Burroughs' Brew ~ Organic ~ Fair Trade

Sipdown! 808. Thanks to the now-disappeared Missy & Dylan for this one. I haven’t had a coconut black in a while, and the aroma from the cup was intoxicating…. And mmmm, the flavour is delicious too. It tastes like chocolate coconut even though the description makes no mention of chocolate…

This one came from Auggy and from the name alone I was sort of expecting some kind of breakfast blend-y, hearty and malty tasting blend of primarily Assam and/or Ceylon. That name just sounds like that sort of concoction. So imagine my face when I took the lid of the tin and smelled something that reminded me most of all of something like chocolate-covered macaroons! How can this be, Steepsterites? How can such a masculine sounding name hide such a frankly girly smelling tea? I wasn’t even expecting it to be anything but tea-flavoured, for Ceiling Cat’s sake!

I made Husband smell the leaf and I have to say he was sceptical, considering his reply well before stating that he would try anything once. (And every time he says that sort of thing there is the “within certain boundaries” add-on before I can really start making outrageously evil plans. Unfair!)

After brewing, it smelled very strongly of coconut. Sitting normally at the desk I could still clearly smell the cup, standing there beside me without even searching for it. There was something sort of cake-y in the aroma as well.

The taste was very sweetly coconut and very creamy too. I couldn’t really pick much of the base up and the chocolate-y note from the aroma of the dry leaf did not make a second appearance. I had rather hoped it would. This was really way too much coconut for me. It was a nice enough cup but the one cup was definitely enough for me. Husband didn’t care for it at all. No, this was not really something for us. I would much rather have had the blend that I thought it would be, and every time I see the little tin on the shelf now, I have to remind myself that it doesn’t contain what I might expect it to.

I’ve posted about this tea before, but it was at the beginning of my fascination with loose leaf. Sadly, a lot of teas that I loved at the beginning of my introduction to loose leaf have suffered as I delved more into the fancy-schmancy teas. Just as bagged tea used to be fine in my cup, so did almost any flavored tea. Now? It’s a different story.

Thankfully, this tea is one that holds up well. It’s a different drinking experience now compared to two years ago, though. When I first had this, I pretty much put sugar and milk in with any flavored black tea. Now that I no longer have to fill a travel mug and deal with a morning commute, though, it’s a rare day that I put in any additives. With sugar and milk, this was a creamy, sweet, dessert-like coconut concoction. Let me tell ya, it was pretty good.

But straight? Well, I think I might enjoy it more. The coconut flavor is more honest-to-goodness coconut instead of dessert coconut. There’s even a slightly musky under note that makes me think of fresh coconut. The tea taste isn’t overly strong – the coconut is definitely the star – but it’s not like it is hiding. Just like it acknowledges that the reason it exists is to give the coconut a place to shine. Mild with a little prickle of dryness (but not to the point of calling it astringency) the tea gives a good, faintly woodsy backdrop to the honest coconut flavor.

Coconut always makes me think tropical thoughts. Slightly different coconuts (sweet, musky, dry, toasted) all give me slightly different tropical thoughts. This one has evolved from toasted coconut on the road to Hana in Maui (when it is sweetened and creamed) to sitting on the mostly empty Kailua beach, feeling the silky sand under my hands and quietly watching a little puff of cloud go by in a bright blue sky.

I bought this tea to blend with a couple others in my quest of replacing the old Thai tea from Teavana. This tea is good enough on it’s own though.
It is definitely a coconut tea. What I really enjoy about this one is that it actually tastes of real coconuts. Perhaps the flakes are responsible.
The tea base is a bit woody but very mellow. It just pops up to let you know it’s there.
There is a creamy taste as well. Maybe those coconut flakes again.
Over all a good tea that isn’t very complicated. It tastes exactly like it should.

As others have noted, this tea is coconutty! I love it with milk and sugar on cold mornings. In fact, I crave it. After the closure of SpecialTeas, I had to find a replacement for my black-with-coconut. I tried Argo and a few others, but nothing compares to this.