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I bought this tea today since my Golden Monkey Tea has yet to arrive in the mail and I felt like I needed something new to taste. I went to Le Palais de The, looked around, bought some Milk Oolong (hoping that it will be worth the price – it’s waiting for my gaiwan to arrive), and this tea, based on a review in teaviews.
I do not like flavoured teas, so buying this tea was adventurous of me. The smell is overpowering – almost like a cough syrup sweetness. I choked on it. But I decided to buy and brew. The instructions suggest brewing for 4-5 minutes, but I was worried that the tea would be too strong to my liking, and so opted to go by sight and steep for less time (2.5 min). The tea is a bright red with a yellow halo, and the smell, though not very far from my original impression, has toned down somewhat to a very rich toffee smell.
The tea is creamy, with no astringency, and tastes very much like a rich toffee with a slight vanilla and toffee aftertaste. At two and a half minutes brewing time the toffee flavour is gentle – more of a hint than a definitive, overpowering flavour. I liked it enough to try brewing it for 4 minutes next time. The tea is sweet enough to not warrant adding sugar. Not an everyday treat for me, but definitely worth a re-brew, to make my final opinion on it. Not sure that I like it – has a definite powerful chemical taste to it that I’m not sure that I like

Smooth creamy tea, quite astringent but still wonderfully tasty. Astringency disappears when taken with milk. Good solid tea

Light bodied strong tea with pepper and citrus notes and no astringency.
Works better without milk, although it can be brewed darker and taken with milk. A good pick me up on the coldest and stormiest day of the year.

The perfect Ceylon if you can get your hands on it. This is not part of F&M’s usual collection, but you can find it sold by weight in their store in Piccadilly or in their Heathrow Terminal 1 boutique. It’s a cheerful, warming tea – bright and malty, and goes well with milk (although I prefer it plain). The leaves are quite small (BOP) so be careful not to overbrew.
A lovely tea to end the day with.

Peppery tones, no astringency, very unique tea.

Upping the rating of this tea after two more cups. It is much more delicate than an Assam and has very little astringency. Will buy a pack for my cupboard