Vahdam Teas

I’m going through a lot of samples looking for a daily Assam tea or blended ‘breakfast’ style tea. This came in the Vadham black tea sampler. This is a nice little tea.

4/3/2018: First tasting was 3 g of tea steeped in 211 degree water for 4 minutes. No milk in first tasting. Mildly astringent with a pleasant maltyness. Some notes of almond and caramel.

4/6/2018: Second tasting with same parameters as above. Two cups this morning; one without milk and one with. Again left with an impression that this is a serviceable tea. I liked it better with milk. I used 2.5 ml of evaporated milk. Rich, malty and creamy.

A very soft and delicate first flush Darjeeling. Flavours are of Muscatel and Grass (which isn’t a bad thing). The flavours are faint and smooth; the tea is not overpowering and leaves no aftertaste.

I’m surprised to actually find a Darjeeling tea that ik really like. This one is it! It has a very smooth mouthfeel and very distinct flavours of apricot and wood. The flavours don’t linger too much and there is only a very slight bitterness, almost no astringency.

Admittedly, it’s still not my favorite type of tea on account of the not so pronounced flavour profile, but it is without a doubt the best Darjeeling i’ve ever had.

I really love most Vahdam Teas, but this one doesn’t cut it for me. This tea is very strong and quick to overbrew. The tea is also extremely bitter and has almost no flavours to balance that out. You can faintly taste some of the usual Assam maltyness and sweetness, but you have to close your eyes in order to find it.

The fact that i didn’t even finish the cup is indication enough: This CTC gets no applause from me.

As I said before, i’m not the biggest of fans of Darjeeling teas. This one is a nice and delicate black tea with hints of grapes and muscatel flavour. Ideal for people who like a smooth cup of black darjeeling. It has a nice faint hint of bitterness to acompany the smoothness. Good Darjeeling for daily drinking.

Once again a very nice Assam from Vahdam. The usual malty and honey-like sweet notes are there. The tea has almost no bitterness and close to zero astringency. I would say this is a very smooth Assam where the flavours are less pronounced, so that’s a great thing if you like tea that doesn’t punch you in the face with its flavours.

Not the best Assam ever, but a very nice tea for sure.

It’s a Chai tea that’s on par with the Original Chai from Vahdam, but with fennel added to the mix. I personally don’t like the addition of the fennel seeds. You can smell the fennel very strongly, and you have a hint of fennel when tasting. Somehow for me, the fennel interferes with the otherwise fine Masala Chai taste.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good Chai, but it’s not as good as the regular one Vahdam makes.

The leaves are extremely black when dry, and this colour is transferred to the tea itself. Very nice, dark oak wood-esque appearance.

This tea has a very interesting flavour profile. You can taste the usual maltiness and hint of honey-like sweetness of an Assam tea, but it is counteracted by a nice wood-like taste. The tea has a very slight bitterness and also mild astingency. The flavours are not as pronounced, making it a somewhat smooth and soft tea, especially for Assam tea.

Not my everyday tea per se, but a tea worth drinking.

A nice Assam tea that has a less pronounced sweetness than some of the other Vahdam Assams (like Daily Assam). It also has a relatively high astringency, but isn’t bitter. It’s a good tea wit the malty tones you can expect from an Assam tea.

I think that the price is too steep for the taste however.

The Darjeeling second flush has a less pronounced flavour than some other black teas used in Chai, meaning that the spices are “in control of the flavour” with this tea. You can clearly taste the spices which are not counteracted (much) by the flavour of the black tea itself.

That isn’t necessarily a good thing, since it means that this Chai is just a little bit out of balance. Especially the taste of the cloves is too pronounced, and the kick of black pepper is almost abcent. Quite a good Chai, but not one of my favorites.

The tea has a nice gold-green colour and has a somewhat sweet scent. The tea is very delicate in terms of flavour. The taste is right between a green tea and a second flush. It has some grassy green-tea hints in the background. Bitterness and astringency is almost abcent. I’m not a Darjeeling fan, but i have to admit this one is quite nice.

The tea i tasted was the July 2017 tea.

