I was in the mood for a Taiwanese black tea this morning, and this was the first one I saw, so here we are! This sample is from Blodeuyn. The leaves are beautiful and have that gnarled, twisty Taiwanese Assam style. They’re very dark in color, almost black. Dry, they smell surprisingly strongly of molasses, and there’s also some sweetness and malt. I used a teaspoon (roughly, these teas are difficult to measure!) of leaf and let it steep for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.
Once brewed, the tea’s aroma is grainy sourdough bread with lots of dried fruit and some caramelized sugar/molasses tones. The taste is very similar. There’s a combination of tangy sourdough and soft homemade wheat breads, along with a fair amount of malt. The molasses seems to have lightened itself into honey, but definitely a stronger raw honey. I must confess, it took me far too long to identify the dried fruit that I was tasting, and then I felt like a complete dope for not thinking of it sooner… It’s definitely dried apricots, and I can say maybe there’s a hint of a second fruit – a mild and sweet one like golden raisin or fig. Overall, a very delicious tea for the morning!
Flavors: Apricot, Bread, Burnt Sugar, Dried Fruit, Honey, Malt
