Ceylon Black Tea - Extra Special Leaf

From the TTB.
I was feeling quite nostalgic, thinking about a past trip to Northern Ireland (and traveling in general), and decided to make a bowl of brown sugar steel cut oats topped with vanilla whiskey butter for breakfast. It’s definitely taking me back to my mornings in Belfast.
Thought this may be a nice compliment, and it’s quite meh. There’s a bit of a roasted quality, but’s it’s mostly just tannic and quite drying.

STTB Tea

Reading the reviews, this reminds me a lot of cherry (the real fruit, not the candy flavour). Oddly, I wouldn’t call the taste of the brew fruity. I found it dark, too tannic for my tastes, but complex. I found it bitter, not really my taste for black teas. There were mineral notes but not like roasted oolong mineral flavour. The dry leaf smells like cherry juice, which is neat. Not bad, but not really something I’d reach for if I had this in my cupboard.

Samurai Travelling Tea Box – Tea #23

As I mentioned in another tasting note from the TTB, I wanted to make sure I included some straight teas in what I sampled – this is new to me and sounded intriguing so here we are…

The leaf has an interesting visual appearance compared to a lot of commercial Ceylon blends that make it to the North American market – more open/flat and flaky leaves; quite brittle and delicate. I guess that’s what makes it “extra special leaf”. Without doing some digging, I’m not totally sure whether this is high/mid/low grown but my guess would be lower…

Steeped up Western style, it’s… nice?

There are no off notes to me, but it’s quite flat tasting and there’s no body to the cup either. The top of the note has some slight sweetness that reminds me very loosely of honeyed graham crackers, and that’s about where any interesting element of the tea stops for me. After the initial flavour passes, there is nothing to follow through – and the finish, while clean, is just kind of boring? No linger tastes or mouthfeel.

I’m thinking it’s probably low grown now, just because my experience is that low grown Ceylon black tea has less range of flavour (typically) and is the smoother/flatter taste as well. There’s no way that this could hold up to milk or cream, but the neutral flavour does make me think that maybe it could be repurposed as a tea base? There’s nothing here that would compete with whatever you wanted to layer over it – it just wouldn’t contribute either.

From the Samurai TTB.

I was a little bit on the fence about whether to try this one, since it didn’t really have much of an aroma. Also the mineral notes that Shanie O Maniac mentions in her note didn’t appeal to me much. But I woke up this morning and wanted a good black tea with breakfast so I decided to give it a go.

Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my breakfast fantasy. It’s not bold enough and there is something lacking in the flavor that I just can’t place. There is a roasted quality that’s interesting though – it reminds me of an oolong actually. Oolongs aren’t my favorite, so maybe that’s why I’m not digging this one so much.

So yeah, it’s not bad but it’s not great either. Still, it’s a bit of a caffeine boost to help get me going this morning, which I sorely needed.

Courtesy of tea-sipper. Thank you. :)

Ok, full disclosure. This tea was given to me as a free sample from ECT. Here is my honest review.

I was initially concerned upon opening the tea. The loose leaf had a strange smell to it, but I attributed it to my not being familiar with Ceylon Black tea. So I brewed it at the following parameters. 2.5 tsp for 16 oz water, boiling temp for 4:30 minutes.

Taste is… well it is certainly tea. I’m getting metallic undertones, but the base flavor is decent. I’m getting hints of cherries, tannin flavor, sweet potato, roasted notes, and something I can’t put my finger on. The more I drink it the more I like it. As it cools down, the metallic undertones are fading and it’s taking on a bold yet somewhat mellow flavor. Strong black tea flavor in this one. Hmm, overall, I would likely drink this again when I wanted a change from my traditional golden tips. It’s not bad. It’s not the best tea ever either, but not bad. I would rate it a solid B.