Assam Beast of the East

I’m drinking this while I add the rest of my teas to the database. I’m using RiverTea as the name, but I think someone else has been adding them as River Tea (because that also popped up). :O

Well hopefully that’s something Jason (or whoever they hire?) can fix up if needed.

On to this tea! I like it? It’s rich and malty, and dark. It’s strong enough to help wake me up in the morning, but not quite enough to bother me on an empty stomach. It’s also not astringent which is a plus!

I should probably wax poetical about this, but truth be told I haven’t had an Assam in a month or so. I think Tiger Assam was my last, and it’s hard for me to say how good this is in comparison. I like it, and it gets a lot of extra points for the name.

Is it the best Assam out there? I’ll leave that for Sil to decide when she gets hers, which I hope is today!

This was my morning tea choice, and it is delightful. Delightfully malty.

Thanks for sharing MirandaGou!

I’ve been drinking this fairly regularly lately, but I’ve not had time to log it. It’s a nice assam, but for some reason it’s just not really doing it for me. It’s sweet, lightly malty, and it has good body and depth of flavour. Kudos for the name, too. It works equally well with milk or without, and it’s smooth with no astringency. Sometimes I get mild honey notes, other times I get more grain. On the whole, though, it leaves me fairly uninspired and I’m not sure why. I’ve had assams I like more, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this one. It makes for a strong, reliable, every day tea.

This tea comes from Ost, who is helping me to experience assam. Thanks!

The leaves are short, dark brown, and thin. When brewing, they smell tannic but also a bit fruity and produce a teak brown liquor. The taste is smooth but bold. It’s brisk and malty, but lacks the complexity to make it very interesting. It was a good kick-in-the pants morning tea, but not one that I would stock.

finally managed to make this one right today. Just a little cooler temp than boiling and about 2.5 mins and it was a much tastier cup today. I’m glad i finally figured this one out, though i still prefer my assams to be of the “tiger” variety lol :)

I got this in a trade from Shadowfall. I actually like it. It’s not a “knock your woks off” (snicker) sort of flavor black tea, but it’s a strong workhorse kick you in the keester first tea of the day.

My cupboard looks to be really out of date, so I think I might completely empty it and start over. I have been really bad about adding things to it. I think it’s sort of denial, like if I don’t add things to the number they don’t really exist. Or something.

Still don’t feel like flavored teas so I’m working my way through my straight stuff at the moment. My RiverTea order has been threatening to fall on my head every time I take one of my tea bins down (I have the box perched up almost 8 feet up on top of all of my bins. Lol) so I bit the bullet and brought it down to try through.
First one out of the box and honestly I’m pretty sure now that Assams just aren’t my thing. They’re too sharp/bitter/in-your-face/woodsy for me to enjoy drinking right now.
That being said, this is probly a very good example of a good Assam since it seems to meet the same tastes as all the other Assams I’ve had. Lol!
For me this tea has a dark, kinda malty scent. Taste wise, it’s bitter and astringent, and sharp in a ‘this is me!’ sort of way, not cutting sharp. The astringency is also fairly unpleasant for me, but again, that’s probly because it’s combined with that bleh bitterness.
Adding some truvia knocks down the bitterness and the whole tea turns strangly earthy and kinda tart? Hard to say if this is the actual term that I’m wanting, but for now it’ll suffice. Even with the truvia this tea didn’t turn sweet, but then I didn’t add more than 1/4 tsp of it (if that).
That being said, this branch of teas really isn’t for me. At least night straight. I think I’ve had a tea or two that has Assam within a mix of others and it’s tolerable, but this tea by itself just isn’t something that I would ever drink on its own. Maybe down the line in a few months/teas I’ll give an Assam another try to see if my tastes have changed, but at least for now I can stop ordering Assams. Lol!
(1.5tsp)

Another Sipdown, this one from Cavocorax.
I made a 16oz teapot of it, a little on the strong side.
I drank some of it with breakfast & it is potent!
It amazed me how different teas can be from one another, & it’s especially fun to drink teas with very different profiles one after another. This Assam has a little of that ‘shiny’ quality, like a piece of black obsidian. It also has a fruity tartness, like not quite ripe plums, & a decent serving of Malt!
Now for some front porch painting!
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I’m no pro on Assam teas, in fact, I’ve only had a few that Virginia sent along with all the David’s Teas. But like the genmaicha, I’m pretty hooked on these straight blacks now. Who would have thought they’d have so much flavor? Well…I never thought they would. Man…everything seems to be surprising me tea-wise lately it feels like! XD
Anywho, this is a pretty rich and malty Assam. Nothing too exciting or different from other Assams I’ve already had. But I won’t be buying more from RiverTea. The “Happy Banana” kinda killed the desire to order from that company. Tealux has my heart for the Assam anyway :P

Sample sipdown!

Got this generous sized sample from Cavo, and I have been drinking it every now and then until I finished it this weekend at my cousin’s cottage.

At first I wasn’t sure I how I felt, but now I’m regretting not ordering some with my last RiverTea order.

It’s not incredibly flavorful, but I realized that for breakfast all I want is a good sturdy tea that I can throw some milk in and just enjoy, simple, no fussing. This weekend I had brought this and a bunch of flavored teas to sipdown, and I found myself reaching for this one more than anything. Which is both because it was decent and because I’m not as keen on flavoured teas as I used to be, gotta mix it up! There’s something comforting to me about just drinking straight black tea with milk. Like my old Tetley days except 1000 times better.

I don’t necessarily think this is so special that I need it, but I will be keeping my eyes open for strong, easy black teas to try!

Thank you, Cavocorax!

I was sure I’d reviewed this before but I guess Steepster ate it. Or I lost my mind.