This was a part of the black tea sampler I included with my Tea Merchant order. It’s the last of the four I have to try and since the name alone suggested it would be good iced I went ahead and made one cup hot and have made 1/2 gallon of iced tea my favorite way (boiled then cooled – i.e. a very slow way). I’ve got refried beans on the menu for tonight so I imagine I will be very happy to have this alongside it!
The smell of this dry is amazing! It reminded me so much of my Hawaii vacation last year – I do get mango but I also seemed to smell a lot of guava. This makes me so happy…and reminds me that I should see if there are guava flavored teas out there. I’d love to have some.
Anyway, for the hot cup of tea, I went ahead and got smart and steeped 1 tsp. of leaf at 3:30 seconds rather than the 4 minutes I traditionally do with blacks, since my last two teas from the Tea Merchant have come out a bit bitter with the extra 30 seconds. I am now very optimistic about going back and trying the Assam Gold and English Breakfast again, because less time did take care of all the astringence. I pretty much got a richly textured cup of tea flavored mango/guava juice. Which is to say, awesomeness.
A bit of sugar really made this pop even more which means I’m looking forward to being able to have this iced later today. It is pretty amazing hot and as the cup cooled it got even better so I have a feeling I will want this around when the weather hots up.
I’ll write another tasting note on the iced method tonight but I’m pretty optimistic at this point that come summer I’ll have this in hand most days!
