Twinings
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Bigmont oil made me think I hate earl grays for a long time. This is a classic earl grey made with oil. This has teeth. Brewed a little long or a little hot and it gets pretty vicious and upsets my stomach. The sheen of oil on top should scare you off. There are lovely earl greys but don’t use any with oil.
It is tea. I wish I could wax poetic about it, but eh. A very good comfort tea with milk and a nice pick me up in the morning.
My mother got me a big box of it, and I found it under a pile of papers. Now I feel obligated to drink it, not really a chore only kind of.
Preparation
Also backlogged. This is what I had this afternoon with the boyfriend. You may regard the following post as a collaboration.
Apparently these bags are getting a wee bit on in age, most likely, and haven’t been stored all that strictly according to what is best for the tea.
I could definitely pick up a citrus-y flavour, although it reminded me a bit more of lemon than of anything else. Something acidic, definitely, thought the boyfriend. We settled on citric acid.
The tea itself was rather bland. After a short while when it had developed a bit, read: steeped a little bit longer, it developed a little more character although not very much.
It did bring on the question of ‘astringency’, though. WTF is that? I’ve searched high and low for a proper easily understandable explanation of what this is supposed to taste like. I know it’s one of them ‘official technical terms’, but it has just never ever been a word that I have associated with any sort of flavour.
On the contrary, I work in a hospital lab, and when we talk about ‘stringency’ it has something to do with the environtment in which a given test is conducted being EXACTLY identical each time. Temperature and reaction times and such things. ‘Astringency’ sounds like the opposite of this and in the lab it wouldn’t really be all that good. It’s just the first thought that pops into my head, and it’s really confusing when talking flavour.
Hence, it’s really difficult for me to wrap my head around it not only being a sort of flavour, but also something good. I know that it has something to do with how tannins affect the mucus membranes of the tongue and such. But still.
Anyway, to make a short story long, we decided that this particular sensation that we found in it must be what people meant when they talked about astringency. I described it as something that could be mistaken for bitterness and the boyfriend, apparently having more imagination than me, said slightly like soap but not. After some consideration the soap was the conclusion we went with.
And then the boyfriend said he would award it 3 out of 5 chainsaws, which I thought on a 1-100 scale would translate to 60. And then he haggled me up to 65 on the grounds that chainsaws are cooler.
(It may take a couple of tries to make the slider hit 65 exactly. Bear with me if I have to edit a few times.)
I whole heartedly agree with the soapy comment, and that chainsaws get bonus points for being awesome. On the astringency thing, I’ve adlibbed that its like how dry my mouth feels after drinking. But, I’m not 100%, just like I’m trying to figure out “malty” tea.
I believe that astringency is that sensation of your mouth being dry after drinking something. If you touch your tongue to a very astringent substance that is the sense. We did it in chemistry (and this is about the only thing I remember from chem class).
Interestingly enough, I just happened to be looking for information on green teas and came across this on astringency in the FAQ from Den’s Teas:
Q: What is the taste of astringency? Is it different from bitterness?
A: Astringency is a feeling rather than a taste. It’s something you can feel in the body (a feeling in your mouth) of the tea. It is also the “puckering” sensation. In the medical definition, astringency is the tendency to draw together or constrict tissue, to pucker. People confuse the taste of bitterness and astringency. Bitterness is one of four tastes – bitter, sweet, sour and salty – that are picked up in the mouth and sent to the brain. The bitterness in tea comes from caffeine, and astringency comes from catechin (tannin). The astringency overlays the tastes and adds a weight or thickness to the tastes.
I always think of Sea Breeze toner/astringent when I think of astringency. Which could be why I have negative feelings towards astringency. But I think that fits in with what Carolyn found so maybe I wasn’t too far off.
So much of this seems to be “I’ll know it when I taste/feel it”. For myself I wish I knew what the “malty” flavor was supposed to taste like so that I could detect it.
I keep thinking of beer when people say malty. I have to say that I am deeply forever grateful that I have never encountered a tea that tasted of beer. I sincerely hope such a tea does not and will never exist. Needless to say I don’t like beer at all, not one little bit.
Astringency… the best way to describe it is the feeling of all the saliva in your mouth suddenly disappearing. The best example is if you bit into a banana peel. Some wines have a “drying” feeling on the tongue as well!
I always think of malted milk balls when I hear “malty.” Haha!
I felt like just plain vanilla black tea today, so I brought this to work to drink. I have to say, I don’t remember this blend being as blah as it tasted today! Definitely a huge disappointment based on my memouries of liking it a lot in the past. Not sure what’s different today, but I’m kind of glad I only have a bag or two more left now.
I’ll give it another try before adjusting my rating permanently, but I really over-rated it based on how it tasted today.
