Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea

2 scant TB for a 600mL pot, bare.

A warm welcome for Captain Assam, just back in port here in St John’s Harbour. Raisiny/deep cherry/cranberry/brandy scent to those gorgeous tippy brown leaves, mondo caffeine, gentle but stimulatng Assam maltiness and depth. He’s a soft soul, this captain, for all his brawn. Gorgeous dark copper-light brown liquor, perfectly translucent. No bitterness. Some pucker to the finish if you steep over 4 minutes. Bliss.

1.5TB for 500mL water, no milk or sweetener.

My last, my very last, serving of Captain Assam. He’s moving on after too short a stay. (I finished off that 2 oz tin in 9 days.) This morning’s steep: very long, a good 15 minutes. Major puckery-astringency now but also a lovely new mouth-feel, very winey. Still no bitterness. Very refreshing. Captain Assam, I wish you the best on you the nest on your journeys, and I shall sorely miss you.

Drunk bare (no milk or sugar), 1 TB to 500mL water, 4-minute steep.

The Captain’s a bit more mellow at four minutes. Still a very fine Assam, but I do prefer the bit of atringency I get with a 6-minute steep.

Drunk without milk or sugar — ‘bare tea,’ in Newfoundland English.

My heart deeply wounded by the absence — rather, by my never getting to try — Thomas Sampson (though he did send me a lovely note), I thought to ring up the Captain, who, surely, cannot be as harsh and hard as he’d like everyone to think. After all, he seeks a mermaid.

I’m sorry. I just love the writing round the teas from A&D.

Received my order in the storm of a very bad day. Couldn’t even properly welcome the Captain, just showed him his berth.

This morning: dry long leaves with plenty of golden tips, smelling raisin-y, as others have noted. Sweet. Brewed for 6 minutes by mistake, 1 TB for 500mL of boiling water.

Oh.

My.

First those high sweet notes of a really good Assam. Then strength and heft. A heavier mouthfeel to this one, but it’s lovely - creamy, silky. A bit malty on the sides of the tongue, a slight bit of astringency in the aftertaste- but I did overbrew by two minutes; A&D recommend a four-minute steep. But these are characteristics of Assam that I love and desire. A clean finish, but you know you’re drinking TEA. ‘Proper tea’, as my English war-bride grandmother would call it, that will get you through a storm and help you recover afterwards. The sort of tea George Orwell meant when discussing the virtues of Indian tea: ‘First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ’a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea.’ (_Evening Standard, 12 Jan 1946).

Not at all a harsh Assam. But a very strong one. Ideal.

And Captain Assam’s High Seas Elixir is, of course, a limited edition. I don’t know whether to hoard or binge. Probably binge. Then it won’t go stale.

(For the record, I do not despise China black tea; in fact, sometimes nothing else will do. But I do agree with Orwell that it doesn’t pack the same punch as India black yea.)

Goodmorning Steepsterites

In spite of receiving an ENORMOUS box from A C Perch’s yesterday, and I do mean humongously huge, I’m taking a step back to the selection Auggy sent me. Something for the morning, you know.

The aroma of this is not so raisin-y as I have come almost demand from an Assam to my tastes. There are traces of raisin but that’s really it. Instead it’s leaning much more towards that cardboard-y smell that have been discussed before. Can’t find any honey notes either.

This makes me sad. :( I wan’t this to be awesome because I’ve seen people say it is, but now I wonder if maybe it’s not my sort of awesome.

It’s very strong. Really something that scratches all the way down and for someone who likes their tea to be able to stand up straight without the aid of a cup, this would definitely be something to look at. For me it’s just a wee bit on the strong side, and I get a more overdone impression from it rather than something merely strong and full in flavour.

Still can’t find raisins in it. Still can’t find honey. Can find lots of cardboard and a whiff of a slightly acidic flavour, a bit akin to the lemony flavour that you find in coffee. I wish I had some milk because I think this is a tea that would really benefit from it.

It’s a good tea. But I’m glad it’s not my Perfect Assam. You know what with being unable to get it again and all.

Really smooth—not at all astringent or bitter. Can’t quite place the flavors, as they are a bit mild.

Where are all my Steepsterites at? It seems that there is so little activity these days and so few new posts when I come back. Yes, this from a person who has previously complained about not being able to keep up. Maybe I should have a looksie around and add some more people one of these days.

Anyway, I was in the mood for something caramel-y and since the Kusmi order so infamously disappeared I haven’t actually GOT anything caramel-y. Others have, however, successfully found strong caramel notes in this one, so even though I haven’t had the pleasure myself, it’s still the closest thing to caramel that I’ve got at the moment. I didn’t have that many leaves left, so I’m hoping there were enough to make it a decent cup.

