Sipdown! (19/254)
This sample came from the EU Travelling Tea Box Round 2, courtesy of KittyLovesTea. This was actually Frank’s pick from the original box, I think mainly because I was badgering him to go outside of his usual straight black or earl grey comfort zone, and this was the least outside of it he had to go to get me off his back. He turned out to really love it, and I was originally going to put the samples back ater one cup but he asked to keep it. I kept enough back to have my own cup at the end of the sample to satisfy my curiosity. Honestly, I think it must have been contaminated since, because if not, I don’t understand why he loved it so much.
I have since bought him some lavender earl grey from Adagio,which I have tried myself and really enjoyed. I assumed that this would be similar, but it turns out not really. The lavender scent is very powerful, and the whole kitchen smelled like my grandma’s garden right away when steeping. The bergamot was also present I a light, citrusy way. The smell was super good, but unfortunately the earl grey just didn’t translate into the flavour. The lavender is EXTREMELY strong, and completely drowns out the other flavours. For my first few sips, I found this enjoyable, although as my cup went on I started to find it cloying and was actually quite sick of it by the end of the cup. I also started to notice a sort of stale taste part way through, which I will attribute to the fact that I haven’t kept it entirely well, and the sample has been open for quite some time now. I can’t mark it poorly, though, as I did enjoy the first quarter of the cup, and Frankie’s opinion should be taken into account, too. It’s only fair. Plus I also seem to remember sneaking a sip each time I made it for him, and enjoyed it considerably more than I did today.
Drank with milk to tone down the punch of flavour, and a sprinkling of sugar to round it off.
