Persian Rose

I feel like I made out like a bandit in my most recent swap with Alphakitty because I got sooo many samples of teas I wanted to try! I’m drowing in tea samples, and I’m very excited to try all of them.

I plucked this one out of the pile first because bergamot + rose = love, for me, and this blend also has cardamom and borage, which I didn’t know what it was at first but is apparently a mediterranean herb. I realized that I think I have seen this tea company at the NY Coffee and Tea Festival before, but I’ve never noticed this tea there I guess.

Steeped, it smells like a delightfully rosy Earl Grey. Unfortunately the taste is a little lackluster. As in, it doesn’t taste like much! The flavor isn’t very strong, and overall the tea really dries out your mouth and doesn’t really have even much of an aftertaste. I also get the impression that steeping it longer would just end in bitterness.

Oh well, thanks for the sample, Alphakitty! It’s good to know ahead of time since this company doesn’t sell small amounts of their teas. I will go back to savoring my Bergamot Rose Laoshan Black. :)

Earl Grey and rose, not my favorite flavors but even I can appreciate that this was a pretty high quality tea. For those that enjoy these flavors, it is worth a try. Check out my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/07/24/persian-rose-from-tay-tea-2/

Thanks to Amoda for sending me a sample of this to try! This came in a little plastic, resealable bag – so happy the resealable sample bags are back!

The aroma of the dry tea is super floral – lots of rose (obviously, there are tons of rose petals in the tea as well), and bergamot. I don’t really detect any cardamom? But I also didn’t happen to get any cardamom pods in this sample, so it might not be representative.

Brewing instructions were 1 tsp/8oz cup, boiling, 3-5min. I measured a level tea spoon (using one of those spoons that’s for tea, and actually holds 1.5tsp) and it came to, like 1.6g and looked like a lot of rose petals. The petals tend to shift to the top of the sample, you know? So I ended up dumping the rest of the sample into a dish so I could fish out some actual tea and bring it up to 2g. :) This went into my 10oz mug and steeped for 4min.

It’s a very nice tea! A lot more floral and less spicy than the Person Palace tea Amoda sells, which I tried previously and really liked. I have a plain rose-flavoured black tea in my cupboard and this is a lot more complex and interesting than that. I think it’s the bergamot and maybe the borage that just rounds it out? If you like rose-flavoured teas, I definitely recommend this one.

I decided to take the leaves for an ill-advised second steeping (9 min! let’s just squeeze every drop of flavour out of these suckers, lol). This time I broke open a couple of green cardamom pods and tossed them into the basket as well. This is actually… surprisingly drinkable, given that I have no business attempting to make 2g of tea blend stretch to making a total of 20oz of tea, that’s ridicious. I’ll definitely be adding a cardamom pod or two, the next time I brew this properly, since the rose/cardamom combination really is the whole point of this tea.

I don’t know if I’d be able to choose between this one and the Persian Palace by Sloane. They’re both good, and suprisingly different from each other. Happily, it looks like I’ll be able to buy 25g of each, once I finally take myself off tea-buying hiatus. :)