Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea

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This is a really well balanced blend. It’s not anyone of the three. Light, fruity, touch of astringency but thick mouth feel and tons of flavor. Really like this one.

I rarely try blends, can’t get my head around some of the single varietals let alone a blend. This was my sip down for this morning, reaching far in the back of the cupboard and dragging out the days winner. And what a winner it is. Lots of flavors on the tongue, smoke, leather, tobacco, pie crust, and a hint of citrus. Blew my mind. This tea blend, if it becomes available again, is the perfect gift for my close knit tea friends as well as myself.

Backlog from last night.

This was something I sampled from the GCTTB4. Thank you Lala for putting it in!

This was my very first A&D tea, and I could tell from the smell of the tea as it was steeping that this was very high quality. It had that raisin spice note I find I really enjoy in black teas.

However, I did not pay much attention to this tea as it was steeping, and I oversteeped it. It wasn’t astringent, but the flavour was a bit deadened and heavy – no subtlety or layering to it. I really would like to try this again at some point, maybe with a bit of brown sugar.

I’m enjoying a pot of this with my breakfast, & it really is a nicely balanced blend: honey sweet, malty, a little tart plum in the aftertaste. It’s not particularly bold, but also not brash. It reminds me of a perfectly crusted loaf of honey wheat bread, and it almost feels like it has cream in it. There’s a beautiful thickness building on my tongue, and this might be my new favorite tea blend. It’s been in my cupboard since xmas time, unreviewed & barely opened, but I have a feeling that is getting ready to change :)

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When they say this tea is bright – they are NOT KIDDING! Sweet, smooth, fruity and malty. As the cup cooled the fruit notes became even more pronounced. Delicious! Another Damn Fine tea!

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I’m drinking this one to start my day off. Considering that it’s from A&D I was expecting this to be a lot stronger and maltier than it actually is. What I picked up on in the first cup was a bright fruitiness. I’m on the second cup now, and some bread and honey notes are showing up. I’m not getting the cocoa notes, though. Still, it’s a tasty start to the day.

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Starting my morning with a big ole mug of this one. This is some goooood stuff! So, yeah, really happy that I got to try it, BUT really sad that I didn’t get any :( I missed out on some awesome tea. I really hope they bring this one back.

Malty, sweet, smoked leather. Sound tasty? It is!

I’ve been away from Steepster for a while ! Much on my blog and on a local website about tea where I can express myself in my mother tongue but I missed you all so here I am !

This lovely tea came from Nicole , I was looking for yunnans and she kindly sent me some including that one.

This is a very special tea : a lot of personnality ,tobacco, malt , cocoa and so mellow. For me it is maybe a little too much smocky – tobacco notes are not among my favourites in tea. But I have to recognize it has a lot of personnality and qualities.
This is for sure a great tea, maybe just not 100% for my taste.

Pics of my session with this tea are available here : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/yunnan-gold-tips-chinese-new-year-2014-andrews-dunham-damn-fine-tea/

Am so glad on this first cup that I grabbed this at the Coffee&Tea Fest.

Dark, red rust, greens underneath, round and full in the mouth. The browns are on the medium and lighter sides at the top half and roof of the mouth. Tiniest pinpoint of black in the front of me. Richer red over the top and sides wrapped around rather than sitting on or touching.

The greens, browns, that pin prick of black, all of them are behind and supporting the rust flavor. Rich and full, yes.

Mouthfeel is round.

Glad to buy it.

I’ve had this tea for quite some time, and I finally cracked the tin open a few days ago. What was I waiting for? Delicious! I find this malty, grainy and fruity. Somebody asked if I find this a little salty, which intrigued me. I kept looking for it, but, no. I think it would have been interesting paired with the graininess that I picked up on.

Thanks so much for the sample Sil. I was painfully curious about this one!

This tea opens with a slightly tart cherry- or raisin-like flavor. It’s not astringent or bitter at all, but it’s followed with a mouth puckering dryness like wine. I’ve never had such a smooth Assam. It’s sweet and there’s a certain earthy, brown sugar flavor lurking in the background. I’m not getting much cocoa but there is a substantial maltiness that coats the mouth. Maybe I’m crazy, but I feel like I’m getting a little bit of nuttiness, like praline. It’s faint enough for me to doubt my judgment. This is a good, bold tea for breakfast without the briskness or bitter punch that some other breakfast teas have. I can’t justify buying 4oz at a time, though, so I’ll just have to enjoy my sample while it’s around. (:

Received a small sample of this in my Steepster select box a month or two back, and waited to try it until yesterday. As a German-American, I felt really put off by Andrews & Dunham’s asinine marketing that surrounds this tea (as well as all their other teas) so I missed out on a pretty good blend.

Assertive and bold. The sample I had was mostly Indian Assam, with no smoke detectable. Tannin and malt dominate. Very pleasant, but definitely lacking the smokiness which would have added character. I blame this on the small size sample packaged by Steepster who probably didn’t think to blend the tea before packaging. But that is a rant for a different post.

MmmMmmMm. Malty, bold and fruity. Slight woody note, but all in all really nice.

Another great sample from Sil!

