Super Star Anise

English Tea Shop Advent Calendar: Days 3 & 9

A very sparse note because I drank this tea while doing schoolwork for my grad program early this morning and the details have faded from my memory after a fairly eventful day. (Had to go get a walk-in PCR test because my partner just tested positive for covid, agghhh. Then had to take my cat to the vet for a curbside appointment because she scratched herself on the face and got a fairly nasty wound… but apparently it looks worse than it is! Plus, y’know, I was working all day.)

Anyway, I mostly remember this tea being more generically spice-y than strong on the star anise. It was kind of similar to the Festive Spice blend from yesterday, come to think of it. Wholly unremarkable!

Procrastinating writing an essay by writing a tasting note for the first time in two years, apparently…

Bag left in while drinking. Nice malty black tea with very little astringency, slight hint of the spices with the star anise the most noticeable, followed by the cloves and then not much of the ginger except for a little warmth at the back of the throat. Take this with a pinch of salt though, I’m drinking through an advent calendar from last year so there’s a good chance the tea has just gotten old and lost flavour! (I will admit though, with some shame, that I have much older teas than this in my cupboard which still have much more flavour).

Anyway, I’m going to attempt to get on with my essay now and not get too too distracted! If I start writing dozens of tasting notes over the next few days, somebody please stage an intervention.

Edit: The more I drink, the more I feel like there is some mint coming through, though it’s not listed in the ingredients. Looking at English Tea Shop’s ‘Spicy Anise’, which looks very similar but lists mint, I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be the same blend but renamed for the ‘organic’ version.