Scandale

Oh, wow. Okay.
This tea is incredible. Another tea which has to be a couple of years old, and yet it still tastes amazing! I didn’t read up on the flavours of this tea before I pulled it out for this afternoon, I just picked it out at random, I think I was expecting it to be a fruity black. Imagine my surprise when the rich cinnamon scent of this tea hit the air! I knew there and then I was going to love it, and man was I right. I adore cinnamon, and this tasted like a very sophisticated cinnamon cookie was dunked in a cup of rich, full-bodied pu’erh. Amazing. I gave it a quick rinse and then brewed the pot for a few minutes before pouring my first cup, which came out a lot more opaque and dark than I was expecting. There was no astringency at all, and the base tea balanced really well with the cinnamon and vanilla flavours. I added a little honey to my second cup, expecting it to bring the flavours out more, and regretted it. This is definitely a tea best served plain. The flavours actually retreated when sweetened, and though still tasty it just lost a little of the sophisticated dessert feel that the first cup had. I convinced my mam to have a sip, and even she – a woman who turns her nose up at every tea I’ve ever presented her with – admitted that it was ‘quite nice’. I’ve just finished the entire pot on my own and I’m selfishly glad I didn’t share this one! Now to resteep the leaves…

Thank you so much Sil for being so generous as to send this tea my way many, many months ago! It was very much appreciated.

ETA: This didn’t resteep well, sadly.

Sipdown 118/395

this was my morning tea since i needed a bit of a PUNCH. I did no rinse or anything like that and this morning it was a dark brew with just the right level of cinnamon running through it. slightly sweet but not cloyingly slow and the puerh still came through. Resteeping it now that i’m home and this is a still a great dark brew but now i’m getting a little more vanilla cookie like taste coming through along with the cinnamon.

Cavo – this is the one you need to remind me IN FUTURE to set aside for you to try :)

Also…thank you missB for accommodating my wish list and finding this one for me!

Hm. Did I do something wrong? This tea smells AMAZING, like a cinnamon vanilla cookie. I could smell it all day. I realize it’s a puerh and thus a bit earthier, darker, more robust and oomph than a black, and yet… it’s just not doing it for me. Don’t get me wrong, this is an obviously well-made tea with high quality ingredients, and it shows. I just wanted it to taste as amazingly as it smells, and that’s a tall order.

I’ve been saving up my The O Dor teas ever since the supplier, the Urban Tea Merchant stopped carrying the brand. But unfortunately teas can’t really be ‘saved’ for an indefinite length of time so I figured it was time to crack open the tins I bought on the cheap when they were clearing them out. My aunt, who does tea leaf readings, recommended this blend to me and she generally has good taste when it comes to these things.

I recently tried another cinnamon pu-ehr from Davids Tea and I wasn’t terribly impressed, but this blend is vastly better. The pu-ehr has a lovely depth of flavour and is a pleasant mix of woody and earthy notes without being overpowering. The cinnamon and vanilla flavour go well with the base and unlike the Davids Tea one they don’t go for the cinnamon heart candies flavour and frankly the natural flavours are already sweet enough. I guess there’s something to be said for purchasing tea from a high-end retailer. Now if only I can find another supplier that ships to Canada.