Fake Mead

129/365

This one brewed up kind of cloudy, which perhaps isn’t a surprise since it’s pretty old now. The leaf was pretty stuck together in the bag, but given the ingredients I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise either. I’m just surprised it’s kept so well, since it seems kind of sticky…

Anyway. The initial flavour is a lot of base, but it’s a great base so I’ve no complaints about that. It reminds me a lot of some of the “golden lion” teas I’ve tried, as well as last week’s Himalayan Golden Black from Nepali Tea Traders. It’s malty and sweet, but not in an overpowering way, with a light background floral that’s reminiscent of a darjeeling. There’s also a touch of pepperiness in the aftertaste.

Initially, that’s all there is to this tea. I think it needs to cool a little to really shine, because that’s when the honey flavours start to develop. I wouldn’t say it’s mead per se, but more of a light honey with an edge of beeswax. It’s sweet, for sure, with a thick-tasting syrupy quality, but the honey flavour itself is fairly delicate and remains mostly in the background.

I like this one. I thought it might be overpoweringly sweet, but it’s actually pretty subtle. I’d have liked the base and flavouring to have been a little more balanced, and I’d have loved to be able to taste more honey, but it’s pleasant to drink all the same. Happy to have this one in my cupboard!

GCTTB
I love mead so naturally I had to try this tea. Given the Darjeeling base I lowered the steeping temperature from the usual boiling water I usually use with black teas. It tastes very much like a Darjeeling with that slightly astringent, muscatel wine flavour. As the tea cools off I can taste the smoother sweet honey flavour. It’s a great idea for a tea blend, I just wish a bit more of the honey flavour came through initially.

Interesting aroma, more floral than I was expecting for a black. The first hot steep I had was on the short side, about 1 minute, and it was a light, sweet taste, similar in base profile to Darjeelings and Nepal grown oolong teas I’ve had before from Teabox, although with a heavier floral scent, more body with a bit of malt, a hint of beeswax, and honey-like sweetness to the smell. Second hot steep I left for much longer, maybe three to five minutes. Somewhat less sweet, more malt this round, but a little more of a beeswax taste, still a predominately floral body.

The cold brewed version I made (as recommended to try with this tea on the outer packaging, :P) of this (about 17 g per 2 liters for ~10 hours) was stronger with a hardier, more bitter body (which I thought was actually a good bitter) and low (almost no) sweetness, but had a much deeper flavor, bordering on fruity. Very refreshing. Astringency was somewhere between mild and moderate for the hot steeps, quite low for the cold brew.

I had taken a sample of this out of the GCTTB5 to try later since I didn’t want to have the box for too long.
This was an ok tea for me. There was slight notes of malt and honey. I read through the other notes, and now I feel like there was a hint of beeswax as well like Lala and Sil mentioned. To be honest, I find that kind of weird. Oh well, I’m glad I got to try it. I guess I can’t like every tea!

GCTTB5

I tried some this morning before heading to work. Since it’s a tea similar to Darjeeling, I used lower temperature water (85C) to baby it. I didn’t get much flavour beyond black tea, though. It had that sweet/sour haylike quality I’ve seen in some Nepalese teas.

GCTTB
Trying to drink drink drink. lol Hot, this one is slightly astringent and sort of…boring? As this cools however, it becomes a different sort of tea. There’s a honey like smell that comes forward and the tea starts to take on a more beeswax like taste. An interesting tea for sure.

Liquid Proust very generously offered up samples to include in the GCTTB5. I snuck a sample of some of the teas before I sent the box out as chances are there will be none left when it comes back to me.

This one sounds interesting. I quite like mead, the drink, so I thought this would be right up my alley.

The dry tea smells mostly just like a gold tipped tea to me. Nice and malty. The brewed tea does have a hint of bees wax scent, it is slightly sweet smelling and malty.

To me the tea is moderately bold, there is definitely quite a bit of malty flavour. There is just a slight bit of astringency at the end of the sip. There are hints of the bees wax flavour. There is a very subtle sweetness to the tea. The liquor feels quite thick as you swallow. Not so much honey flavour though. As the tea cools, it becomes more sweet with slight fruity undertones.

This one was a good tea. I would have like it to be a bit more meady, but that is just my preference.