Mountain Malt

Delicious and in-vig-or-a-ting! Wheeee! I think it is called Mountain Malt because it is so strong that when you are finished your cup, you truly believe you have enough energy to climb a mountain ;) I love the bready malty flavor with the underlying earthiness. I really, really love the strength on days like today when I will be going, going, going til 9pm!

You may have noticed that I took the rating off of this tea. I have recently read a book about wine called Liquid Memory by Jonathan Nossiter. It has really made me think about a bunch of things, not just wine. One of them is numerical rating systems.

Warning! This is going to be long! :)

Of course one has to distinguish between classifying wines – expressing hierarchies of preference – and scoring them. There is a profound difference between the admirably restrained critic Michael Broadbent’s purposefully malleable five star rating and a pseudo precise one hundred point scoring system. …These stars are explicitly variable and general and he insists that the expression of preference is dependent on the precise circumstances that the wine was tasted in …

… The numerical point system inherently implies a mathematical certainty, whether out of twenty or one hundred points. However absurd, this ersatz scientificity is perfectly suited to a culture uneasy with the notion of informed critical judgement coexisting with ambiguity and complexity. This culture prefers specious absolutes, an infantile and incomprehensible language for which no real engagement is required and a falsely pedaled sense of democracy, the fatuous reassurance of pseudo facts and factoids. This has been true from the dominant political discourse since Reagan, across the globe’s television screens, right into the computers of the self appointed custodians of our wine culture.

… Consumers all over the world have now become accustomed to seek out “Parker 95 wines” or “Wine Spectator 90s” no longer sure of, or necessarily interested in, the wine’s origins, makers, or contexts. Parker, the Wine Spectator, and other “serial scorers” reassure people who are insecure about wine but who want to be “winners.” … Hence, there is a gradual inflation of 90 point wines, as the Christie’s director said about the contemporary art world, to increase the supply of winners and keep everybody in the game renumerated. Imagine: Matisse! 95 points! Chagall 99 points! Jeff Koons 100 points! … But poor old dirty, messy, edgy George Rouault wouldn’t get above a 75. To assign numbers to a wine, given that a wine is fully living and infinitely mutable, is almost as repugnant to me as assigning numerical worth to humans. (pgs 148-9)

You get the idea. Long story short – I’ve always been uneasy about my numerical ratings, and after reading this book I want to get rid of them! I am going to stop giving numerical ratings to teas, and as I drink teas that I have logged before, I am going to delete my numerical ratings.

I was debating putting this up in discussions, but I was afraid it may cause a ruckus – which is not my intent. I simply want to explain why I personally am not doing numerical ratings anymore. I’m going to link to this tea log in my profile so my explanation will be “public.”

I highly recommend this book, and Nossiter’s film Mondovino if you are interested in not only wine, but globalization, taste, culture, art…

This tea is just fantastic, the biscuit smell just makes my mouth water. The broken rolled leaves unfurl and steep into a bright amber tea. Its brisk, robust, and malty without being bitter but has the astringency of a very good assam tea. I’m trying to talk my wife into letting me buy a pound next time as my one ounce sample isn’t lasting very long.

I have lots of mint around my yard and some of it is looking stringy. My husband is begging me to get rid of it soo, mint iced tea is in order…. So, after experimenting, mountain malt turns out to be an excellent pair for the mint. The mountain malt, a bold and strong assam, is a perfect counter-point to the medicinal flavor of the fresh mint.

I love love love this tea. I love it so much that I think I am going to give up 1 of my 2 cups of coffee in the morning in favor of this so that I can drink it everyday. I love it more than Dawn tea. Dawn had this earthy/peaty flavor that I associate with manure (despite that, I still liked Dawn). This tea does not have as much of that flavor.

This tea is strong and bold but not bitter. It has a mild astringency to it that is not overwhelming. And it’s definitely malty. It’s a very well balanced tea.

I drank it first with just sugar and loved it. I decided that it could mellow just a bit so I added the world’s tiniest drop of soy creamer to it and that completed the balancing act. This is my favorite black tea. Did I mention that I love it?

The leaves in the package are small tight balls. Once brewed they open up to large leaves.

Brewed at boiling (for me at 195-197 F) for 3 min.

Surprise to me! Had a little bit of this left that had woodged down to the bottom of my “loose ends” packet. First sip just after steeping made me wonder if it’d lost its oomph, but it strengthened considerably after driving with me this morning.

Dark, just on the edge of a bitter bite, and a little grapey on the finish. Sticks to your tongue long after you’ve swallowed.

Here’s to “oh, I forgot I had that!” serendipi-tea.

Oh, this is a top tier Assam, for sure. Prepared as on the packet (1 tsp per 6 oz water, 3 min steep time) and taken with a bit of milk and sugar, it’s very smooth and not harsh at all. It has a rich mouthfeel and a rounded, robust flavor. As you’d expect, it’s quite malty, but there’s more than just that going on. I’m having a little trouble placing what exactly the more subtle flavors were – maybe some carrots – but my girlfriend said that she tasted some jasmine. She agreed that the tea tasted special; normally she prefers Chinese teas, but she really liked this one. This cup was a tiny bit weaker than I’d like, so I’ll let it steep another 30 seconds next time.

The funny thing about this tea is the aroma of the dry leaves – there’s surprisingly little! Most of the looseleaf teas I get sock me in the face when I open the packet, but not this one. It’s mild and pleasant. This is one of the few teas where the flavor beats out the smell of the leaves.

Overall this is one of the best Assams I’ve had, and probably top-5 among all black teas. It is a very satisfying tea.

Another single-sourced tea from The Simple Leaf, this one brews into a fragrant floral and musky liquor without much bitterness. It is really an excellent assam tea. I can’t really identify the notes, but it combines into a wonderful taste. It is supposedly malty, which is why I bought it. I’d hoped to learn what a malty taste was. But I can’t really find the malt well enough to educate my palate. Either way, it is a stellar morning tea.

Many thanks to Doulton for sending me this tea! I had some Simple Leaf teas on my wish list and before I could order, they closed. Oh the frustration of reading about an amazing tea and then finding that you can never ever have any!

Thanks to Doulton I will get to try a Simple Leaf tea!

I sniffed the dry leaves when I opened the pouch. There was not much aroma to the dry leaf, but they were very interesting leaves, pleasantly twisted and curled. The tea itself has a nice malty aroma. Malt smells like puppy feet to me, a scent I love! This is a light malt aroma, not too strong.

The tea tastes very good. I have had a few Assams that smack me in the face, especially CTC ones. This is a very civilized breakfast cup, slightly astringent but pleasantly so, flavorful enough to blast through the groggies, and smooth enough not to offend my delicate tummy.

I can’t wait to see how youngest likes it when she gets home from her slumber party with Sandy’s dogs, who have now seen every sci-fi movie made. She loves Irish breakfast teas, so I think this one will be right up her alley.

This is another sample from Kristin, for which I am grateful. :-)

I do not drink a lot of black tea, much less very many breakfast blends. So I can’t do too much with this tea comparatively. I can say that after the 3 minute steep, this cup is on the brink of being just a bit too astringent ~ but not quite. It is a big, bold, wake you up cup of tea, which as far as I understand it, is what breakfast blends are all about.

If nothing else, it goes perfectly with today’s dreary weather.

Brews up a medium orange color. Aroma of fresh biscuits. Robust mouth feel is almost chewy. Solid malty taste with a fruity sweet finish like grapes. Moderate astringency that is not overpowering.