Big Ben

Backlog from Wednesday. I’ve been visiting a friend in New York for Thanksgiving break and I had this tea at a bakery while eating the original cronut. The tea was very smooth but a bit weaker than I expected. It may also be because the water didn’t seem hot enough. Anyway, a lovely surprise of a tea to accompany my first cronut!

Ok, I’m on a quest for my perfect morning tea. I have replaced all my tea consumption from bags to loose leaf, EXCEPT for my morning tea. I have teabags (black) from a local company that I have been drinking in the morning. It’s not amazing, but it’s decent. For some reason, till now I have not wanted to change that.

Maybe, as I try and taste more types of teas, I am have slowly become a tea snob, because suddenly that morning teabag seems inadequate.

Thus I have embarked on the journey to find loose leaf replacements. For my first stop, I turned to my local (and only) tea shop and purchased a variety of blacks. They don’t sell samples which is a pity as i would have purchased even more. However I am saving on international shipping, so it is, maybe, still worthwhile. Now I have several 50g pouches of black tea to try. I am going to try each for a week.

This is the first tea I have tried. It’s an assam/yunnan blend, which I have never had before. I like yunnan and it’s sweet honey flavor. This shop has a Yunnan Imperial tea that is outstanding. It it one of my favorites. However, this blend is heavy on the yunnan and lighter on the assam, resulting in a tea that is deliciously sweet, but not suitable for morning, when I need a stronger eye-opening tea. It’s like a lighter, slightly maltier yunnan.

This tea is good, but not strong enough for the morning, but I might keep some hand for afternoons.

Completely inoffensive. If someone asked for “tea” and didn’t stipulate any further, they’d probably enjoy this very much.

It doesn’t have the early-morning punch I was sort of expecting, but is well rounded with light fruity notes, and would be good just about any time that caffeine isn’t a concern.

June Sipdown Challenge – June 28th: Cream Tea Day

I had hoped Ashman could join me for this but he had to work late. This is one of the samples my friend got in her PdT order and she passed it on to me since she doesn’t really drink black tea anymore.

A British blend seemed just the thing for Cream Tea Day, and while I couldn’t have a fancy Cream Tea in a fancy tea house, I did set out some frozen Cream Puffs to thaw to go with this.

I was surprised it is a blend of just Assam and Yunnan tea because I felt like it had lots of the fruity high notes I get from Ceylon teas. The Assam didn’t have a big bite, and I drank this with no milk or sugar and found it very palatable for the pairing.

It is what it says – more or less an English style tea that could take milk and sugar if you wanted but is also drinkable without. It is not as strong as a builder’s tea and doesn’t have the bass notes I find in many Keemun teas that are billed for breakfast. It served well for an afternoon tea time, and maybe reminded me just a tad of Brigadoon. It is strong enough for me for breakfast, but I don’t need caffeine to get me going so it might not be strong enough for everyone as a kick start tea.

This is probably the best Palais des Thes I’ve had yet, but the bar is fairly low here. Big Ben is a bog standard Assam/Yunnan blend English Breakfast tea. It has a nice smooth body with malty notes and little astringency, no bitterness. If you like a proper bracing cuppa, this is not for you as it brews relatively weak, as most PdT I’ve had.

It’s a perfectly serviceable if weak English Breakfast blend, but these are everywhere and this one is not particularly outstanding. It’s a fine all around blend that tastes like many other teas of half the price. However, the overall quality is good and it’s attractively packaged in a muslin teabag, so might be good for a non-controversial tea gift.

2022 Palais des Thés Advent Calendar

Palais des Thés Advent Calendar – Day 2

Loving this tea. It is such a good black tea heavy on Yunnan, no bitterness, complements sweetness, absolutely adore it. May be a little light for a strong black morning tea but for me it’s very pleasant and enjoyable. I don’t like overly heavy english breakfast that has bitterness or hard astringency, so for me it works well.

Palais des Thés Advent Calendar – Day 8

I’m drinking this in the evening, because I was busy all day. Went to see our house (we’re moving in on the 27th), then went to lunch and, after that, a brewery. So I’m pooped, partially from all the hubbub and partially from drinking too much beer…

This is fairly light for a breakfast blend. I get the feeling that there’s more Yunnan here than Assam, because it tastes somewhat earthy but very smooth with some notes of bread and sweet potato. I don’t really get the briskness and raisin notes that I associate with Assam. Maybe there’s a little bit of raisin in the finish if I really look for it? But there’s zero bitterness or astringency here. There is a nice dollop of sweetness throughout the sip.

It’s perfectly tasty, not really a breakfast blend though in my opinion.

This needs a little more oomph to be a first thing in the morning tea. However, it’s a nice smooth option for midmorning or lunch. It’s both lightly malty and lightly sweet tasting (not sugary, just tea sweet).

Not strong enough for a breakfast tea by my standards, it’s still a more than decent tea for lunch or even an early afternoon tea.