Orange Pekoe Ceylon

I know I have been missing in action for a couple of days, but I wanted to take some time off in order to recharge after a stressful week. I also wanted to finish off some of the older teas of which I still had larger amounts. This was a tea I started last month, but never got around to finishing for whatever reason. I have been working on finishing it up the last couple of days. I don’t normally drink many Ceylonese teas or tea blends these days, but I must say that I greatly enjoyed this one.

I kept my preparation simple for this tea. I steeped 1 full teaspoon of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 205 F water for 5 minutes. If memory serves, Tealyra recommended an infusion of 3 minutes, but I tend to like black teas of this type brisk, strong, and tannic. That’s what I was going for here.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves produced subtle aromas reminiscent of a combination of molasses, sweet potatoes, honey, and wood. After infusion, the rich orange tea liquor produced strong aromas of malt, toast, roasted nuts, molasses, caramel, wood, and sweet potatoes. In the mouth, the tea liquor was lively and moderately astringent, offering pronounced notes of honey, brown toast, malt, wood, brown sugar, molasses, caramel, cream, sweet potato, orange rind, leather, and roasted nuts (chestnut and black walnut). The finish was smooth and satisfying. I noted nice lingering touches of malt, roasted nuts, toast, molasses, and honey.

This was a very nice Ceylon Orange Pekoe. It had plenty of character on the nose and in the mouth while avoiding the pronounced astringency and mild bitterness of some others. In my opinion, this would make an excellent morning or early afternoon tea. If you are a fan of straight Ceylonese black teas and/or black tea blends, I am willing to bet you will be satisfied with this one.