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Thank you LiberTEAS for this nice sample!

There are some very interesting characteristics with this tea. Plenty of mixture in the dry leaves, even noticed some smaller broken green colored leaves – looked like an oolong.

Now to the fragrance of the infusion. Immediately, there was a familiarity with the flavor and boldness of this brew. It was more intimate and brought me to my southern coastal roots. It wasn’t the cinnamon brown colored liquid that spoke faintly, then more pronounced between each sip. It was the aroma and the salty oceanic presence that drew me in the most. There was a medium astringency, however this wasn’t the most noticeable of all note.

Warning: This next reference will seem odd and over-dramatic.

I am not kidding when I say that there was the taste of – steamed crabs! There, I said it. Get over it! :) Yes, there’s a few very strange people that will drink a tea and compare it to a decapod crustacean, more specifically – Callinectes sapidus, better known as the blue crab. And yes, I’m strange. Now, before you chalk me as a complete idiot, let me make the connection of where I’m coming from on a taste standpoint.

There is a certain strange sweetness and almost indescribable flavor that one discovers while consuming the body meat (not claws) of a freshly stewed blue crab. Look up Crab Etoffee and you will be headed the right direction in understanding my experience. I had to add sugar and milk to test how this taste held up to the additions and found it added a creamy, buttery depth to this broth, I mean brew.

I found that you could taste more of the black tea if you help the liquid a moment longer on the tongue. This was definitely a nice experience, although I simply wasn’t in the right mood for this particular tea. I was searching more for a bold treat, even an option to make a chai-like drink. This tea didn’t quite match my mood this time. Maybe better luck next time. It was good nonetheless.