Organic Banaspaty Bliss

Yummy! If you like bold then you have come to the right place. This tea is very robust and as a past post said it has a malty flavor and a sweetness. I found this to be coffee-like. Meaning you take this tea down in large gulps without even realizing it and it is bold a wake up if you will. Then once you swallow and savor that sip a wonderful sweetness comes out and gives you that “ahhhh” feeling as you slink into your chair a little further and relax your shoulders and think for a minute “this is good” and then before you know it times speeds up again you gotta get back to reality. I know it is strange but that is what I got and I hope I made sense. Basically: Good!

This is an interesting black tea. The scent is very mellow, kind of rich and almost smoky in scent, but when steeped, it’s smooth and there’s no hint of smokiness. It’s a very nice black tea without astringency and no bitterness at all. There is a tobacco flavor, but it’s not very pronounced and exists mostly in the finish, as if I had a tobacco leaf leftover in my mouth.

This was a surprise tea that Rachanac added in to a package from teatra.de. :) Thanks, Rachanac!

Mmm! What wonderful tea. I really enjoyed the complexity of the honey tones, the tobacco notes as well as some forest flavors. A great tea!

For a more detailed review of this tea check here: http://wp.me/pQxcK-1V

Now I like a nice strong brew, so this tea suits me perfectly. Every time I brewed a cup of this tea, I couldn’t believe how quickly I would finish it. This is a smooth, full-bodied tea with a touch of malty sweetness. Great anytime of the day, but especially in the morning when caffeine is most essential.

Sipdown no. 162 of the year 2014. I had two cups worth of leaf left, steeped in the Breville and poured over ice, then took it with me to drink while the kids had their Kung Fu lessons. I spent part of that time reading Dune Messiah on the Kindle. This was a nice accompaniment to the aforementioned activities. Flavorful but not harsh as some assams can be. Stood up well to ice. I just steeped it normally without any effort to make it more concentrated, and it took a good two cups of ice on top of the two cups of water like a trooper.

Why Dune Messiah? I read the first Dune many years ago but never got to the sequels. Now I’m in the midst of a brain cram event, trying to read as much classic SF and fantasy as I possibly can so that I’ll know as much as possible about the genres I’ve chosen for my own writing, but interspersed with more current work as well. For you OCD sympathizers, my current fiction reading regime goes something like this. Two literary short stories, two SFF short stories, an SFF novel, and start over until I finish 10 SFF novels, when I read a literary novel. When I run out of literary short stories in my collection I am planning to turn to non-fiction. (I have way more books than any person should have. Next to tea, they’re my primary buying vice.) And then I work in, as necessary, the books I have to read for my writing classes. Currently reading in literary short stories, Mark Helprin, Ellis Island. Currently reading in SFF short stories, Karin Tidbeck, Jagganath. Recently read SFF novels (the most recent grouping of 10): A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin; The Forever War, Joe Haldeman; Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein. Next up, Flowers for Algernon. I can’t believe I never read that one. I know kids in my junior high had to read it for class, but (not meaning to sound elitist) I was in the advanced classes so we didn’t read it. I think we read Brave New World instead. Or maybe something by Thomas Hardy. I read a shitload of Thomas Hardy in junior high and high school. (Why?)

Ah well. I am off to try to relax for a bit before the next round of errands in preparation for the Scotland trip. I need a carry-on on wheels that will meet airline regulations, and the kids need sneakers. Tomorrow I’m going to start packing them up (two weeks in advance, but it will make me feel more relaxed).

How is everyone’s weekend going?