BOH

The wife of one of my cousins has me in something of a tea war where we send each other interesting tea every month or so and she sent me a canister of this. It’s interesting, but I agree with the poster who called it the Liptons of Malaysia. It is a nice very bland basic black tea with nothing really special about it. It’s tasty but it’s not interesting. Nothing stands out about it.

Very faint aroma, almost nonexistent, only very subtle traces of earth and malt.
So is the taste. Tea brewed from one teabag is watery and bland. I suppose that if brewed from two teabags or from loose leaf, it may turn out rather good, but it shouldn’t supposed to be like that.

My morning mug of tea today, with some cashew milk.

This was a share from VariaTEA – so thank you for that! My new roommate/landlord made us breakfast this morning and it was SO GOOD. I’m not actually sure what the food was, but it was basically like a Chinese egg/omelette type thing that was very thin and creamy/buttery, with lots of chives. I had three and they were insanely rich and filling.

This tea ended up being a really good counterpart because it was very full bodied and tannic, even with the cashew milk, with lots and lots of malt/grain notes. It also wasn’t overly sweet, so that body/dense black tea character reallyyyy helped to cut some of the richness of the meal.

Yum!

A share from VariaTEA!

To be completely honest, I had low expectations for this tea based on the dry leaf aroma and cut style – it seemed like it was either going to be really flat/dull or really choppy/harsh. I was delightfully surprised when I made it up though! The liquor is a deep red with great clarity, and the tea itself was very robust and full bodied while still being incredibly smooth and well rounded. Very, very minimal astringency and no bitterness! Notes of malt and grains, some sweetness and a hint of red fruit.

Really, really damn good.

This is my morning cup. Smooth, dark, rich, slightly malty flavor. It never fails to satisfy. The quality and consistency of this little known tea makes it an excellent value if you don’t mind the RT airfare to get it. Last I knew, BOH Tea was not exporting to the US market but perhaps this has changed.

I used to visit Malaysia often, and have somewhat fond memories of the hyper-sweet teas that are brought to your table by default when you order tea. So, I bought this canister out of sentimentality. I don’t drink it often, though. It’s ground up very fine and seems low-quality, even though it’s the “gold blend.” I can’t imagine drinking this without milk and sugar. As a straight tea, it’s rather bad.

I’ve been a Tea drinker for a long time, but recently gotten really into drinking it. I decided to branch out and get some tea that I’ve never seen or heard of, which leaves a big variety out there since I’m a newbie to the world of teas. I ordered BOH Plantations Cameron Highlands Tea on a whim and haven’t regretted it since. Its a very delicious, smooth black tea that I think is great anytime of the day or season, but I’m a newbie again…so your mileage may vary. It’s worth a try though :)

It’s one of the best camomile teas I’ve tasted, hot or cold – it starts out fresh and well-rounded, floral and perfum-y with clean aftertaste and appearance.

I can’t do straight green teas first thing in the morning (sensitive stomach) so I usually go for a black with milk if I do feel like tea then. This one I’ve had before but the more I drink it the more average I find it. Its so average I’d rather drink Tetley over this. Don’t get me wrong its not horrible, just rather blah.

Second time drinking this. Its an okay tea, that doesn’t really stand out is my conclusion. Decent for sipping in the mornings in a rush as there isn’t anything in particular to savour slowly. Because it is so ordinary, it’d probably make a great tea base for adding fruit or other ingredients, as it wouldn’t overpower any flavours.

I think my next project will be to try mixing this with some dried fruit / nut mixes that I usually use for granola making, and see how the flavours meld.

Picked this up on a trip to Asia last year, and only got around to trying it now. Comes in loose leaf in a standard sized tin, so I used the Bodum infuser for this. Its a fairly standard tasting black tea, I brewed it strong at first, 1 tsp for 5 min in 1/2 cup water, and then mixed in 1/2 cup hot milk to get a really milky black tea with no sugar. Seems like it will make a good breakfast tea. I’m going to try it next mixed with coffee and see if it goes well! I find combining tea & coffee gives a nice extra boost which I’m sure I’ll need when work starts back up next week…

Sheherazade shared a couple of bags of this with me, and my immediate thought was that it came from Cameroon! That was a new one, I didn’t even know they grew tea there. (Truth be told, I’m barely certain where Cameroon even is apart from Africa. I think the West coast, in that corner there…) Turns out that this wasn’t actually from Africa at all. It’s so called because it’s grown in a place called the Cameron Highlands and that is in Malaysia. Still a new one, then! I don’t think I’ve had tea from Malaysia before. I did think it was strange that it said Kuala Lumpur on the bag if it came from Cameroon. While I may not be entirely up on African geography, I do know that Kuala Lumpur is not in Africa.

