Tower of London

It took me a while to decide whether or not I liked this tea, but after several cups I realized that yes, I do indeed! The aroma of the dry leaf is sweetly fruity which ends up mellowing out or “chillaxing” in the cup. The end result is this lovely smooth black tea with honey notes and a hint of bergamot. Best enjoyed plain, with a piece of shortbread on the side.

A big thank you to Dinosara who sent me this tea. This is a flavored black with bergamot and mild fruit flavors. I’m not getting a lot of the honey flavor. Overall, I find it similar to Harney’s Paris but not as fruity. I was worried it would be too Earl Grey-ish (I’m not a big fan of Earl Grey other than in lattes) because of the bergamot, but it’s not. I agree with the other reviewers who compare it to Kusmi St. Petersburg.

More thoughts later after I have a second cup…

Tea #5, from the TTB.

Drinking teabags tonight, because I don’t want to bring my teapot downstairs and someone drunkenly vomited all over my kitchen. =[

In less icky news, I am enjoying this tea! But I have to admit, Harney & Sons blends, however much I enjoy them, tend to be pretty subtle and the flavors all muddle together for me. I wouldn’t be able to pick out stone fruits or honey or whatever it is that’s supposed to be in this, it’s just a pleasant, slightly fruity flavored black tea. I think I might enjoy Paris more, but if I ever feel like switching it up, this one is certainly an option…

1st smell: Lovely. sweet.
1st taste: This is my 1st H & S tea, to my knowledge anyways. I like it. Not sure if I will like it enough to want to buy a full sized tin for it, but certainly to get another sample case of it from my favorite tea shop. (Little round ‘box’ comes with about six large pyramid bags. ) I did 1 resteeping….The flavor was very noticeably less, although I still enjoyed drinking it I felt that a resteep after that would be pointless. But there was so much of it that I thought it could handle a resteep.

Many thanks to ashmanra for sending this along!

This was very good, but to tell the truth, I couldn’t tell the difference between this and Paris! I will have to try them side-by-side to say the main difference, but since I haven’t had Paris for a couple of days, this honestly tasted just like it.

Yet another goodie from MeghannM! Woot!
This tea is super, super good. It really reminds me of Paris but without the kinda chalky mouthfeel that Paris sometime had. This is awesome! I know all the reviews are mentioning trying this tea without additions, but the aroma of this one was screaming “MILK AND SUGAR!!” So I happily obliged and it is super delicious. I love bergamot and usually wants lots and lots, but this is just slight and perfect. I appreciate the sophistication of many of Harney’s blends.
I think this will be going on my shopping list, I prefer this over Paris (never thought I would say that!) Yum! Thanks MeghannM!

The dry teabag smelt SUSPICIOUSLY like Paris. Probably the “fruit and bergamot” they both share. Brewed, it smells sweeter—less tart than Paris. Probably the drupe fruit used.

In the sips, I think I definitely get some honey. A deep sweetness not tied to any fruit. I can see why it’s gotten quite a few rave reviews. This stuff’s delicious. Although I’m sipping it after eating half a bag of salty chips, which really isn’t helping the taste buds. But even through that, this is rather enjoyable.

I got it from one of those Home stores, that sells kitchen supplies and interesting knick-knacks for the home. They recently started selling loose-leaf Harney and Sons as well (the ONLY PLACE in my area that does so), however they haven’t much to choose from at the moment (English Breakfast, Earl Grey and Bangkok only). The only tea they had that I pondered trying was Bangkok. But I opted for this instead. Next time!

There’s also a definite Parisy taste in it. But still delicious.

This tea is delicious! I can’t believe I didn’t try this one sooner. It has a slightly fruity vibe to it but combined with the black tea and honey notes it is amazing! I am making a note to share some of this with my Aunt-I think she will love this one!

1 sachet for 250mL water, stepped 5 minutes, drunk bare.

Hmmmmm. God save the queen. Or at least this tea. The label says “Chinese black teas, stirred with pieces of dried stone fruit, then finished with oil of bergamot and honey flavors.” The base teas are fairly robust, especially for China tea, and they don’t drown beneath the fruit, bergamot and honey flavours. The bergamot is subtle but kisses you in the aftertaste. The honey scent is pleasant. Not sure what the “stone fruit” is — peaches? plums? I get more plum scent than anything else.

Overall scent is a tiny bit artificial. The taste is less so, but still there’s something fakey going on. I am strongly biased against flavoured black teas, so my review of Tower of London (and Paris) should be taken with my prejudices in mind.

A pleasant-enough flavoured black, but still disappointing. Maybe I have a stale batch. I won’t be buying this again.

I am definitely not going to rate this one based on the steeping I just had. My tea travel mug decidedly expands in size when it’s hot, so after putting the boiling water in, I couldn’t get the filter lid back off (I had it in because I was leaving the house and the next cup I planned to make was loose-leaf).

So the teabag was trapped (Can you picture this? I feel like I’ve failed). And as i drank this it got progressively more bitter and oversteeped. Still, I enjoyed it so that says something. I didn’t taste much of the honey, but it probably got drowned out. This was my ’don’t fall asleep while taking a test’ blend, and it worked well enough I suppose. The test was still inexplicable and random as usual, but that’s not the tea’s fault.

p.s. Thanks to Meghann for the tea bags!