This was a sample which Anna, very kindly and out of the blue sent me! She picked some things I am finding very interesting (Jardin Sauvage, am getting there, maybe I will cold brew it overnight).
This tea looked pretty familiar, it smelled familiar, and it is tasting familiar! I think there must be a blender somewhere selling it to independent tea shops across Europe, because I swear it is precisely the same as this one
http://steepster.com/teas/unknown/31433-chili-truffle
which I got 100 grams of in Lisbon a couple years ago. I am liking Anna´s sample a bit better than what i remembered, isn´t that perverse? But maybe my memory of my tea is of the last times I drank it when it was already more aged and less flavourful. I am finding the piquancy not quite as hot as I remember though, but I suspect my parameters for hot teas were recalibrated by (the glorious) Winter Fire.
So a chilli tea, with some chocolate underneath and a musk-like note which could be the pepper, but somehow reminds me of coriander seed (or am I just somehow associating with those swiss coriander filling chocolates they make for christmas? dunno ). A very interesting tea, which seems to pop over all of Europe.
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What a good review! And yes, I feel this has to be one of those generic German blends that are repackaged and resold all over Europe. Thank you so much for reviewing, I really needed some additional feedback on this one, as I felt maybe I wasn’t appreciating it enough.
My, extremely non-expert, opinion is that there is not a lot here to appreciate. It´s interesting for a few cups, but it´s just not balanced or deep. Deep seems a silly requirement for flavoured tea, so pretentious to speak of it, but I do not know how to put it better. The chili overpowers the rest, without being too much it is just more than the rest, and it is kinda of boring past the novelty, I let my cup go cold without finishing it. But might be prejudice though to familiarity!
It was fun to confirm how some generic german blends show up across Europe!
I’m inspired by that forum thread about repackaged blends. And yes, the lack of complexity and the less-than-stellar base teas smothered in overpowering, flat/shallow flavouring sum these teas up very well.
There are exceptions particularly for the teas available on these really old traditional tea shops ( which tend to be much simpler and more traditional flavours. or take your pick from 4 ceylons and 3 china greens and they will all be good and cheap), but these hipster-flavoured teas, usually they are not very good.
Hahaha, ‘hipster-flavoured teas’. Ewww.
What a good review! And yes, I feel this has to be one of those generic German blends that are repackaged and resold all over Europe. Thank you so much for reviewing, I really needed some additional feedback on this one, as I felt maybe I wasn’t appreciating it enough.
My, extremely non-expert, opinion is that there is not a lot here to appreciate. It´s interesting for a few cups, but it´s just not balanced or deep. Deep seems a silly requirement for flavoured tea, so pretentious to speak of it, but I do not know how to put it better. The chili overpowers the rest, without being too much it is just more than the rest, and it is kinda of boring past the novelty, I let my cup go cold without finishing it. But might be prejudice though to familiarity!
It was fun to confirm how some generic german blends show up across Europe!
I’m inspired by that forum thread about repackaged blends. And yes, the lack of complexity and the less-than-stellar base teas smothered in overpowering, flat/shallow flavouring sum these teas up very well.
There are exceptions particularly for the teas available on these really old traditional tea shops ( which tend to be much simpler and more traditional flavours. or take your pick from 4 ceylons and 3 china greens and they will all be good and cheap), but these hipster-flavoured teas, usually they are not very good.
Hahaha, ‘hipster-flavoured teas’. Ewww.