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ashmanra’s Sipdown Challenge – “A breakfast tea”

I don’t have a lot of breakfast blend-style teas in my cupboard (though I do have a couple of teas with “breakfast” in the name), so I figured this was a good time to pull out this tea from Andrews & Dunham that I bought at the end of last year and hadn’t yet tried.

I have to say, I think this is my least favorite of the teas I’ve tried from them. Not that it’s bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it does taste a bit like a generic Sri Lankan tea to me. It’s actually not Sri Lankan, it’s from Iyerpadi Estate in Nilgiri. It does have a bit more depth to it than a Lipton-style tea, but is still quite metallic with hints of bread and hay and a somewhat astringent finish.

So not a favorite for me, but still happy to have it because of the gorgeously graphic tin. Eventually I might try drinking through this one with milk and sugar in the cooler months.

ah, yes. I love finishing off A&D tins, it always feels like an accomplishment. especially for this one, because it seems like this has been hiding in the cupboard for at least five forevers, popping out only occasionally and then hiding again. this is not my favourite tea from A&D, it’s brisk and bready and easy to drink, but it’s also just kinda meh. I’m glad that I had this for five forevers, but I’m also glad that it is gone.

Percy-cat update: I finally took her to the vet a couple of weeks ago and she chonky! I think of her as a baby and this is a MISTAKE, bc I feel that she is tiny and I’ve had to put her on a diet…and have felt so bad because she MEOWS at me and looks at me with her big eyes and I end up giving her more food bc I’m weak. her meowing is a big deal, because she usually just….gurgles? chirps? she makes weird noises that I sometimes don’t think are cat noises, but when she’s hungry she meows and I say ‘wow, Percy, you are a cat!’ and then she tries to trip me. rude. I’m in the process of switching her food, so that maybe that helps.

Pretty unbelievable that this has no notes yet.

I got a little derailed from my “try everything in the cupboard once and write a note about it” project yesterday. I was feeling pretty drained and washed out so I only made it through two black teas. I’m feeling a little better today so we’ll see how far I get.

Anyway, A&D has cute descriptions of their teas but they are more artistic than functional. This one, for example, doesn’t say what sort of Indian black tea it is or whether it is a blend. The leaves look more like Nilgiri leaves to me than anything else, though I suppose they could be Ceylon. The flavor is bready with a bit of throat grab like Assam. Maybe it is a mix. I can usually tell Ceylon by its color after steeping, but yesterday a Ceylon blend that didn’t have the color baffled me so who knows.

The leaves do smell a little like the Double Knit Blend leaves, a sort of earthy smell with a muted sharp note. Which argues for Ceylon, since that was what was in Double Knit.

The tea has a bready smell after steeping and is a clear, dark amber.

It has a mild flavor, which is surprising. I expected something rocket-fuel-strong from the extended racing metaphor. It is medium-light bodied and a bit brisk.

It’s the kind of Indian tea/blend that makes you think of “tea” as the flavor. That sort of classic, essential tea-ness that those of us who grew up with Lipton as the only choice associate with tea. It has a slightly sweet aftertaste.

It’s much more flavorful than Lipton tea bags. It’s as though someone took that flavor and photoshopped it into something enhanced.

It’s very good, but it doesn’t send me into the stratosphere like yesterday’s blends with China blacks in them.