A friend went on a trip to Seychelles, and as a kind gesture brought me this tea as a gift. It did not look promising, being a very fine grained CTC black tea packed in a plastic bag, stuffed in a rather nice white cloth bag with no description on it other than “Sey Te, Chemical Free Bio-Tea”. I’m assuming that this tea is organic, but there’s no indication of any form of official certification, so caveat emptor.
My best guess is that this tea is a blend of mostly Kenyan teas, possibly with some assam thrown in. It’s almost dust level finely cut, so it is super super strong. Be careful when brewing. Surprisingly, it doesn’t re-brew well beyond the fourth cup, and at the sixth cup its all tired out. I expected such a strong tea to show more stamina ;)
In any case, it’s not totally undrinkable, but it’s pretty bad. I don’t see myself ever picking it up, particularly not on an empty stomach, it’s so powerful. Even after a large meal it made me feel queasy about 30 minutes after drinking. Not surprisingly I did not finish my cup.
If you’re stuck with a choice of this tea or a run of the mill teabag, choose teabag.