The aroma is quite promising. It has that slightly smoky and quite sweet smell of grain and sugar, although I wouldn’t go so far as to call it out-right caramel. The smoky part of the aroma has definitely suffered under the smaller-than-usual amount of leaves, as it is only very vague.

The flavour, unfortunately, is a bit on the weakling and watery side. There’s no hints of smoke in it and only vague promises of grain. The smoke can still be coaxed out with excessive slurping but I haven’t yet managed to convince the grainy notes to make an appearance with this method. Probably a good thing I’m alone, or all this slurping might annoying to be in the same room with after a while.

The important thing here, however, is not the smoky note.

I shall put in a small break here to let those of you who have followed me for a while pick your chins up from the floor and get yourselves around that statement.

Feeling better? Okay.

The important thing here is the note that comes after the smoky note. The smoke is there at the beginning of the sip. Of the slurp, actually. It fills the mouth and dominates the flavour all the way through to the swallow.

And that’s when the important thing happens. It turns all sweet and smooth and almost sparkly. Just for a moment and primarily on the aftertaste. It’s not that heavy caramel note of legend, but I think it’s something related to it. If I had used twice as much leaf as I did (only had half a decent amount left), I really do think we would have been in business here.

I’ve rather enjoyed this one, even if the last bit of it has been shelved for a while. I just haven’t really felt in the keemun-y grainy mood much lately. Thank you, Auggy.

Trying again. Cleaned the pot and everything and have had both a green and an oolong that didn’t go yunnan-y, so I’m feeling confident that it’ll go better this time.

Yes, I do indeed have a much better result now. It’s super-smoky on the nose and quite spicy. A little oaky but not much and there is a hint of rye. (I feel like I’m getting better at describing the aroma. It may not make that much sense to others but I know exactly what I mean). If I really flare out my nostrils and concentrate on it, I think I can pick up some underlying sweetness, but it’s very very slight)

Surprising touch of spice on the flavour. My initial sip involved a small black pepper association, which may or may not have been the smoky combined with the fact that it’s still a wee bit too hot to drink. It’s not there in the second sip, here it’s just smoke in surprising amounts. Really. Surprising.

Underneath that there is the rye-y slightly oaky body of it. It’s a little prickly and evasive. I had expected many things from this tea. I had not expected it to be shy. Come on out and play, Jackee… How can something so smoky be so shy, I don’t understand it!

As the tea cools the flavour appears to become more couragous as well, coming out more and becoming larger. I wouldn’t say it’s the heavy silkiness that others have described, so I’m not sure I’ve managed to find the elusive caramel. I wasn’t really expecting to either, I don’t typically have that kind of luck.

Of course I’m a little disappointed that I failed at caramel, but for what I actually got, it’s still rather nice. I’ll enjoy the rest of the leaves. And I shall give it another go. Yes. I won’t have to be annoyed at myself for not realising that A&D was unavailable to me before it was too late to try S2 (also have a sample of Thomas Sampson to try, also courtesy of Auggy )

ETA: What a minute, what was that? What the…? It’s not a lot, but at this point, halfway down the cup, there does seem to be a slight sweetness to it. It’s not a lot. It’s very very slight and it may be my imagination. But where did that come from all of a sudden?! That’s not fair when I’ve already posted!

I didn’t actually steep the yunnan to pieces like I said I would, because there was still tons of kick in it after four 1 minute steeps. As much as in the first go, and frankly I was wanting to try something else out of Auggy’s parcel. So I decided that four large cups were pretty good going and sacrificed the leaves in order to make room for this one.

I have been curious about it since forever. Or rather since I saw the first mentions of a heavy caramel note if you steep it just so. Sadly by the time I discovered that A&D was indeed very available to me with reasonable shipping costs, Series 2 was long long gone. (And by the time I realised that chinese blacks were really rather difficult for me to dislike in general, as was S4. Woe.)

Anyway, due to the kindness of others, I’m now in possession of S2 samples, yay! Apart from getting to try them, it totally appeals to the obsessive-compulsive completionist in me.

The aroma isn’t overwhelming in intensity, really. The thing about yunnan is that while good tea, the aroma of it is usually very strong and it’s been stuck in my nostrils since the first sniff. Any tea I smell at the moment has spicy yunnan notes in it, and I don’t think this one really should have. At least not this much. Shall we just skip this step, then, and go straight to the flavour? I think that would be best.

Hmm. Turned out a little weakly this one. Once again completely ignoring recommended steep times because of the amount of leaf I customarily use, I shall have to try a little longer steep.

