Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea

Thanks so much for the sample Sil. I was painfully curious about this one!

This tea opens with a slightly tart cherry- or raisin-like flavor. It’s not astringent or bitter at all, but it’s followed with a mouth puckering dryness like wine. I’ve never had such a smooth Assam. It’s sweet and there’s a certain earthy, brown sugar flavor lurking in the background. I’m not getting much cocoa but there is a substantial maltiness that coats the mouth. Maybe I’m crazy, but I feel like I’m getting a little bit of nuttiness, like praline. It’s faint enough for me to doubt my judgment. This is a good, bold tea for breakfast without the briskness or bitter punch that some other breakfast teas have. I can’t justify buying 4oz at a time, though, so I’ll just have to enjoy my sample while it’s around. (:

Received a small sample of this in my Steepster select box a month or two back, and waited to try it until yesterday. As a German-American, I felt really put off by Andrews & Dunham’s asinine marketing that surrounds this tea (as well as all their other teas) so I missed out on a pretty good blend.

Assertive and bold. The sample I had was mostly Indian Assam, with no smoke detectable. Tannin and malt dominate. Very pleasant, but definitely lacking the smokiness which would have added character. I blame this on the small size sample packaged by Steepster who probably didn’t think to blend the tea before packaging. But that is a rant for a different post.

MmmMmmMm. Malty, bold and fruity. Slight woody note, but all in all really nice.

Another great sample from Sil!

This is really tasty. Dark chocolate, barley, malt, a hint of smoke, rich dried fruits – sweet and pleasantly bitter. Super smooth.

Initially I found this lacking in a full mouth flavour, but everything intensified and got more well rounded as the cup cooled.

Different from my usual Qimen, and I’m thinking that I need to make a point of trying more.

This is my first tea from A&D — I remember having had a sample of the Carävan blend years ago but never getting around to trying it. I’m excited to try this one as it’s advertised as being great with cookies! Although I don’t have a cookie here in front of me, I do have some cooling at the moment.

The scent of this tea smells really tasty… I detect hints of lemon and milk. It reminds me a bit of a solid breakfast blend with additions added by the drinker. Sipping… mmm I love how smooth this tea is.. It has floral and citrus layers and notes of milk. Delicious!

I’m happy to have grabbed a tin before it was discontinued.

Sipdown (118)!

Thanks again Stephanie for the sample. Finishing off the last few sips now; I enjoyed drinking it alongside supper which, tonight, was a blueberry bagel sandwich with maple cheddar, vegetarian slices of ham and spinach. Mmm! Not gonna lie; I could totally go for another one right now…

Last time I had this one I didn’t pay very much attention to it, so I’m making sure to do so now so that I actually learn something from it, and requesting it from Stephanie wont be in vain.

Most of it I drank hot, but it’s totally cooled off now and I’m kind of liking it cold better than I did hot. Hot, I found there was a bit of dryness from the tea, and it was maybe a little too brisk and smokey. Now that it’s cooled I feel like I’m enjoying it more as well as noticing more of the contributing flavours. It’s still smokey, but there are also a lot of bread notes – I agree with Cameron B.’s review quite a bit; it’s like whole wheat in a way. Actually, I currently have a whole wheat and flax seed bread in my kitchen from our in store bakery – and it’s reminding me of that in particular.

Other things I noticed besides the smoke and bread flavours were a very faint cocoa flavour and a fruit note that is probably the thing in the blend that agrees with me the least. I was having problems identifying it until reading Cam’s review – she called it raisin like and that’s exactly it. No wonder it’s not agreeing with me; raisins are usually a big ‘nope’ for me – in tea and outside of it.

But other than the raisin taste, this isn’t terrible just not astounding either. I still want to continue to explore some more Keemuns – but I am kind of seeing a pattern forming already. When I had WP’s Pine Peak Keemun I also described it as bready (though that one tasted more like Rye to me) with cocoa and raisin notes and overall it wasn’t something I was a big fan of. If these are the more common and natural flavour notes in Keemun (which I believe, with the addition of smoke, they kinda are) perhaps it’s just not my kind of tea?

It could be nice ruling out a whole ‘class’ of tea; it’d save me money exploring it. I still have the Keemun from Amoda to drink though – so no rash decisions yet.

So this is a sample I got from Stephanie.

It is a tea…

I drank it. Umm, I forgot to write anything down and I recall absolutely nothing except that I kinda liked it. But really; I couldn’t tell you anything about what it tasted like. Whoops. But thankfully I’ve got enough for another cup, which I will most definitely actually pay attention to next time!

Sucks though; ‘cause the whole point of my requesting this one was that I wanted to explore more straight Keemun’s since I feel like I’ve tried so few plain ones. Straight assams are much more my jam…

Kinda bummed I didn’t write any tasting notes yesterday; the “word of the day” was a really fun one – Scuttlebutt (rumor/gossip). I really wanted to share it – which I guess I’m doing now, but it feels a little like I’m cheating? The word of the day is outdated! I can’t think of why you’d use this one instead of rumor though – unless, like me, you just really like saying it.

Anyway; the “actual” word of the day today is trajectory which is “The curve that an object travels along through space (such as a bullet, a rocket or a planet in its orbit)”. Not nearly as fun a word though, in my opinion.

Finished off the last of my sample by oversteeping it. Result? Still excellent and not astringent. Definitely recommending this tea and adding it to my future purchase list.

