New Vithanakande Estate Ceylon BOP1

Not sure why my first tasting note on this was so different but I tried this again and it was much less astringent than I remembered. I think steeping for a shorter time and also at a lower quantity of leaves helped. The caramel/brown sugar taste that others have noted is finally coming out too, and seems less malty than I initially thought. It has medium body with some roundness of taste.

Onward into the world of Ceylon! I think this was one of the teas that Joel of Capital Tea recommended to me, but I don’t remember for sure. The leaves are very dark, thin, and twisty. They look very brittle and spindly. Dry scent is sweet hay with honey and some stonefruit notes.

Mm, this is a good example of tea that’s somewhat simple in flavor, but still has enough interest and depth to make it worth drinking. Overall, it’s very thick and richly flavored, and it has an intensity that makes me think it would take milk well. It’s a nice combination of savory sweet potato and malt and sweeter notes of raisin, brown sugar, and molasses. There’s just a tiny bit of a tannic edge that I think actually goes well with the intensity and richness of flavor. The astringency is very low, with just a slight dry sensation in the aftertaste. Definitely one of those teas that makes you feel as satisfied as if you’d eaten a meal.

This is quite a lovely tea to start my morning with. Its scent and taste are remarkably consistent, it’s quite smooth and well balanced and is rich enough to take milk. The leaves are dark and wiry and even though its a broken leaf tea, they are still a good size.
The brewed tea is a nice mahogany colour after being steeped for 3.5 min in 225ml of water using about 1 TSP of leaves.

At first sip the top notes are of sweet potato, lemon-orange, cherry a hint of cocoa, lemon, and a deeper spice note. Underneath this is the deeper tones of malt and a sugar cane note.

As it cools malt moves forward a little bit and blends with the sweet potato, honey, spice notes and cherry dominates the fruit notes. It is slightly tannic but not overly so. Overall the flavour and texture is a rich fruity/malty/smooth tea. It makes a nice and comforting tea for winter and a nice addition to my collection of Ceylons.