Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea

lala sent this one my way so i could get in a taste before comitting to ANOTHER tin of damn fine tea – i think this will bring me to 6? in the house because yes, that’s right…i bought this after having it today. So good. I am immensely happy that lala was kinda enough to send this my way because i would have passed on this for sure, simply because 4.4oz is a LOT of tea…especially when you’ve got 4? other damn fine tea tins that are mostly full. lol this was just the right balance of smokey and not bitter and yes. yum. that is all.

Final Count: 81 (thank you lala!!!!)

Bold and robust, drinking this tea makes me feel like I’m sitting around a bonfire. This is as German and manly as it gets. Tobacco and cedar are prevalent on the tongue, while the smoky note on the dry leaves does not overpower the steeped leaves. This is quite delicious and interesting blend that compliments the season perfectly

This is another sample from boychik. Thank you!

Keemun might just be my favorite type of breakfast tea. It is usually deep and chocolate or slightly woody. This is another awesome offering from A & D. I think all of these samples have turned me into an A & D fan girl. I might just have to try EVERYTHING from them:) Some keemuns have fruity flavor at the end of the sip, some have a smoke. This is just right in the middle. It doesn’t have much fruity, but more of a deep bread flavor. I am rocking the 2nd steep already and this is definitely making my morning. Thanks again boychik for allowing me to try this one.

In Celebration of the upcoming A&D order I am drinking a cup of this. It also fits the dreary weather we are having here in KC today. This cup always amazes me. and always reminds me to never judge a tea 100% by the sent of the leaf. This is so much sweeter than the sniffer lets on.

In other news, my hot water spout at work was replaced. I have really come to like a lot of my black teas at a lower than normal temp….. now the water is coming out damn near boiling. I am going to have to readjust a tad bit.

After coming back from entire summer of traveling and not drinking much tea I decided I wouldn’t purchase anymore tea until my stash was half of what it was currently sitting at. Yep that lasted all of 6 weeks. I blame this tea and QTT. I decided to treat myself for my birthday with a tin of this. The tin arrived at the beginning of November and I could not for the life of me figure out how to get the lid off. I took a knife to it, I took my keys to it. I even went out to my work bench at work and grabbed pliers and a screw driver. It turns out I was trying to pry the wrong portion of the lid off. Ooops.

This tea is sooo yummy. The smell always scares me until I take the first sip. The mixture of savory and sweat is perfect. You smell the tea thinking you are going to get this really smokey leathery tea, and then you taste it and the sweetness of it makes all those notes you were sniffing pop in the taste of the tea. I debated getting a 3 pack when I purchased this tin, due to the amount of tea I am glad that I didn’t but this really makes me long for another cup of the Red Tailed Hawk. If anyone out there ever wants to split A&D tins I am your gal. I love all their teas, but 4.4 ouces is always a lot.

1 Year on Steepster! Woot! Who would have thunk. 418 tasting notes…. 170ish teas in cupboard, many fun swaps and tea friends. It has been quite the year. I have enjoyed getting to try so many wonderful cups and tea vendors. Hopefully Steepster fully recovers from its illness and it is exploding with liveliness again soon. My tastes have definitely changed. I like many on here started out with the mostly food teas from Teaavana. Quickly found Butiki and fell in love with so many teas there, found oolongs, roasted and milk oolongs, discovered flavored blacks, then straight black. Now, I am starting to explore whites, greens and pur-eh. I think my favorites are the darker side of oolongs, the Fijian blacks, and french flavored teas. There are so many teas I still want to try and orders I want to place. It is fun that after spending a year trying “everything” there is still so much more to try.

I am trying to make a decision on whether to purchase this tea or not. I believe it is only available until the end of October. This morning at work this cup is offering all the same, smoke, tart fruity, leather if you will, but there is almost a spice to to the tea. It is lovely, but will it be a cup I like 4.4oz of? Thank you again boychik for this sample

This is a sample from boychik. Thank you!

Damn! I thought by trying this tea I would rule out having to purchase this one. No such luck. This is good. How does Damn Fine Teas do it? This tea has a little smoke, it has some woody accents, then there is a little bit of tart fruit, and smooth astringency. Are those last two things even possible in a blend? Sure seems to be what I am tasting. This is another wonderful fall cup. Now to buy or not to buy the tin……

Thank you for the sample boychik! :D

This is a bold and tasty blend! Extremely masculine tasting. Reminds me of leather and tobacco and woodsmoke. It isn’t really smokey or anything. Just brings campfire to mind somehow. I really like this kind of kick-in-the-pants bold breakfast black tea! Quite enjoyable :)

Backlog:

I love this Keemun. I think that this may be the best Keemun I’ve ever tasted. So good. Rich, smooth, delicious. Very little astringency, just a slight dryness toward the tail. Honeyed caramel drizzled over tree-ripened plums. Mmm!

I love this.

Sipdown! (27 | 40)

The oldest tea in my cupboard, circa November of 2018.

It’s nice, as Assam goes, with pronounced raisin and brown sugar notes and a rich flavor. I’m just not an Assam drinker, so that’s why this has been sitting around and gathering dust for nearly 6 years. Lately I haven’t been drinking a lot of plain black teas at all, but when I do, I’m always going to reach for a Chinese or Taiwanese variety.

But what a pretty tin!

Another Damn Fine Tea in my cup this morning!

I think this is the only straight Indian black tea I own, just because I tend to favor Chinese and Taiwanese varieties. In my experience, Indian teas have a tendency to be more bitter and astringent, whereas Chinese ones take steeping abuse quite well with nary a peep.

But this is one yummy tea! So malty with lovely raisin and tobacco notes, just what I would hope for from an Assam tea. There’s some lovely baked bread and oak here as well, giving a nice bottom note to the flavor. I do get a bit of astringency, but it’s fairly mild, and there is no bitterness at all.

