The Teaguy

A rich malty stone fruit good morning. Happy New Year, people!

I really wanted to like this tea. I drank it a few times before at work before this review, but never took any notes. I was down to one of my last cups of this tea, so I wanted to jot down some opinions for future reference. They were overall not very positive.

The aroma of this tea was pretty sweet (almost sickly) vanilla, but I didn’t mind it too much. What I did mind was this sweetness was very strong in the tea as well, almost completely overpowering the black tea base and bergamont flavouring, which is supposed to be the hallmark of earl grey teas.

I also found these tea leave to be unusually sensitive. I more a little more than a single teaspoon of leaf into the strainer (and even ended up scooping a little bit back out because I didn’t want to over-leaf it) and it still brewed dark in just over a minute. I took it out as soon as it did (couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes), and the tea ended up predominantly bitter with a weird vanilla background flavour. Idk, maybe I was making it wrong, but the tea did not convince be in the least to waste any more of my energy to help it taste alright.

Drinking this with a blend of Vanilla Cacao like last time. I do enjoy assam on its own, but sometimes I want my tea to be a little more interesting, and this is the perfect way to blend it.

I took the steeper out a bit earlier this time, and it helped balance out the strength of the two teas. I think I put in less assam than cacao this time also, which made the black tea base taste a little weak. I guess sticking to a 1:1 ratio is the way to go. I have only one more teaspoon of Vanilla Cacao left, so I may just have to consider getting more!

My first try of a pure Assam tea! This was one of the four new teas in the November Tea Sparrow box, which I am drinking before heading off to do my volunteering shift at the Vancouver Tea Festival. I’m a bit apprehensive at being there all day, since it’s an hour away by transit for me, but I am hoping to be able to try a lot of different teas there today. Plus… I was promised a cool “volunteers only” swag bag for my time. ;)

On my first sip, I noticed that this tea is quite strong and full-bodied. The flavour tones were deep and slightly sweet, with a lingering finish on the tongue. Reminds me of the Royal English Breakfast blend that I drink, except a more sophisticated version? I want to say the the black tea flavour profile that is in both teas just tastes more “deep” in this Assam, if that makes any sense. Anyways, it’s quite nice and enjoyable to drink, but didn’t “wow” me. A nice, simple breakfast tea to go with my oatmeal in the morning.