This is my first shot at little balls of tea! What happy things they appear to be…like gum balls but all black! I am charmed. Since my western brewing tea ware of choice is 16 oz, I just unceremoniously dumped all the balls in the wee sample packet into the pot and steeped for 8 minutes….half way between the 5-10 minute recommendation. Well! Those wee tea balls sure opened into some larger leaves! Unexpected! (Kind of reminds me of those little gelatin capsules that had the sponges shaped like animals smooshed inside them and you let them float in the bathtub til they became sponges…) The dry smell of the leaf was chocolatey and tea-y. Wet….well, they just kind of smelled like wet leaves to me! Not quite sure why, but wet hot leaves and a touch of hot wet earth. Once in the cup, I found that the tea’s aroma had that chocolate note I detected in the dry leaf/balls, a bit of hot wet earth and just a smidgen of malt. Less malt than I was expecting by looking at the reviews, actually! The flavor profile has the chocolate and warm wet earth notes and adds a bit of a raisin middle note to it. There’s not much of a top note to this tea, so I would say that this is a deep-flavored tea for days when you need “grounding”…. something that helps you settle into the middle of your problems and start to relax to truly come up with solutions… It’s that kind of tea…oh, it’s also something they would probably enjoy in the Shire. Take your pick of the mental pictures provided above and have a cup! (I know which one you will probably choose, my precious!)
Flavors: Chocolate, Raisins, Wet Earth
