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tea-sipper drank Valentine's Blend by Harney & Sons

4183 tasting notes

Additional notes for NEW harvest: So I wanted to sample a couple new ‘harvests’ of blends from Harney I had been a fan of in the past. This was one. A few months ago, I tried my ancient blend of this again and it was even better than I remembered, like the chocolate was at the perfect flavor in the age of the tea. Then I tried it a couple months later and it seemed like the chocolate had faded. Almost like opening a tomb and letting the air out, opening the pouch changed the perfect chocolate flavor and then the next steep teaspoon session a couple months later was faded. (oh geeze. Tea problems.)
This NEW harvest… sometimes I have a problem with chocolate flavoring tasting like gasoline. I know that Frank’s 52Teas blends would sometimes do this. And this one is doing that now. But I’ve come to know that you just either have to air the tea out, or let it age. So I guess I will just have to ‘age’ this one so the gasoline flavor disappears. I’m not sure if past harvests were like this, because I think I acquired the last blend from another Steepsterer when it wasn’t BRAND NEW. Also, there are rose petals but not really any hint of them in the cup. I like the dark brew though. The rating wouldn’t be 90 now but I don’t lower ratings. I’ll try it again as it ages….
Steep #1 // 1 teaspoon (in my smaller dragon mug) // 14 minutes after boiling // 2 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 minute steep