When the dry leaves sat in the warm gaiwan for a minute, the first thing I smelled was french toast with chocolate chips. There was a distinct egg-like scent with some sweeter pastry-like aromas.
Ah, here’s more like it. After that last incredibly strong black tea, this one is an oasis. The first infusion yields a soft, mellow and sweet tea with a dried-fruit kind of quality and almost no astringency. The aftertaste is a hint drying. The second infusion is pretty similar to the first. Theres a bit of a perfumy quality coming through as well now. The brew is overall soft and rather easy to drink, but yields to a dry mouthfeel. I’m really big on mouthfeel and this is not the clean finish I really enjoy.
The aroma of the third infusion is truly enjoyable, lightly floral and sweet, a tinge of vanilla and dried fruit. The flavor is likewise mellow and sweet but it is picking up in astringency and becoming more and more drying on the mouth as I go on.
Overall, I think the flavor of this tea is wonderful. I just wish it wasn’t so drying. I just reviewed another black tea from TeaVivre which was much more harsh in that regard, so this one is a step up, but I’m not sure why I’m getting so much dryness from these teas. I have a few red and blacks at home that finish very clean, so this is not at all what I am used to.
Flavors: Chocolate, Floral, Honey, Perfume, Raisins
