Just received my Eteaket order today! I was going to try the Sailor of Hamburg blend, but what arrived in that caddy did not match the photo on the website (I think I got coffee leaf tea instead).
I went for my second choice, Highland Fling, a CTC blend that smells like it has quite a kick to it. The leaf bits are smaller than I was expecting and surprisingly dusty – there was a little shadow of fine particles left on the counter when I moved my filled infuser into my cup.
It’s punchy, like the description says. Straight up it’s quite similar to my usual morning black bagged tea – strong and bitter, but with a bigger astringent twang, and somewhat more drinkable, oddly enough. The drinkability improves with sugar (though the 1 tsp I added was probably a bit much). I then added soymilk, thinking a tea like this would take it very well, but it covers up a lot of the appealing flavors. When I was almost finished with the cup I was met with some more particles that had escaped the infuser and expanded to the size of coffee grounds. Blech.
It’s a pretty nice tea on the whole, but it seems a little unnecessary to keep on hand when I have bagged black tea that I like – they take milk better and don’t leave gritty sludge in the bottom of my cup. Maybe I’ll get some paper infusers for this one.
