So this, like Safari from the same company, was a tea I got for a friend, but as everything didn’t fit into the little travel kit I put together for her, I got stuck with some to try out for myself. (I am so unfortunate. Suffering. Really.)
I was looking for the black equivalent of the green champagne tea from Tehörnan, and this is what was recommended.
The tea is pretty light and floral in terms of both scent and taste, with that undeniable and yet undefinable lingering note present in all the champagne teas I’ve reviewed so far. To be honest, I find it has very little to do with any form of champagne or sparkling wine at all. It entirely lacks any of the complex exuberance – yeasty, sulphuric or otherwise – I associate with champagne, and there’s not the slightest hint of a boozy note anywhere. So when I get excited about a ‘champagne’ tea, it’s really just because I’m so hooked on that undeniable/undefinable nuance.
That nuance, however, works best in the green tea, very well in the rooibos, and not so well in the black. I expect so much more from a black tea – it can carry so many more nuances of flavor and hints of texture than a green (or even a rooibos). In addition, I often find drinking black teas somewhat challenging because of their richness, so they really have to be worth the effort. This one is not – it’s a black tea masquerading as a much lighter tea, rendering itself redundant in the process.
[Purchased at Bönor & blad in Uppsala, August 2013.]
