BookLion select Send Message

Though knowing of Darjeeling’s grape-y flavor profile theoretically, I didn’t expect my first sip into this cup to immediately bring up the word ‘grape juice’ in my mind. Further sips reveal a beautiful woody oakiness underneath the tart grape flavor.

I now see never having bothered with Darjeeling (after my first unsuccessful attempt with bagged Darjeeling) was a huge oversight in my tea existence. I can’t wait to get to know this tea better through the five different estate samples from What-Cha.

I once knew a person from Burma – we learned German together. Though I can’t remember her first name, I remember that her last name was Laden (she had a hard time traveling internationally). I keep hoping that the flavor of this tea will remind me more about her, or what she told me about Myanmar – but I haven’t had much luck so far.

This tea is one that defies expectations. I expected the dry tea to be dusty and feathery like a bagged tea, but instead found beautiful, tiny tea pellets that reminded me of miniature gunpowder tea. Then, I assumed the brewed liquor would be a dark brown or black, but was surprised by its rich, ruby red. On my first sip, I thought that I had at least predicted the flavor accurately, since I tasted the satisfying bitterness of a Twinings bagged tea, but the further into the cup I drank, the more I tasted an unexpected, fruity complexity.

All in all, this tea has definitely made me curious about the rest of my recently arrived What-Cha order – mostly consisting of a Burma, Nepal, and Darjeeling “Discovery Collection”.

This tea tastes exactly how the dry leaf looks – soft, downy, and light. Though not as strong as black and green teas, this almost clear cup in no way tastes of water. It is somehow full without being at all assertive. The cup ends with an unexpected and pleasantly surprising peppery note on the breath out.

I always love finding this tea in stores when I’m looking for a quick lunch. Its virtues include having no sugar, not tasting like lipton black tea, and being consistently refreshing. It doesn’t necessarily taste like a normal oolong, not being anywhere on the roasted / geranium flavor continuum, but it does taste pleasantly and mysteriously woody.

Additionally, this tea proudly proclaims its address of origin: 39 Quality Way, Singapore. Each time I re-find this tea I smile over ‘39 quality way’ – if only everything could be manufactured on Quality Way!

This has been one of those never-ending weeks where problems arise faster than I can fix them. I haven’t been able to turn off my mind for a moment in days. I opted to go for this tea instead of a more calming one in the hope that its strength would force my mind to pay attention to it.

I’m re-brewing and bottling up this technique – perhaps it will get me through the rest of the day, as well…

I’m starting to taste black teas on a fruity – chocolaty continuum. Perhaps its more of a triangle – and ‘tobacco-y’ is at one corner, too. This definitely falls into the fruity side of things, with maybe a tiny bit of chocolate manifesting as the dark flavors in the tea.

For a while in my tea-drinking career, I was reluctant to give up bagged tea in favor of loose leaf tea. I thought that I’d be giving up strength of flavor for complexity of flavor – that loose leaf teas would always be weak compared to the full-bodied (albeit simple) flavors of a CTC tea. If I’d started with this tea, I wouldn’t have had to worry at all. This has all of the immediacy of a quick steeping bagged tea AND all of the levels and gradations in flavor found in a loose leaf. It would be a perfect transition tea for those used to their morning cup of Twinings English Breakfast or the like.

Imagine, if you would, a scale of 1 to 10 – one being ‘tastes like Tang’, ten being ‘tastes like tea’. This ranked about a 3.

I tend to be a tea hoarder: the better the tea, the worse I feel using it up. This tea has just the right balance between being drinkable and being expendable. Drinking it also makes me feel productive, because the closer I get to the bottom of the tin, the closer I am to being able to repurchase my favorite Earl Grey: Mount Gray by Andrews & Dunham.

Over time, I’ve learned that this tea is best brewed a bit colder than most blacks – it tends to develop a bitter taste at higher temperatures.