Another random pick in the sample box and another Assam. I might as well give up on the random picks and try to go through them more systematically, because they seem to come out in trends no matter what I do. I even had my eyes closed, for Ceiling Cat’s sake!
I’m also wondering if maybe I ought to try and figure out where these estates are located more specifically. I mean, yeah, they’re all from Assam, but I’m thinking about stuff like how high or low grown they are and whether or not that might be something that makes a difference for me. I’m just not really sure where to start with such an undertaking though, so I’m just going to go through them as usual and then maybe figure all this stuff out afterwards. Perhaps there will be a pattern.
The description from NBT sure sounds promising! But then they always say that sort of stuff, don’t they? I tried looking at what people had said about Hazelbank from other companies, but I didn’t really find anything super-helpful there either.
This one has more aroma than the Orangajuli. The same maltyness but stronger. It smells blacker. There’s a wooden note too, and wait a minute, raisins! Raisins again? Then the raisin note in the Orangajuli probably didn’t come from my breakfast after all. It’s just a touch, but I do think there is one. How kind of bizarre… Yes, this is weird to me when I’m perfectly happy to accept a naturally occurring cocoa note. Go figure.
The flavour is completely different from Orangajuli. This one has the same astringent bite, but the flavour itself is stronger and more sort of wooden. I want to say oaky and sound pretentious, but I can’t honestly say that I know what different sorts of wood tastes like. So, it’s wooden.
I like this better than the Orangajuli, but given the fact that this has a stronger flavour… No, that’s not right. Given the fact that this has more flavour than Orangajuli, I’m not really surprised. The astringency is biting a little harder here, but that’s not really a bad thing.
This is better, but it’s still not IT.
