Catching up on a tea which I drank on Sunday but didn’t have time to enter. Out of the bag, the dried leaves looked appealing—very few broken leaves or stems in the mix, and I see a few golden tips mixed in.
I steeped the tea using 5 grams of dried leaves in 12 ounces of near boiling water for 4 minutes.
This didn’t taste much like a typical second flush Darjeeling. I was expecting a muscatel flavor and aroma, but there wasn’t that at all. In fact, there really wasn’t a notable aroma or flavor at all, above and beyond typical black tea. I gave a cup to my mom (it was Mother’s Day, after all) and she told me “it tastes like Lipton.” I personally would not go that far, but it really didn’t have any hints of unique flavor or aromas—just a basic, orthodox black tea.
I was a disappointed that there wasn’t more to it but I still enjoyed it. I would drink it again, but would at least have a lowered expectation next time and hope to be surprised.
NOTE: The bag I used showed the date of packaging as July, 2016
