Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Capital Tea Limited
Tea Description:
Wiry brown leaves with ample golden tips. These leaves produce a smooth and rich tasting tea liquor with a particularly sweet honey-malt flavour. A very well rounded flavour profile and balanced full body makes this an excellent tea to drink with milk for any time of day.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I received a sampling of this tea from a friend. Her experience with the tea wasn’t as positive as my first few sips of this tea seemed to be and I thought at first that the reason may be because of steep time. I find that Assam teas are quite finicky and temperamental. I don’t usually use boiling water for an Assam tea, I go with just slightly under (205°F) and steep the tea for not more than 2 1/2 minutes. If I’m steeping the tea in my Kati tumbler or a teapot, then I go with 2 1/2 minutes. If I’m brewing the tea in my Breville One-Touch, I go with 2 minutes.
The reason for the different brew time in my Breville? Because the tea maker will keep the liquid warmer than the act of heating the water and pouring it into a separate vessel. Even though the temperature change may be very slight, with an Assam it does make a difference.
My first few sips of this tea were pleasant enough. I picked up on sweeter notes of malt as well as a honey-like sweetness and these two flavors melded together in a nice way.
But as I continued to sip, I started to pick up on this bitter note toward mid-sip. It wasn’t that “oops, I oversteeped the tea” sort of bitterness. At first, I thought it was a savory element to contrast with the sweeter notes. However, I noticed that some of the sweetness that I picked up on early on was beginning to wane and the tannic qualities of this tea were taking over.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a tea like this, where I would have a positive experience with it at first and as I continued to sip the experience grew less and less enjoyable, but that’s what I’m getting from this. What started out with a pleasant, mild sweetness has become something more like something that’s gone bad. It was fine for the first five sips or so but as I progressed with this cup, I found that the flavors became less sweet and pleasurable and more tannic.
And now that this cup sits in front of me, I can’t really offer any redeeming words about it. I wish I could.
I do thank my friend, though, for sending me the sampling. I do appreciate it.
Bemolapur Estate Assam STGFOP1 Black Tea from Capital Tea Limited
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Capital Tea Limited
Tea Description:
Small tightly rolled leaves with a high proportion of golden tips. These amazingly aromatic leaves produce a highly concentrated sweet and full bodied tea liquor with an incredibly rich dark chocolate-malt character. An outstanding breakfast tea to enjoy with milk.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I love it when I find a really excellent Assam tea – and this Bemolapur Estate Assam from Capital Tea Limited is indeed excellent! The flavor is full and robust! This is the kind of tea you want on those mornings when you need to shake the sleepy, because it’s got plenty of gusto!
To brew this Assam, I heated the water to 205°F and poured the sampling I received into the basket of my Kati Tumbler. Then I poured the water over the leaves and steeped the tea for 2 1/2 minutes. This is a tea that I’d recommend tinkering around with to find just the right time and temperature for you, because although my cup was not bitter, it was somewhat astringent and I suspect that the tea would have been bitter if I steeped it for another 15 or 30 seconds.
Fortunately, I cut off the steeping time at just the right time for my palate because what I’m getting is a sweet, malty richness that I love from an Assam tea. Bold! Delectable notes of dark chocolate with an undertone of honeyed caramel.
I liked this tea served hot, straight up. But I did let part of the cup go cold (I got distracted and was away from my cup too long!) and it’s quite tasty as a cold tea too (again, straight up). It would also be nice with a dollop of honey (to accentuate those honey undertones) and a splash of milk (the creaminess of the dairy together with the malt would be outstanding).
A really lovely tea.
Organic Puttabong STGFOP1 First Flush Darjeeling from Happy Earth Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black (Darjeeling)
Where to Buy: Happy Earth Tea
Tea Description:
Light golden and bright liquor with a floral and malty flavor. It has a mellow taste with subtle citrus hints and a sweet lingering finish. Deeply satisfying.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The dry leaf of this Organic Puttabong STGFOP1 First Flush Darjeeling from Happy Earth Tea has a pleasant earthy scent. Once brewed, the aroma becomes more woodsy and floral, but I can still detect some of the earthy tones I noticed in the dry leaf.
The flavor is mild and possesses light fruit notes. There is also notes of flower and wood, but I’m not tasting so much of the earthy notes found in the fragrance.
I like the how the floral notes build. They start off really subtle, and then toward mid-cup, they become much more pronounced. It’s a sweet, exotic sort of flowery taste, orchid perhaps? The woodsy notes are much more subdued here, and they seem to be there to offer a more grounded contrast in flavor to the floral tones.
The fruit notes start off rather obscure … I can taste a ‘fruit-like’ note but, it isn’t really distinct or well-defined. After I’ve consumed about a quarter of the cup, though, I start to notice bright citrus-y notes.
There isn’t a lot of “muscatel” taste to this Darjeeling, then again, I didn’t really expect there to be, because this is a first flush tea, and typically first flush Darjeeling teas do not possess much of a strong muscatel flavor. But, that’s OK … I enjoy this tea for what it is! It is a crisp tea with a refreshing taste that seems to sparkle on the palate as I sip it. Very nice!