58

Darjeeling Sungma Summer. Adagio.
Lot no. 88740. FB 05/2029.

I love muscat grapes and muscat raisins and dry muscatel wine. I found nothing of that in this tea— nothing even remotely of grape. No fruitiness whatsoever, and just weak notes of black tea flavor. I brewed as directed, Western style: 3 g leaf in 8 oz boiling alpine spring water for 3 min. in a stainless steel infusion basket. As it cooled, bitterness arose along the sides of my tongue, and the already astringent quality strengthened. And it began to taste more like wet cardboard. Even discounting the lack of expected flavors, this tea was unpleasant at best. I would rate Lipton Orange Pekoe and Pekoe cut black tea bags superior to this, and so this merits a rating of only 50. It’s destined for the garden compost heap. Not recommended.

UPDATE 11 days later: Gave this another chance. Found aroma of cocoa powder in the dry leaf and in the liquor. This time I reduced the leaf to 1.5 g, and did taste faint notes of honey and floral, with strong cardboard. Still not to my liking, and not a recommendation, but I’ll raise the rating to 58 because I found some favorable notes this time.

Flavors: Astringent, Bitter, Cardboard, Cocoa, Floral, Honey, Tea

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec 3 g 8 OZ / 236 ML

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Life is too short to drink bad tea!
Pan-American: Left-coast reared (on Bigelow’s Constant Comment and Twinings’ Earl Grey) and right-coast educated, I’ve used this moniker & Email since the glory days of AOL in the 90’s, reflecting two of my lifelong loves— tea and ‘Trek.

Now a midwestern molecular biologist (right down to the stereotypical Hawaiian shirts), I’m finally broadening the scope of my sippage and getting into all sorts of Assamicas, from mainstream Assam CTCs to Taiwan blacks & TRES varietals, to varied Pu’erhs. With some other stuff tossed in for fun. I enjoy reading other folks’ tasting notes (thank you). I’ve lurked here from time to time and am now adding a few notes of my own to better appreciate the experience. Note that my sense of taste varies from the typical, for example I find stevia to be unsweet and bitter. My dislike of rooibos may be similarly rooted in genetics, which impacts perceptions of many flavors, from asparagus to stevia to cilantro.

I don’t work for a tea vendor, and I’m not a professional tea sommelier. And I don’t taste every nuance, hint of flavor or note of aroma, nor am I trained to describe those that I do detect. But I taste enough to have opinions, and do my best to be descriptive. Sensory preferences can shift from day to day and person to person, so numerical ratings are kinda bogus, especially between and among various people. But there are individual trends, and I try to reflect that. As reference points for my ratings, I give Lipton Black Tea bags “orange pekoe and pekoe, cut black” a score of 65 because it is widely available and profoundly consistent. I view it as just okay. I would give plain, hot, quality spring water a rating of 25, and I buy Crystal Geyser brand for brewing because my local well water is stinky and discolored, and my filtration & softening system leaves it salty and unpleasant. Tea should make the commercial Spring Water better, not worse, so a rating below 25 speaks for itself.

I am conversationally friendly but absolutely not here looking for dates or money, nor to sell anything. If I’ve started to follow you, I don’t mean to be creepy, it only means you recently posted something I liked reading, or it was about an interesting tea or event. And I’ve recently discovered that the Steepster system only notifies me of new posts written by people I follow. If you follow me, I won’t assume anything. If I do not follow you, it isn’t a snub—you’re still a good human being!
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