Mountain Organic Indonesian Black Tea

Finally getting around to trying the black tea that Tea at Sea was generous enough to send my way. It was the one i was most looking forward to out of the green/oolong and this one they sent me. What struck me first about this tea is that the little black leaves look more like oolongs that i drink. However, no oolongy weird smell coming from it so i wasn’t too worried. Brewed this up and the aroma was quite pleasant. This isn’t a super bold tea, but it’s smooth and there’s little to no astringency. On the whole it was a much needed pleasant cup to drink this morning. I’d be willing to try this again and maybe check out the rest of tea at sea’s teas :) thanks for sending the samples my way tea at sea!

Tea At Sea does samples well, and the little cork sailboat is definitely cute! It’s a tasty black tea. It’s got a strong, yummy taste – a little baky, sweet – and went well with my breakfast anpan. Nothing about it that I didn’t like. Happy day… I love Saturdays.

Well! Hello there, Steepsters! I haven’t posted in what feels like years. School work has been taking over my life and I barely have time to make tea. I’ve been sticking to my custom Adagio mix, but today I took 4 tests and didn’t have too much homework so I decided I would try a sample. I remembered that I had this that was mailed a long ago. So, I decided I would give this a shot.

I have not had a straight black tea before, so this should be interesting. The closest thing I’ve ever had to a straight black tea was a bag of Yorkshire gold, but I honestly don’t even count that.

I really enjoy this! It is very smooth and isn’t too overpowering. I am glad I did an extra bit of tea because I think it would have been too weak. I really love that this doesn’t taste earthy. I despise earthy teas. Or maybe I am used to drinking plain green teas that I expect super earthy flavors when I drink a plain tea.

Whatever the case, I really enjoy this tea.

P.s. cute packaging!

I really don’t enjoy black teas but I tried this early this morning. It is a robust black tea with smokey, molasses tastes. It didn’t have the bitter after taste that some black teas do and I could tell this one was of good quality but it’s just not for me.

Finally cracked open the sample package!
I can’t drink black tea without milk and sugar, so I made this with milk and sugar.
The flavor was lovely and strong but it was missing some “high notes” that i have become really accustomed to in chinese teas, so ( to me) it was missing the rounded-ness and wasn’t was grounded as the chinese blacks i am used to.
Other wise it was a nice tea :) .

And now, the final sample from Tea at Sea. And it’s a sipdown, too!

Dry leaf: Dark and crumbly. It had a very tannin-heavy, tea-y smell that took me back to the kind of black bagged teas I remember. I definitely smelled notes of raisins and caramel. Please note that I am NOT a drinker of black teas, so getting a sample from Tea at Sea seemed like a low-risk way to try and expand my tea horizons.

Steep parameters: I’m not a black tea drinker and didn’t want to split the sample up into two steeps in case I didn’t like it, so I dumped the whole sample into a single steep. So: about 5 tsp of leaf to 24 oz of boiling water. Steeped for 3.5 – 4 minutes for the first infusion.

Liquor: The liquor was a rich, deep, dark amber. The smell reminded me of molasses or raisins – thick and dark. However, the taste was very different. I was expecting it to taste fruity and juicy, but instead it was thin, earthy, and smoky – I could totally taste the cedar notes, as others have mentioned.

Verdict: I’m still not a black tea person, but this was an okay tea. However, it has been extremely interesting comparing all three of the Tea at Sea examples that I got, and figuring out how the different oxidation and roasting processes change the flavour profile of the same tea. The green was floral, the oolong was nutty and mineral, and the black was woody and earthy. Definitely an interesting progression.

My second sample from Tea at Sea!

I was most excited by this sample, as it is the kind of tea I like most, light and black. However, I found this tea to be a bit too light. I brewed it for 4 minutes at boiling, and the tea only ended up a light reddish brown color.

The tea leaves themselves are really beautifully rolled, resembling a gunpowder or an oolong, almost, and when I poured the water on them, they released a pleasant earthy aroma. The tea is both very fragrant and very aesthetically pleasing.

As I mentioned earlier (this is a poorly composed piece of writing…), the tea brewed very light in color, and it is also very light in flavor for me. It’s a good tea, and I love the delicious malty afternotes in the sip, but it’s too soft and too delicate for me to appreciate fully. Even though I like more delicate black teas, I like them to have body, and this tea lacks that crucial element for me.

I still have only done one steeping with this tea. I am going to try for a second. I’ll update my tasting note when I do. Overall, I liked this tea a lot, and I so appreciate the free sample. I drink a lot of similar teas that are more suited for my tastes than this one, and for that reason, I like the Ceylon tea by Tea at Sea a bit more. This is a lovely cup, though, and I’m enjoying it immensely.

This resteeped well, and I got a similar pot of tea for my second steeping! I was finished drinking tea by that point in the day, so I didn’t try for a third pot. I’m not sure how it would hold up, since it was so light to begin with.

Thank you Tea at Sea, both for the sample and for the perfect excuse to put off doing my taxes (tea has a higher priority). This is the last of my samples and IMHO the best.

The dry leaf is dark green and rolled like an oolong. The leaves took a while to unwrap, so I almost gave the tea a longer steep, but 3 minutes is my standard time and I like to have that as my basis for comparison to other teas.

The aroma was earthy with hints of stone fruit and not overly strong. The taste was dominated by the stone fruit flavor, reminding me a bit of a 2nd flush Darjeeling. The flavor was quite strong, with very little astringency and no bitterness at all. This is a style I like. The finish was mostly just an echo of the fruit but went on for a very long time.

My one complaint is in the packaging. Tea at Sea went overboard with the cutesy package: a re-sealable foil package with the name of the tea on a separate tag tied to the package. But when you cut open the package, the label is removed, so I had to write the names of the teas on the package with a pen. They didn’t really think this one through. I just hope the larger packages that they sell are more practical.

Samples arrived this week and I am saving them for this weekend when I can take some time to enjoy. However, I have to say something about the wonderful packaging. I put together the little cork boat before I even looked at the packets. And with the cheerful nautical-themed tags and packets, this gets my vote for “most funnest sample packages ever.”

Avast and ahoy—-we’ll dive into ’em tomorrow.

Thanks for the samples! This tea has a fresh smell to it, like cucumbers. Brewed for 2 minutes there’s no bitterness or astringency, it’s light and smooth. There’s a subtle chocolatey flavor. At 3 minutes there’s a nice bitterness. It’s good with nothing added or with sugar and soy milk.