Sinharaja

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #18:
I actually grabbed this this morning for my morning cup, but apparently I hadn’t washed out my mug quite thoroughly enough after “enjoying” Twinings Blackcurrant, Vanilla and Ginseng tea (one that I was too lazy to tealog, especially since I’d have to add it to the database first. For the curious, it was actually quite pleasant but I let it steep too long and the nice currant taste turned into a weird vegetal blargness) for lunch yesterday. So what I actually got was mostly black currant with a tinge of “generic black tea” underneath. Now the combination was actually quite tasty and has given me a pretty awesome idea for iced tea, but it was hardly fair to the Sinharaja.

Naturally, I made a second cup this afternoon (taking care to clean out my mug thoroughly this time), and I have to say that I’m glad I took the trouble, because this is some pretty great tea. Now, I’m not always able to differentiate between just straight black teas unless they are pretty aggressively different, but for some reason I don’t have that problem here. This has character but it doesn’t overwhelm, it’s…quietly confident, to anthropomorphize a bit. It has a noticeable but not overpowering malty note as well as a separate underlying sweetness, and a surprisingly rich overriding tea taste.

I may need to get more of this.

Received this is a swap with Alphakitty last month. I’ve been saving this for when I can taste things fully again since my last allergy appointment. It’d seem wasteful to have a cup if I couldn’t get the full experience…

Brewed up a heaping 1.5 tsp in 8 ounces of water.

This turned out to be pretty tasty as a basic black tea. I liked that it wasn’t weak – there was a nice robustness to it. Didn’t get any fruitiness, at least from what I could tell. It did taste nice and round, if that makes any sense… No bitterness even with a 5 minute steep.

It wasn’t any better with the addition of rock sugar and I wasn’t about to put any creamer into it. I’m not sure if it would have tasted any better cooled, which is sayin’ something – I drank it pretty quick hot! :)

I’d definitely drink this again should the opportunity present itself.

Basically I’ve been living on Sinharaja. It provides me a warm, comforting cup of tea that says, “It’ll be ok. The words will come” as I work through NaNo. It’s not that I don’t want to drink other teas. It’s that this one is easy on the tongue and easy on the mind. I don’t have to worry about temperatures or time and that leaves my mind available for writing.

The aroma is pretty basic black tea, to me. The flavour is pretty similar, although it tastes a little extra toasted, which is kind of nice. No astringency, which is great, but it seems that black teas require cocoa notes in order for me to enjoy them straight, and I’m not getting those here. Or barely (I can imagine them being present; it fits with the extra roasty flavour profile). Thank you for passing along a sample so I could satisfy my curiousity, Alphakitty!

I liked this so much, I bought a pound of it when Golden Moon had a sale. I drink it 2-3 times weekly now. It’s one of my favorite morning black teas, and it has a reliable, pleasant flavor. See previous note.

Hi, I’m supposed to be doing something else…

I thought a while ago that I had finished off the generous gift Doulton sent me a little while ago, but then I found this one in my basket. So forgotten and overlooked, the poor little thing.

The label says something about a caramelised finish, molasses character and ripe berry notes. That certainly sounds interesting. I’m a little concerned about the molasses there, as it sounds like something that might get a little overpowering.

It smells nice though. Berries. Check. Molasses. Check. Especially the latter.

It’s certainly very smooth and not as sweet as I had initially thought it would be. The molasses is sort of hovering at the top of the flavour near the palate, making the mouth feel sort of nice and round, if you know what I mean.

On the sides, branching out into the cheeks I get the berry notes. As with the aroma I can’t really tell what berries they are, but they are definitely berry-y.

Finish? Not really very caramel-y, I think. Not obvious caramelisation, I’d say, much more subtle-like. It comes out if I take bigger sips though.

Perhaps it can be brought out more. GM suggests adding a touch of sugar (and cream, but I’m violently opposed to cream in tea. Milk. Always milk. Cream is for coffee), so I tried that. I don’t really count that as much of a success. The caramel-y molasses-y notes are too obvious now. I liked it better before.

I’m not completely blown away by this, but it’s indeed one that ranks pretty high for me. If GM was a company available to me, I would consider a purchase. It isn’t, though, and on the other hand it’s not one that I feel I so desperately need to own that I find it necessary to involve anybody in helping me. Maybe if in the future I found another of their offerings that I also really wanted, I might do that, but not for the sake of just one tea that I could substitute with Kusmi’s Caramel which is also quite lovely.

Since this was featured on Steepster Select yesterday, I figured today was the day to give it a try. You can see pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauren_pressley/tags/sinharaja/show/

It’s an amazing tea for a ceylon… which seems to be the consensus. I’ve been less and less interested in ceylons lately (probably because a decaf ceylon is the base of most of the tea I’ve been drinking, and all of that is less than inspiring). However, this might bring me back. It was a bit sweeter than I would have expected, and I got almost a floral note. That floral quality could have come from the raisins I had just before hand, though. :)

So, a solid tea. Not one of the Golden Moons going on my shopping list, but one I’m going to keep in mind in case I want to stock up on some ceylon!

This is the tea we started off with this morning.

I find it malty and almost creamy. I almost feel like someone dropped a pinch of Bailin gong fu in my pot while it was steeping. I definitely get a grainy taste in here. While the tea fairies were dropping other teas in here, I’m pretty sure that they dropped some grapes in here as well. White grapes. There is a sweet flavor that reminds me of white grape juice. It’s not a tangy sweet, more like sugar. Not a bad way to start my Sunday morning.

It’s creamy and caramely-like…a bit malty…a beautiful reddish brown. I can taste the toastiness as well. It’s quite strong and full the more I sip. The taste lingers for awhile after the sip has passed and seems to keep me warm and fuzzy all over…lol…

So it’s probably too late to be drinking black tea, but oh well! I don’t get to bed until painfully late anyway and I just got this in the mail and was dying to crack it open. I’ve had it before (in that damned free sampler they suck you in with) and knew I’d definitely have to make a purchase in the near future.

Ceylon definitely isn’t my favorite variety of black. It’s good as a base for flavored blends, but overall it doesn’t really have a strong enough taste to make me crave it on its own. Well, obviously this one is different—it’s very complex with notes of molasses, honey, caramel and chocolate. Yup, a lot of dessert-like undertones, which I love! I sometimes find dessert teas overpowering, with the flavors a bit heavy-handed, so this is like a very very light version of a dessert blend for me. I don’t really get the berry notes they claim it to have but I don’t like fruity teas a whole lot so I am certainly not going to complain! It’s also got a nice astringency and is very smooth and strong—not strong enough to really wake you up in the morning, but it’s a perfect “curled up in bed reading a book all afternoon” tea.