I’m getting a little smoke and some of the general default Keemun flavour, and a little bit of sweetness on the swallow. Good but nothing really convincing yet. I suspect this is because it is a bit on the weak side. We shall see what happens as it develops a bit in the cup.

Also I keep getting little yunnan pangs from it. Did I not rinse the pot out properly? With a little development it wouldn’t be a half bad blend, but it’s not really what I’m going for here. Oh dear me, will I have to have a pot dedicated only to yunnan? What a catastrophe! (What’s available from Roy Kirkham?)

I’m becoming more and more convinced that this cup has Yunnan contamination in it. It definitely has a lot of promise, and I strongly suspect I’ll be enjoying it a lot when I manage to get a working cup. But for now I’ll leave it unrated, give the pot a thorough clean and try again later.

This was really rather more what I was in the mood for last night. Magnolia might not be quite as bad as roses or jasmine in the lovey-dovey department, but it was quite bad enough.

I’ll have it this evening instead, after some considerable debate with myself about whether I still wanted it or whether I wanted something else entirely now (wouldn’t it have been a hilarious stroke of irony if I had found myself in a Lapsang mood?), but I decided I thought I was still inclined towards the magnolia-scented oolong.

You know, every time I have this I get surprised by the magnolia and how it isn’t jasmine-y. It’s so strong in the aroma I keep expecting to get a mouthful of perfume, but it really is very well behaved in flavour. It’s there, but it’s not overwhelming. To begin with I thought it merely enhanced the oolongness of the oolong, but now that I’ve had it a few more times I can pick it out in the flavour more.

I’m not a flower scenting fan at all when it comes to tea, but of the ones I’ve tried so far, I believe magnolia would be my favourite to scent tea with.

This poor little tea has been quite forgotten on the bottom of a pile of other A&D tins. Poor tea. :( I’ve dug it out again, though, and discovered to my surprise that I’ve only posted about it once.

At the time I described it as good but not hugely memorable. It would appear that I was right when I wrote that, seeing as it has gone completely unnoticed for two months.

So I had a cup last night and I’m having the second steep of those leaves now and I stand by what I said in the first review. It’s more oolong than flowers, and I like that, but the flowers give the oolong a sort of fresh lift. The oolong itself is still somewhat straight forwards and with a note of nuts and perhaps a touch of ever so slightly grassy greeness.

It is a rather good cup and this second steep is every bit as flavourful as the first one was last night, so I expect you could really get some mileage out of these leaves.

Putting in a Nothing But Tea order for £cough! is definitely something that requires some celebration. It’s always wonderful to spend cough! of any currency on something nice.

Originally the idea this morning was to just resteep last night’s sencha. This is a normal strategy for me because frankly I’m a lazy bugger. Especially in the morning. Sencha, though. Green tea. Cooler water. Right. I think I boiled four times, left it to cool and then forgot about it for the next half hour or so at which point I could start over. Eventually I gave up on this idea. Too expensive in electricity in the long run and not resulting in any tea.

So I thought I still had an untried A&D. Awesome! I put on the kettle, rinsed out the pot and added new leaves and then looked at the tin. Cooler water recommended. This time I left the water to cool and set a timer so that I would remember to actually go and actually make the actual tea.

And result! Here it is! The Mermaid’s Kiss. It only took 1½ hours or something like that to get a cup of tea this morning.

So magnolia eh? I don’t know what that tastes like. I had a magnolia oolong once, back before the dawn of time (and certainly before the dawn of Steepster) that someone I once knew in Tennessee had sent to me. While I can’t remember what it tasted like, I remember being a little saddened when it ran out. I had received I think 50g or so of three or four different things and the magnolia oolong was the one I finished the quickest by far. It’s also the only one of the lot that I can actually remember. I can just remember that they came in dark red foil bags.

It smells floral and it reminds me of jasmine. I can’t tell floral smells apart most of the time, and jasmine is the flower I’m most familiar with in scented tea, so everything ends up smelling like jasmine.

There’s definitely something floral in the flavour as well. A sort of dusty perfume-y sensation on the back of the tongue, which may be simply oolongness or may be magnolia but is likely a combination of the two. Apart from this I can’t really tell a lot about the oolong. There is a fairly large nutty note, but more or less, this seems to be a one note deal.

For me the magnolia seems to have very little flavour on it’s own, but is simply enhancing the oolongness of the tea. It does taste very pleasant, but I’m not sure why I found it to be so memorably. I will happily drink it while I’ve got it, I may even purchase a second set later on, but I don’t really see myself bemoaning the loss all that much when the tin is empty.