Now, let’s see. I am a bit concerned about the whole ‘highlands’ part. As we know, I’m not super fond of high grown teas, and this does indeed have that grassy, slightly spicy aroma to it.

It tastes grassy and a bit flower-y as well, but to my pleasant surprise it appears to be entirely or almost entirely without that sour aftertaste that puts me off in Darjeelings especially. There isn’t really all that much else to this. It’s a bit of a one-note tea.

Not super impressive, but not awful either. Interestingly I happened to see this brand in a grocery shop recently. Not our usual shop, but the posh one in town that has a lot of specialty products.

I believe it’s of the Assam variety, which is not really a favorite of mine. Quite a strong black tea, but smoother than some other Assams I’ve tried. I should try it with milk some time, as it seems well suited as a breakfast tea “English style”. You can add some points if you’re into Assam.

Almost forgot this one! It’s a backlog from Saturday morning.

Anyway, I picked up a few of these in tea bag form as a freebie from work. Our Malaysian International Officer brought them back from a trip, and invited us all to share. Never one to turn down tea, I did just that!

I didn’t have the highest hopes for this one. It’s a plain, bagged black, after all. It’s pretty nice, though. I drank it with milk, because that’s generally how I roll with this type of tea, although I can actually imagine it being okay without — I have another bag in my cupboard, so maybe I’ll give that a try. For some reason, I expected this to be a little rough and astringent. It’s not at all, though. I wouldn’t say it has a great deal in the way of flavour, but it’s silky smooth and very, very easy to drink. This would be an excellent everyday tea for those times when I don’t want anything heavily flavoured. It’s relatively sweet, with a something slightly citrussy about it. Not remarkable, but pleasant all the same. An excellent freebie!

…my latest tea for early mornings (5.30am kind-of-stuff)…nice with milk and sugar. Very awakening. But I am missing those profound flavors that the “English Breakfast” blend from Twinings is able to produce on my palate.Especially when it comes to aftertaste…

My favorite wake-up cuppa. Beautiful honey notes compliment a strong and full flavor black tea. Go without milk and sugar – it’s just fine on its own.

It’s not really even leaves. It’s just tea dust. In a canister. I doubled the dosage of tea and it’s still very weak. This is my favorite tea to make chai with. The flavor is only strong when I spam tea dust, but then it becomes bitter. So it’s good for drowning out with spices and milk.

Judging from the high ratings this tea has, I must be doing something wrong. It smells wonderful, but when I try to drink it, it’s very weak. It seems to be teabag-standard leaves, but in an oversized container.

I have the chance to drink this blend thanks to LaFleurBleue who sent me a generous sample.
It is a nice and qualitative tea.
The dry leaves are amazing, very long but curved and very dry.

Once steeped, the leaves are very large almost entire.

The scent is not very strong but steeped, the aromas are there.
The tea base is a very good black one.
I really like it without being absolutely in love but maybe because I mainly drink flavoured teas and this one is not.

I bought this tea at the same time as Garden Teas Palas Suprem, directly at the plantation in the middle of Cameron Highlands.
I started with the other one, thinking it would be more citrus-flavored than this one. I had already find the explanation behind my complete misunderstanding of Orange Pekoe and Pekoe tea, when I decided to open this box (see rating for Garden Teas Palas Suprem). I did not expect a citrus tangy flavor but just full nice leaves.
I realized that the box despite being the same thing as Palas Suprem only contained 75g of tea while the other had 100g inside. As soon as it was opened, I realized why : the dry leaves were slightly twisted, looked quite big and if there had been more, they would have been broken.
I steeped it in a gaiwan, as I anticipated that the leaves should require space in the water to really expand. That was a great idea, as I found it really nice to look at the leaves opening and expanding completely within the cup. After steeping, all leaves were entire and were all between 5 to 7 cm, I had never before seen any so large and unbroken in any tea.
The taste was rather nice for a black tea; to my opinion, a bit nicer than Palas Supreme. If you like unflavored black tea, you should probably try this.
I resteeped a few times without getting anything close to watery, proof that the tea is indeed quite potent. It did not seem to get bitter at all, which I also liked.
I will probably not buy it again as I usually prefer flavored tea, but I may try to flavor it myself (starting with the Palas Supreme tea) as the tea base would then be exceptional and much better than that usually used in the black tea blends, even from Mariage Frères.
I’m really glad I bought those two teas as they helped me get to know better what is a good quality black tea.