Full review from this past Tuesday, here: http://www.createwritedrink.com/2015/02/tea-review-tuesday-review-of-andrews.html

This is the first tea I’ve tried out of the box Terri so generously sent me! I can’t get over how much she sent me-it’s crazy. If you see this, Terri, thank you soo much again! I’m so excited to try them all! :D
Been wanting to try this one for a while, and lemme say, I was not disappointed!
I had a feeling that it would taste like wood because feels like half the teas everyone adores on here taste like wood to me. xD
But it didn’t! Like not at all! :O
It was mainly malty. With kinda a faint apricot note in it. Wasn’t really a sweet malty. It was more of a bold, rich malty flavor. Really enjoyed this one!
Will have to consider picking this one up. Got enough of this tea for a few more cups so I have time to make up my mind!
Thank you for the generous sample, Terri!!

sniffle
Made the last of this today. Had it hot as a latte in the morning, and made Lebanese Tea (iced tea with lemon and rosewater) for lunch. I will miss this!

I know, I know, I should drink my teas faster than this :D It’s over a year old, but still tastes good. Still have about half a tin to go! It’s lightly smoky/malty, and very enjoyable for my Sunday morning pot of tea.

Today’s teapot was this. Nursed it pretty much all day. I can’t believe I have had this a year and barely touched it. This will probably be my next work tea once I go through the Red Tailed Hawk at work.

Mmm yum! This is the exact type of Assam I go crazy for. Strong, sweet and deep with no bitterness. Absolutely perfect. I could drink this every single morning. I don’t take my tea with additions, but if you do I bet it takes milk and sugar like a champ.
Unfortunately, I think it’s just too close to Rishi’s Assam for me to justify a purchase (that tin though…). Since I can currently get Rishi’s for $3.92 per 45g it doesn’t make sense to buy this one as well. But I will definitely keep this one in mind should I not be able to find Rishi’s in the future.
Thanks for letting me try it Sil

So this weekend went nothing like we’d planned… Does anyone else ever have a weekend like that? We started The weekend off with big plans… Cirque Du Solei is in town and we had tickets, Good Friday and Passover fell on the same day for the first time in a long time which meant some series food prep … There aren’t many good Friday meals that also pass as Seder friendy or vice versa and we had plans to backcountry camp Saturday in the Sierra…. Well, the only thing that actually worked the the way we planned was our cirque tickets and I feel like we’ve acomplished nothing this weekend!!

Sigh!

So I’m sitting outside enjoying some calm before the rest of the household wakes up and I’m watching a cheeky little squirrel balance on our fence and stick his head into an orange on our tree to devour it’s insides which is quite funny because hes going to town on it and I’m drinking this tea because I know this can’t go pear shaped on me. Raising my rating as this is something I have fnd myself reaching for quite a bit over the last few weeks… I’m sad to see it go but happy to have another sip down under my belt!

Happy Easter and Passover to all those who celebrate!

Overboard TTB #2

Mmmm… this smells delicious! The dry leaf smells a little bit like Russian Caravan to me (although I don’t drink a lot of this type of tea anymore… maybe its just flashbacks to childhood memories?) with a nice amount of warm spicy smokiness… upon sipping the tea definitely has some good amounts of malt, sweetness and smoke. Nothing is too overpowering just the perfect blend of smoky, woody, leatheriness… Yum!!

I really love this tea blend! When I ordered this, I knew I would probably enjoy it; I was absolutely right, and have been drinking it a lot!
This has everything I love in a tea. Not fussy, good anytime of day, resteeps wonderfully for another cup, and most important – so delicious!
Beautiful dry leaf that brews a fulfilling, smooth and and perfectly balanced cup of tea, with notes of honeyed malt, cocoa, pastries and a hint of fruitiness.
This is my perfect anytime tea, and I actually wish I bought more than just one tin!

Oh my GOODNESS is this going so well with my red cabbage and weisswurst for lunch! The bite of this tea is just utterly fantastic with food… nomnomnom…
Baked some brownies (David Lebovitz posted an incredibly gooey looking recipe on his facebook page today) for my husband, and already have two loads of laundry done.
I’m sitting here, drinking this fantastically malty tea, listening to some podcasts and just really liking this Friday. :D Cheers, everyone!

Out of all the A&D blends I’ve tried so far, this is my least favorite. It’s certainly not bad but I find it a little bland. Especially in comparison to the Oktoberfest blend I tried previously. It’s malty and a little sweet but there’s not too much else there. I know this is a Ceylon blend and I’ve never been super fond of them so take this review with a grain of salt. I do wish I liked it more because I absolutely love the tin. But it’s probably not worth $20 for just that :)

Thanks to Sil for this sample. I’m so happy to be able to try all these blends before springing for the full sizes.

Farewell delicious tea. You might be back someday…though i think next purchase will be black sunshine.

kicking the morning off right. Work from home day since i need to hit the dr’s office today. I picked up a few fruit teas yesterday (400g) lol so i need to get some serious sipping done before August is upon us if i want to make my weight goal. On the upside, i’m ok if i don’t since i know that the new teas will be gone before you know it. This is another one of my oldest teas and very near the end of it’s life here. Only a couple more cups worth before it too will be gone. On the plus side it means maybe i can justify picking up another damn fine tea!

ugh. humidity is the suck. Only got around to a little tea this morning because i have nothing in my cupboard that i can/want to cold brew. getting down to almost no teas in my cupboard which is a scary thing. Even this one is finally getting on the low side heh. glad i still have it though.