Did I mention the leaf is gorgeous? Dark and twisty with little pops of bright gold, sort of like a reverse tiger if you will. And don’t even get me started on the tin…

I got this one in a swap with TeaTiff. I’m always willing to try another Damn Fine Tea! The leaves of this one are long and thin, and mostly dark with a few golden spots. I didn’t get much of a dry scent off of it, which I find is rather common with straight blacks.

Once steeped, it has a lovely raisin aroma with some bread and caramelized brown sugar notes. The taste is also strongly raisin, which I love. There’s also a rich caramelized brown sugar note that blends beautifully with the raisin. Near the end of the sip, there’s the slightest hint of an earthy flavor, but it’s mild enough to be inoffensive. Overall, this one is very tasty and not what I expected!

I thought this would be very interesting as I am a fan of Oktoberfest. I really enjoyed the earthy pu-er like fragrance from the leaves and the malty flavors that developed right away. I tried to steep the tea a little longer than recommended and taste it a few times as it developed. The malty flavor definitely is up front early on and melds into the background as the black tea qualities emerge and take center stage. Overall a nice blend and worth enjoying on a nice fall day.

Good Heavens!!!!
This is why I am in the Steepster Select Club!!!!! This tea is really good and it is not one I would have tried on my own.
Delicious Delicious, well balanced, so good.
Dry leaves smell very smoky like a Lapsang, tangy BBQ smell but stick with it, it’s going to fool you.
Liquor is a deep auburn color with lots of orange to it, perfect for Oktoberfest!!
Smells very sweet and the wet leaves are multicolored just like fall colored leaves.
I poured my tea into a small white tea cup and saucer and the liquor is so orange now in my cup.
I let the tea cool a bit to really get the flavors. This is so good. It is naturally sweet and could take a touch of milk if you wanted but I wouldn’t add sugar. But it doesn’t need either.
This tea is so enjoyable that I really just got the tasting note of delicious bc it had so many enjoyable notes that came together and at one point I added a drop of milk and it was creamy heaven.
They weren’t lying, this is damn fine tea!!!!

From the Steepster Select Box; October, 2014

I started my morning with a plate of homegrown turnip & shallot hash browns (yeah, you can make hash browns out of any root veggie), topped with eggs & a couple slices of bacon. I wanted something potent & gutsy, and this was the perfect match. I’m surprised I still have some of this, and I need to start drinking it more often!

This tea was the perfect accompaniment to my hearty breakfast of leftover beef stew.

My 3000th tasting note!

Damn this tea is good!
I love a lot of different full leave single origin type teas, but admittedly, I also love a good blend, something that combines the best qualities of 2 or more teas into one cup. I’ve been a fan of A & D ever since I tried my first cup of Tiger Assam, & I never miss picking up a can of whatever their latest combo is. This one takes the cake, as far as I’m concerned.

Let me get something straight. We’re not talking about refinement here, we’re not talking chocolate, pastry, & cream. We’re talking bold & brash, leather & leiderhosen clad manly men with full beards, hoisting goliath sized ornate ceramic steins, dripping with artisanal beer. As soon as I opened the can, I could smell hops & malt, with brats on the grill, & I can swear I heard an oom pah pah brass band playing in the distance.

This tea is savory & bold, & although the initial aroma portends smokiness, the taste isn’t that apparent. To me its heavy on the malt, slightly bitter like hops, leathery, chewy & a little sour like thick old world rye bread, & I warn you, it packs a serious punch!
Don’t drink on an empty stomach!

And of course, I love the little presents the A & D boys always include. This box came with a cute little German style rubber ducky. :)

Thank you Boychik for this sample. While I find this an enjoyable tea, it is a little too malty for my tastes. It is good though. It’s not incredibly malty, just too malty for me. I followed their brewing guidelines exactly so I don’t think I brewed it wrong. There is a little sweetness behind the malt too. As I drink the cup I notice just a little bitterness. This makes me wonder if it would be better brewed at 190 degrees? This tea was definitely worth trying.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 6g leaf and boiling water for 3 min.

Backlog:

I bought this on Canada Day because they were offering free shipping for Canada and even though I’m not in Canada, I got nervous because it was down to only a very precious few tins left of the tea and I worried that if I waited until the 4th of July when they offer free shipping to us here in the US that I’d miss out on this. As it turned out, they didn’t sell out of this one until after the 4th, so I would have been safe but I didn’t want to miss it!

Anyway … it’s a lovely Yunnan!

Molasses-y and caramel-y. So beautifully sweet! A hearty, robust tea. Warm, earthy, notes of leather. A truly wonderful tea, I’m glad I go this one.

I love this tea, tin is gorgeous and a little rubber ducky is cutie.
It is the best of both worlds – Indian and Chinese teas. Bold, malty ,a little spicy, some smoke(pleasant, not harsh, and mostly dry leaves). It’s very balanced and once brewed very easy to drink (for me). Perfect blend.
people who dont really like smoky teas should not be afraid. its not that noticeable while you drink it. And you can always add some little maple syrup to bring it to a different level.
I have in the same family Two Tigers by DevoTea(discontinued). Love them both!

http://instagram.com/p/tvrnQ4BwrX/

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Thank you Boychik for this sample. This tea was pretty good. I was not sure if I would like it but I did. It was not too strong or too smoky. It had a strong smoky character and second unexpected character behind that, a nice sweetness. I might eventually buy this one.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 6g leaf and boiling water for 4 min.

This is my last cup of this tea. I am so sad to see this one go. It has been a solid breakfast tea for me. In other news. There is free shipping at A&D today. To buy just tiger Assam or to buy a 3 pack with doubled knitted blend and red checkered flag. That is the question.