First time for this one. I completely missed out on A&D series 1, but later decided that it didn’t really matter since I wasn’t a very big fan of any of the teas in it. Dragonwell has a funny mushy fishy flavour that I only in rare occassions can appreciate, the Himalayans don’t really produce tea at all that suits my particular taste, it’s all rather too Darjeeling-y and I hadn’t had all that good luck with Ceylons either.
In the recent box of hugeness, however, there was a Kenilworth Ceylon from SBS that to my surprise I’ve discovered is really very nice. Fruity and interesting and not at all like the somewhat astringent and stuffy Ceylons I new from before. Bit like an Uva Highlands I had once in the days of yore. I think it was from Chaplon. It was lovely, but no Uva Highlands sample I’ve had since have been able to live up to that. It must have been a remarkably good year that particular year.
So yeah, my interest in Ceylons, which previously occupied the smallest of places, has been poked and prodded by that Kenilworth from SBS, and now I’m thinking if I should perhaps explore it a bit further. Nothing But Tea definitely have a wide Ceylon selection, I’ve had samples from them, but I’m thinking I should possibly do another Ceylon sample set with my next order and have a closer look.
This particular one, I have good expectations of. It’s hard not to considering the company, which is one I’ve had some very good experiences with. And the name of said company.
The dry leaves have a rich aroma with leathery tobacco-y notes and a little fruity and wooden as well. After steeping it’s very sweet and malty, but also a bit spicy and with a somewhat grassy note that took me by surprise. What’s that doing in here?
The flavour, at very first sip, strikes me as unremarkable. Second sip is much the same. Several sips later, nothing has changed. There isn’t really anything in here, it’s just tea-flavoured tea. I can’t find anything special about, nothing even semi-unique.
It’s just tea.
This is the tea for when you don’t really have much time to pay attention to it. It’s the tea to sustain yourself while doing some sort of mindlessly dull chore. It’s for when you have to get up at silly o’clock and can’t taste anything anyway.
I’m ambivalent about this. On the one hand it just goes to show that I was right not to bother being annoyed that I missed out on S1. On the other hand I’m feeling quite let down by my own expectations. It’s not a bad tea at all. It’s just interesting how remarkably uninteresting it is.
