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Anlina drank Prince of Wales by Metropolitan Tea Company

894 tasting notes

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting from this tea. This is my first cup and I just grabbed the first thing out of my box of blacks that I hadn’t tried before. I had assumed that this was a straight black blend, but when I got the cup steeped, lo and behold, there was a lot of bright green leaf in there.

Initial impressions on the nose were a lot of malt and fruit, which is borne out on the palette. Nice, round malty flavour, a touch of vegetal and lots of distinct black currant.

Black currant is one of my favourite fruits, but I never like it in tea as much as I feel like I should. I drank the first few sips of this straight, and then something about the black currant flavour was bugging me, so I added some milk and sugar, which has made it a much more enjoyable cup to sip in the morning.

I’m not in love with this, but I’ll definitely drink it again, and experiment with steeping it more like a green, though with steeping it like a black there was no astringency or bitterness.

Flavors: Black Currant, Fruity, Malt, Vegetal

Preparation

205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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Bio

I grew up drinking jasmine green tea with meals, but really fell in love with tea on a trip to Britain in elementary school. My first great love was Earl Grey, and I still adore it and all its variants.

I discovered the beauty of loose leaf tea much later, when, on impulse, I picked up a few teas that were on clearance at a home store. My introduction to loose leaf teas were Masala Chai and Provence Rooibos by the Metropolitan Tea Co and an unknown brand of kukicha and gyokuro (little did I know what a precious treasure I’d stumbled onto with that.)

At the time I was lucky to live in a place with multiple tea shops and several places to have afternoon tea, which is a delight I still miss.

Tea is part of my daily ritual and a nice, affordable way to appease the collector in me.

I enjoy distinctive whites, greens and oolongs, flavoured blacks, and herbals that are heavy on the citrus, lavender or mint.

Rating rubric, to give myself some consistency:
0-15 Yuck, not even drinkable.
16-30 Disappointing, not really inclined to give it a second try.
31-45 Disappointing, but maybe there’s potential? Worth one more try, prepped differently.
46-60 Mediocre, not terrible but not memorable.
61-75 Not bad. I’ll definitely finish what I have and might buy again.
76-90 Very enjoyable. Tasty, complex, it’ll keep me coming back.
91-100 BEST! I love everything about it and I will drink it forever.

Beyond tea, I’m a sex educator, polyamory activist, and radical queer. I love backwoods camping, abstract painting, baking & cooking, nail polish, cats, ceramic sculpture, and home nesting.

Location

Winnipeg, MB, Canada

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