Cupped the loose version of this tea at work two days ago – Japanese black tea are interesting, and I’ve yet to have one that I was REALLY into, but this was the first where I thought that it was definitely nice enough that someone could be really into it.
Just, not me.
The main reason it wasn’t for me was because I found it steeped up rather savory, with a lot of natural black pepper notes and that’s a flavour that I tend to really dislike in my black teas. In addition to a lot of black pepper notes, I found it had a strong citrus peel pithyness – so the two combined reminded me a lot of rather pithy/peppery yuzu. Really interesting, and complex – but not a profile I resonated with.