Nice tea, which tastes malty and sweet. It has very faint vegetal hints, but is not as grassy/vegetal as many other oolong teas. It’s a fine tea with a nice mild taste. Good, but not blowing me away.

The smokey flavour permeates from the dry leaves and the tea itself also has a very strong almost smoked ham-like scent.

The taste of the smoke is a bit too overpowering for me. You can taste a bit of the sweetness and maltness of the Assam in the back. The tea isn’t by any means bad, it just isn’t my cup of tea (pun intended).

Nice (very) long unbroken leaves. The tea has a nice amber-like colour and smells very soothing.

The tea has a very mild taste with a bit of sweetness. It has a hint of chocolate and of grapes. The sweetness reminds me a bit of some Assam teas, but is milder. Definitely a tea to reccomend if you need a smooth tasty tea without being blown away by flavours or bitterness.

The tea smells fresh, almost like a green tea. It tastes a bit like a combination between a black and a green tea. You have some bitterness and astringency, but also has a grassy and somewhat earthy taste to it.

I understand there would be people who love this tea, since it has a very soft taste. This is however, not the tea for me. It tastes a bit too “simple”.

As with all Chai teas, the smell of the leaves and the tea itself is very strong. It has an especially pronounced scent of clove, which isn’t a bad thing. The tea is black tea in the blend is CTC, towards which i have a bias of being too “industrial”, but…

This Chai tea is truly epic. It has a very nice and full taste. You can very clearly taste the cloves as well as the cardamom. The cinnamon kicks in at the end of the sip and the pepper gives it the well needed kick and delivers a little tingling sensation in the mouth.

The black tea itself has no bitterness, resulting in the fact that the flavours that matter are even more pronounced, but never overpower eachother.

I drank the july 2017 tea.

Very smooth and pleasant tea to drink. It has a distinct taste of honey througout. It also has the malty Assam flavour in the back of the pallette, but the honey is more pronounced. When sipping, the tea gives you a small kick of bitterness, but this is quickly overpowered by its sweetness. Very nice tea. The Daily Assam is very close in flavour however, and that one is a factor 3 cheaper.

My tea was the second flush picked in june 2017.

The tea i tasted was the July 2017 second flush of the Vahdam Daily Assam. The tea has a nice, dark-brown colour and a very mild (almost abcent).

The tea tastes very nice. It has a pronounced malty Assam taste with a bit of sweetness. The sweetness reminds me a bit of honey. The tea has an ever so slight hint of bitterness, which gives a nice balance to the sweetness. Very nice black tea for everyday use!

Well, this is different. The flavor is familiar at first, with noticeable cardamom in the foreground, with some cinnamon in the background. But then the green tea body comes through. To be honest, I don’t really think it’s a great vehicle for these flavors.

The green tea itself is a bit mediocre – some citrus notes, vegetal, and has some bitterness. The green tea and the cardamom, I feel, never really come together in harmony, and instead have conflicting “green” flavors that cause some dissonance on the palate.

In the aftertaste, you do get some almond liqueur notes, which are interesting.

This is obviously a tea that is way off the beaten path and is a local specialty that probably needs some insider knowledge to brew properly. But, I really wasn’t impressed. My biggest gripe is the green tea itself. It just didn’t have much personality and didn’t jive with the cardamom. Despite a fairly thick body, the tea at times had very little flavor (beyond just the additive flavors of cardamom and cinnamon), even despite brewing gong fu style.

If you’re curious, get a sample. But it certainly is a different experience from your regular black tea chai.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfT9-m8HFR3/?taken-by=apefuzz

This is a nice second flush black tea with quite a bit of personality. It is particularly bold in the first few infusions, with a lot of roasted nut and caramel notes, but dies off fairly rapidly. Despite this, its fruity aftertaste persists through several more infusions. It sort of reminds me of a cheaper Wu Yi oolong, which becomes a little woody in later infusions but has a fruitiness in it aftertaste that stays relatively strong.

