Sipdown, 157. Ah, back to my tea.
There was almost a tragedy this morning when my electic kettle wouldn’t turn on, but it turned out to be a blown socket and not the kettle. Whew. I decided to go ahead and finish this one up today. For some reason I decided to brew it at less than boiling, and I’m amazed at the difference it made. This is suuuper smooth like this, but it is making me realize that I miss the slight bite of the black tea. It brings everything together more when it is steeped at boiling, versus now the flavors seem kind of muddled and not as balanced. Ah well, lesson learned!
I’ve had that experience too. I’ve been finding just under a boil the black teas tend to re-steep better, but with Premium Taiwanese Assam, the initial steep is nowhere near as flavorful if you steep it at 200 instead of the recommended 212. It’s actually quite a big difference.