankan Oolong” from your ‘tea bucket list’ but you’re not missing anything flavour wise in not trying it…

Sipdown (701)!

Finished this off as an iced tea, and very happy to report that it holds up well to being made iced and is still a highly delicious blend! Most of my observations from my initial hot tasting still hold true with the different preparation style, though I will say that I think the lemon comes through a bit more strongly when made iced – not enough to eclipse the black tea though. It’s very, very refreshing – I could easily see someone maybe a big pitcher of this for the summer/BBQ season, maybe with frozen lemon slices? If Southern style sweet tea is your thing, this would be an excellent base for sweet tea too!

Overall, super clean/crisp and refreshing lemon black!

100% on my radar as a repurchase.

Thanks very much to teakruthi for generously sending me nine different tea samples from their website to explore! I’ve tried five so far, and plan to try the remaining four over the course of next week! I’ll get more into the meat of the tea review in a moment, but I just wanted to start by saying that I was impressed by the company in two ways even before ever steeping the teas up…

To start, the shipping was really quick. Whenever I’m ordering from somewhere outside of North America I generally have an expectation that shipping isn’t going to be quick – but this only took around a week and from Sri Lanka no less! So, that was impressive! Plus, it looks like the free shipping threshold on the site year round is really low as well, so I’m definitely going to be really taking note of my favourite teas I try because restocking seems like it would be a very feasible option!

Second is just in how the company really appears to have listed to my preferences when selecting my teas; I told them that I wanted to try this tea and White Gold in particular (both they sent) and then let them know that I do drink all other tea types, with the exception of green tea, and am comfortable with straight & flavoured teas but have more of a preference to low and mid grown Sri Lankan blacks – and really I don’t see a single tea in my sample assortment that deviates from those parameters. Whenever a company offers to send me tea for free to review I’m always grateful for anything they send and I will definitely still try anything I receive (even if it goes outside my normal preferences) at least once with an open mind – but it’s always just a pleasant experience when a company really takes the time to listen to what will resonate best with you and then actually matches that in their offerings.

However, onto the tea!

So, this is the first thing I tried – I had specially requested two teas so I thought it might be a nice idea to start my sample tasting with one of them and then end with the other. So far, this has been my favourite of the five I’ve tried thus far – perhaps an indicator that I know my tastes quite well? Though I feel like there’s HIGH potential for a lemon black tea to be really unpleasant (“Pledge/cleaning agent” tasting lemon, or just really pithy and bitter) and this didn’t fall into any of those areas where I had hesitant/reservation.

Browsing the website, and based on the samples I recieved, it appears that even though teakruthi does carry flavoured/blended teas they take a very simplistic approach to them – and I actually really like and respect that. A lot of companies go very intense in their flavourings or build tea blends around giant concepts or really dive into complex flavour pairings and there is a place/need for that but sometimes I also just want a very simple, clean blend that just really executes one particular flavour quite well. In this case, it’s lemon.

I’ve never really found a simple lemon black tea that I really enjoy that didn’t have some other type of twist on it – but this feels like a classic lemon black in the way that I’ve always envisioned in my head. The tea itself is still front and center; brisk and clean with hints of malt, honey, and red fruit (all of this makes sense; Kandy, ironically given the name, is a region that I think is known for tasting a fair bit sweeter than others) – however it’s married to a really natural lemon; a little bit of sweetness but only so far as what you’d get in the actual fruit – it doesn’t feel boosted/helped along by anything like stevia/blackberry leaves/flavouring. The natural honey note in the black tea adds some support. Not really tangy and sharp, but has a TINY bit of acidity which makes the flavours pop a bit more. It tastes clearly and purely of lemon – the way a basket of lemons might smell. The finish is very round and clean.

I’m incredibly impressed by this one – and given that it was the first tea I tried from the company I think it may have set up some sharp expectations. I’ve tried five teas now, and to be perfectly honest none of the other four have come close to making me feel as satisfied as this blend did; not to say they’re bad – but I think this, as a Classic lemon and black tea profile, is a star.

EDIT: Side note – just needed to point out how much I love the name too; not sure if it’s intentional play on words or not but I just found it really clever.

Thanks to Teakruthi for the beautifully packaged free samples. I don’t have much experience with Sri Lankan teas, so I was eager to see what they’re all about. I personally picked this blend because the website description likened it to a first flush Darjeeling, a tea type of which I have some knowledge. I steeped 5 g of leaf in a 355 ml mug at 190F for 4, 6, and 10 minutes, respectively.

The leaves are small, fairly uniform green twists and have a dry aroma of wildflowers, fruit, and pine. The first steep is a lovely copper colour and indeed has the florals and faint muscatel of a first flush Darjeeling. I also get grape skins, green grapes, raisins, pine sap, eucalyptus, grass, tannins, and pleasant sourness. I remember as a kid cracking open the seed pods of the caragana tree in my yard, and the taste reminds me of how that smelled. The second and third steeps offer lighter renditions of these flavours.

I’ve tried this tea with less leaf and at lower temperatures, but anything that reduces the sappy sourness also reduces the Darjeeling-like fruit and florals. I’ve come to the conclusion that this tea should be enjoyed for the expression of the Sri Lankan highland terroir that it is and that comparisons to first flush Darjeeling can go only so far.

The dry leaf for this tea is light and fluffy and has a slightly nutty oolong scent. I brewed this western style, pretty weak for the first brew. I added more leaf for the second steeping and it’s a deep coppery color, but a delicate copper taste. It’s a smooth light metallic taste, a good afternoon pickmeup. Not something I’d reach for early in the morning as it brews nice and dark, but doesn’t taste very robust. I don’t think I’d seek out a tea this light for purchase, it’s just not very complex.

I was very happy to get some new tea to try, thanks for the samples, Lasith. This one has a definite metallic taste, not quite coppery but a sharpness to it. I think I could brew it stronger, I may try that with the next cup. I brewed western style with a tablespoon like the instructions said. There’s a bit of a harshness to this tea, maybe I’m used to mellower black teas from Yun nan. It did soften the metallic taste a bit when I put it in my go cup. I probably wouldn’t purchase this tea unless I wanted to blend it with another to smooth it out.