Marina K Send Message

Warm, toasty, nutty, a bit like barley. The umami is great. It has a seaweedy, fishy flavor to it as well. It reminds me of genmaicha, but better and roasty.

I was really excited to try this tea. Many people said how great of an earl grey it was. I have nothing against flavored teas as a general rule. At first it smelled kind of nice when I opened the bag. Creamy vanilla with a hint of citrus, okay.

But then I brewed it and tasted it, oh Lord. It was sickly, the “cream” tasted like some kind of sickly sweet chemical. I opened up my bag of Cream black tea to smell it and had the same experience. It made me nauseous. Sweetening it didn’t help to mask anything, nor did adding milk.

Nice Earl Grey. Very easy to oversteep so it goes bitter. Recently bought it and experimented with all kinds of steep times and with doubling up on the bags. I wouldn’t go above 2 minutes steep time unless you plan to add sugar or milk to it.

It has a very smokey, campfire taste. Maybe a bit too strong for me. No bitterness There was a strange metallic taste to it as well. I’ll try to mix it 50/50 with an Assam, maybe that will mask the metallic and mellow out the smoke. I don’t think it was due to the water because none of the other teas taste metallic to me.

Opening the bag, it has a very toasty, popcorny scent. Once I brewed it (2.5 grams, since the gram amount below rounds down to 2) , it had a slightly fishy and toasty aroma. The taste was similar, but milder, and more floral in the aftertaste. I’m thinking about increasing the amount for the next time. I also tried resteeping at near boiling water, for five minutes, and got the same taste and aroma.