July Sipdown Prompt – an iced tea
I bought this during the Happy Birthday (America) special, which was for the glass flask half price when you buy two of their special iced tea blends. I bought three or four different blends to try and I think this one was the cheapest one.
The flask has a two part filter. I was not sure why at first, but the first time I poured multiple little cups of tea out of the flask it was apparent that it is to keep the leaves from finding their way into your cup. Works beautifully. The lid with handle screws on easily and the handle makes it easy to remove the infuser basket if you want to use it in a mug or cup.
The flask is very attractive and the extraordinary clarity of the cold steep teas look beautiful in it. It is double wall borosilicate glass.
I have made this tea, which is a very fine cut black so that the flavors extract well, and Misty Green. I made two separate orders so that we would each have a flask.
Ashman and I tasted this one and Misty Green together. (Misty Green is not fine cut but is a regular green tea.) Ashman preferred Misty Green and I preferred this one. They were both great, though!
Ashman said this one tasted a bit tannic to him, but I find it flavorful and smooth. He has always preferred his black tea sweetened and is used to sweet iced tea and I think that the expectation of his tastebuds for black tea to be sweet when cold throws him off. He has never sweetened green, oolong, or white teas so the green one cold was more to his liking.
One nice thing about this black tea is that you can steep it overnight and it doesn’t get bitter even though it is very, very fine cut. It is so fine that I expected some powder to fall through the infuser but no “dust” fell out when I gave it an experimental shake. I will also say that this is the finest infuser I have ever seen, with the holes seeming to be even smaller than the ones in the Stump pot, which was up to now the finest strainer I owned.
I also bought one or two of their higher grade black teas cut especially for cold steeping. I am looking forward to trying those, and I really want to try this one hot for breakfast soon. It is a good, solid black tea.