This is really tasty. Dark chocolate, barley, malt, a hint of smoke, rich dried fruits – sweet and pleasantly bitter. Super smooth.

Initially I found this lacking in a full mouth flavour, but everything intensified and got more well rounded as the cup cooled.

Different from my usual Qimen, and I’m thinking that I need to make a point of trying more.

This is my first tea from A&D — I remember having had a sample of the Carävan blend years ago but never getting around to trying it. I’m excited to try this one as it’s advertised as being great with cookies! Although I don’t have a cookie here in front of me, I do have some cooling at the moment.

The scent of this tea smells really tasty… I detect hints of lemon and milk. It reminds me a bit of a solid breakfast blend with additions added by the drinker. Sipping… mmm I love how smooth this tea is.. It has floral and citrus layers and notes of milk. Delicious!

I’m happy to have grabbed a tin before it was discontinued.

Sipdown (118)!

Thanks again Stephanie for the sample. Finishing off the last few sips now; I enjoyed drinking it alongside supper which, tonight, was a blueberry bagel sandwich with maple cheddar, vegetarian slices of ham and spinach. Mmm! Not gonna lie; I could totally go for another one right now…

Last time I had this one I didn’t pay very much attention to it, so I’m making sure to do so now so that I actually learn something from it, and requesting it from Stephanie wont be in vain.

Most of it I drank hot, but it’s totally cooled off now and I’m kind of liking it cold better than I did hot. Hot, I found there was a bit of dryness from the tea, and it was maybe a little too brisk and smokey. Now that it’s cooled I feel like I’m enjoying it more as well as noticing more of the contributing flavours. It’s still smokey, but there are also a lot of bread notes – I agree with Cameron B.’s review quite a bit; it’s like whole wheat in a way. Actually, I currently have a whole wheat and flax seed bread in my kitchen from our in store bakery – and it’s reminding me of that in particular.

Other things I noticed besides the smoke and bread flavours were a very faint cocoa flavour and a fruit note that is probably the thing in the blend that agrees with me the least. I was having problems identifying it until reading Cam’s review – she called it raisin like and that’s exactly it. No wonder it’s not agreeing with me; raisins are usually a big ‘nope’ for me – in tea and outside of it.

But other than the raisin taste, this isn’t terrible just not astounding either. I still want to continue to explore some more Keemuns – but I am kind of seeing a pattern forming already. When I had WP’s Pine Peak Keemun I also described it as bready (though that one tasted more like Rye to me) with cocoa and raisin notes and overall it wasn’t something I was a big fan of. If these are the more common and natural flavour notes in Keemun (which I believe, with the addition of smoke, they kinda are) perhaps it’s just not my kind of tea?

It could be nice ruling out a whole ‘class’ of tea; it’d save me money exploring it. I still have the Keemun from Amoda to drink though – so no rash decisions yet.

So this is a sample I got from Stephanie.

It is a tea…

I drank it. Umm, I forgot to write anything down and I recall absolutely nothing except that I kinda liked it. But really; I couldn’t tell you anything about what it tasted like. Whoops. But thankfully I’ve got enough for another cup, which I will most definitely actually pay attention to next time!

Sucks though; ‘cause the whole point of my requesting this one was that I wanted to explore more straight Keemun’s since I feel like I’ve tried so few plain ones. Straight assams are much more my jam…

Kinda bummed I didn’t write any tasting notes yesterday; the “word of the day” was a really fun one – Scuttlebutt (rumor/gossip). I really wanted to share it – which I guess I’m doing now, but it feels a little like I’m cheating? The word of the day is outdated! I can’t think of why you’d use this one instead of rumor though – unless, like me, you just really like saying it.

Anyway; the “actual” word of the day today is trajectory which is “The curve that an object travels along through space (such as a bullet, a rocket or a planet in its orbit)”. Not nearly as fun a word though, in my opinion.

Finished off the last of my sample by oversteeping it. Result? Still excellent and not astringent. Definitely recommending this tea and adding it to my future purchase list.

Full review from this past Tuesday, here: http://www.createwritedrink.com/2015/02/tea-review-tuesday-review-of-andrews.html

This is the first tea I’ve tried out of the box Terri so generously sent me! I can’t get over how much she sent me-it’s crazy. If you see this, Terri, thank you soo much again! I’m so excited to try them all! :D
Been wanting to try this one for a while, and lemme say, I was not disappointed!
I had a feeling that it would taste like wood because feels like half the teas everyone adores on here taste like wood to me. xD
But it didn’t! Like not at all! :O
It was mainly malty. With kinda a faint apricot note in it. Wasn’t really a sweet malty. It was more of a bold, rich malty flavor. Really enjoyed this one!
Will have to consider picking this one up. Got enough of this tea for a few more cups so I have time to make up my mind!
Thank you for the generous sample, Terri!!

sniffle
Made the last of this today. Had it hot as a latte in the morning, and made Lebanese Tea (iced tea with lemon and rosewater) for lunch. I will miss this!

I know, I know, I should drink my teas faster than this :D It’s over a year old, but still tastes good. Still have about half a tin to go! It’s lightly smoky/malty, and very enjoyable for my Sunday morning pot of tea.