Oh, I think this is my favorite of the Nepal Tea samplers I’ve tried thus far. I used about half the loose leaf (around 3.75g) steeped in 500ml of 205F water.
It smells like a Chinese black… it has that sort of pithy orange mixed with smoke smell that always reminds me of a BBQ sauce or savory meat marinade, which I smell/taste in Chinese blacks often.
The tea is very malty, with some notes of leather, orange zest, smoke, spices (most close to the peppery aspect of cardamom), and maybe just a hint of floral rose. It’s a nice strong tea and goes well with breakfast. I had some cookies kindly gifted to me by AJRimmer with it, and the sweetness also accompanied the mild astringency and umami notes nicely. (That cookie was also banging… I love mochi but I can’t stand azuki, so I tend to avoid it because I hate biting into mochi and getting surprise azuki in my mouth. I’ve never seen a chocolate chip cookie with mochi in the center! It was great! We just don’t have access to foreign snacks in my area…)
Flavors: Floral, Leather, Malt, Orange Zest, Pepper, Rose, Smoke, Smooth, Spices, Tannin, Umami
Have you explored other Nepali teas? I find many of them to have some incredibly engaging complexity.
I tried one of Nepal Tea Collective’s white teas as well, but those two have been my only Nepali teas. If you have any vendor recommendations, I’d love to hear them.
It’s been a few years since I’ve bought from What-cha in England, but that is where I happened upon very high quality teas from Jun Chiyabari. They also carry teas from other Nepali tea gardens. Klasek Tea in Czech Republic has a range of offerings right now and I’ve had a few of them gifted to me by Martin Bednar from Steepster. If you’re looking for stateside, I see The Stepping Room in Texas carries some Jun Chiyabari and others. And there’s Nepali Tea Traders, which I haven’t tried, in Massachusetts.
I second derk, and I think Rare Tea Co. in London has some teas from Nepal as well.
This one – there are two that pop up when you google.
https://rareteacompany.us/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwyJqzBhBaEiwAWDRJVFLAIKLHQfZ5X7JUxvEF59SuBYotyYBdsHdUMWh9v81qMP1wHGmnYBoCYNUQAvD_BwE