Nilgiri

An online friend of mine went to India to visit her fiance’s parents and go dress shopping for her wedding and nisanlik. Half-jokingly I asked her to get me some Nilgiri tea while she was there and much to my surprise she did! It arrived yesterday after much anticipation on my part, so of course I had to have it with my breakfast this morning!

While putting the dry leaf into my tetsubin I caught a tantalizing whiff and moved the bag with the tea under my nose for a deeper sniff. Mmmmmm, chocolate!

I found myself humming “Do, a deer” while waiting for my tea to steep…probably because I was spreading home-made spiced peach blackberry jam on my toasted bagel. It certainly made the five minutes go by faster and soon it was time to remove the strainer with the leaves. The wet leaves were a muddy brown but the veins had a definite red-ish tint to them, unfortunately they no longer smelled like chocolate.

The bright, amber-gold liquor didn’t have any chocolate notes either but that was all right, it still tasted lovely. A buttery mouth-feel, it tasted malty with notes of raisins and figs. 12oz was gone much too fast!