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Alrighty, time to give this tea a try. :D I got my sample size ready to go.

Just ripping open the small packet yielded a heady, chocolatey smell. Which was pretty exciting. :) It smells more like a sweet chocolate, rather than earthy dark chocolate like Laoshan Black.

As soon as the hot water poured in, I could see immediately what people meant about “hot rocks” or mineral, as that was my exact impression, still smelled pleasantly chocolately though, so not too worried. :)

As for taste, it’s actually more similar to Laoshan Black than I thought. The main differences are that it’s much less roasty, and it has that “hot rocks” flavor. Overall it’s naturally sweeter than Laoshan Black, though I’m not picking up on the caramel notes at all. Perhaps a little sugar would bring that out, but as I’ve gone two weeks without adding any sugar to any black teas, I’d rather not fall back into the habit.

Perhaps I’ll taste it more on a second infusion.

Overall, I’m really enjoying this. It’s so sweet I almost doubted myself for a moment and wondered if I put sugar in mindlessly, but I definitely didn’t. That said, since overall it’s still fairly similar to Laoshan Black, in the end I think I’d rather save myself the $1.25 per ounce and just opt for the other instead of this in future orders.

Still have my fingers crossed that the caramel will pop in second the infusion, oof.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 30 sec

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Bio

Hello! I’m a 24 year old Canadian, currently working at Starbucks while I figure out what I want to do with myself in life, haha.

Like most everyone else, I grew up with teabags, and then discovered the grass really WAS greener on the other side with loose leaf. Nowadays I drink nearly exclusively loose, but will drink a bagged tea if I don’t care what I’m having.

My favorite kind of tea is black, and unflavored, although I do enjoy an occasional dessert black. I like whites second best. I’ve recently been dipping my toes into honeybush tisanes, greens and oolongs.

My favorite vendors are Butiki Teas and Verdant Teas. Both have fantastic teas, above and beyond customer service (especially Butiki), and fair prices for their very high quality teas. I can’t recommend them enough.

Purely for tasting notes references, I don’t use any additives for my teas. Older tasting notes for blacks was with milk+sugar, and then with just milk. Whites, oolongs, greens and herbals are all drunk straight unless otherwise specified in the notes.

Location

Canada

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