It is quite brisk also, but refreshingly so. It worked very well with gong fu brewing. I tried adding a little milk to see what happened, but it only muted all of the flavors to the point of it lacking any distinct personality or flavor. Best drunk straight!
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Dry leaf – peanut, peanut shell, caramel, milk chocolate, floral notes like fruit blossom, sassafras

Smell – heavily roasted nut, dark caramel, tart blackberry

Taste – arrival of roasted nut and brisk black tea blend. Development has lemon notes arrive . Finish is thick with caramel and blackberry coulis notes. Aftertaste has nut and blackberry notes linger, with additional hints of cocoa, chocolate., and floral citrus

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfYHxC5niJI/?taken-by=apefuzz

Sipdown (596)!

Just a tiny bit sad to see this one finished off. It was a nice before bed kind of tea, with a surprisingly relaxing profile. Distinctly turmeric flavoured, without over doing it at all either. Could make have used a brighter citrus note to really nail that aspect!? But overall it was good! Makes me very thankful that I received it as a free sample, since I think it’s one of those blends that I never would have picked out for myself.

I don’t remember what I thought of this one when I first tried it, but judging on Steepster scoring I’d say I was probably decently impressed. I’m conflicted with this cup of it though because I did enjoy the combo of hot turmeric, the hint of ginger, and the bulk of the lemony notes. They all complimented each other really nicely. The conflicting part, this time at least, is that as nice as the profile was and as complimentary the flavours were the brew was also just very weak/watery seeming to me.

Also; I think I’m going through some sort of “awakening” right now in terms of spicy things. Like, until pretty recently I was the kind of person who HATED spice. Not just in terms of tea, but like in all things. Something must have clicked a few weeks ago though, because I’ve been deeply craving spicy food as of late. I’ve been ordering tons of Indian food – and the last time I ordered with my mom she took a bite of the masala dish I was eating and wouldn’t stop complaining about the burning in her mouth for like an hour. Plus, I’ve been adding banana peppers to basically everything that I’m offered them on; pizza, sandwiches, fries, wraps, etc. The weirdest thing? I’ve been craving chai!

I mean, I’m far from being able to handle any sort of “real” spice and wouldn’t consider myself like a ‘spice aficionado’ or anything – but my point is that I went from wanting nothing to do with spicy food to actually consistently craving it. It feels weird.

Free sample from my Vahdam order.

Honestly? I didn’t think I’d like this one – I imagined it would be far too spicy/chai like for me to get into overall and to be frank I generally don’t mesh super well with the whole ginger/lemon combo either unless I’m feeling sick. This was surprisingly tasty though, and I actually really enjoyed the cup!

I definitely got Turmeric from this, but it was less than I’d imagined there being and I liked it paired with the bulk of the other spices – I could have done without the ginger, but the cinnamon and cardamom? Surprisingly strong, and actually fairly sweet too. I found myself really reminded of spiced halvah! The East Indian woman, Em, who owns the convenience store near where I grew up used to sometimes give my brother and I little cubes of cardamom halvah when we went in with our mom and that shit was phenomenal. So, in a way this actually tasted weirdly nostalgic for me too?

As for the citrus, I really didn’t taste it? There were slight undertones of it but so gentle that had I been blind drinking this one I would not have believed that it was supposed to be a strong enough presence in the tea to warrant being included in the name. In fact, I feel like the bergamot in the blend was significantly stronger than the lemongrass. And I know bergamot is citrus but definitely not in the conventional way and I’d argue that to the bulk of the world it’s not a flavour they actually associate with citrus.

Anyway; semantics of citrus aside it was a good blend and I enjoyed the cup!

The chai journey continues. This chai, according to the package, is nothing more than black tea and crushed cardamom pods. It’s really nice.

I sampled a cinnamon chai not too long ago (spiced with cinnamon and cardamom) and I commented that I thought the original chai, with a few more spices in it, was better. Despite that, I think this cardamom-only chai is delicious. Cardamom is such a complex spice to begin with, and giving it a platform to really do its thing is awesome. You get to taste all of the facets of it – the spiciness, the herbaceousness, the sweetness… It really is a wonderful experience.

This is a great launching point for those wishing to start their chai journey. Given that cardamom is a prominent spice in most (all?) chai teas, I think this chai is the best place to start. You really understand how it forms the backbone of the entire chai experience, and how much it really gives in flavor – its spectrum of flavor is incredible.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfBneMCnzsl/?taken-by=apefuzz