Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Capital Tea Limited
Tea Description:
Wiry brown leaves with ample golden tips. These leaves produce a smooth and rich tasting tea liquor with a particularly sweet honey-malt flavour. A very well rounded flavour profile and balanced full body makes this an excellent tea to drink with milk for any time of day.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I received a sampling of this tea from a friend. Her experience with the tea wasn’t as positive as my first few sips of this tea seemed to be and I thought at first that the reason may be because of steep time. I find that Assam teas are quite finicky and temperamental. I don’t usually use boiling water for an Assam tea, I go with just slightly under (205°F) and steep the tea for not more than 2 1/2 minutes. If I’m steeping the tea in my Kati tumbler or a teapot, then I go with 2 1/2 minutes. If I’m brewing the tea in my Breville One-Touch, I go with 2 minutes.
The reason for the different brew time in my Breville? Because the tea maker will keep the liquid warmer than the act of heating the water and pouring it into a separate vessel. Even though the temperature change may be very slight, with an Assam it does make a difference.
My first few sips of this tea were pleasant enough. I picked up on sweeter notes of malt as well as a honey-like sweetness and these two flavors melded together in a nice way.
But as I continued to sip, I started to pick up on this bitter note toward mid-sip. It wasn’t that “oops, I oversteeped the tea” sort of bitterness. At first, I thought it was a savory element to contrast with the sweeter notes. However, I noticed that some of the sweetness that I picked up on early on was beginning to wane and the tannic qualities of this tea were taking over.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a tea like this, where I would have a positive experience with it at first and as I continued to sip the experience grew less and less enjoyable, but that’s what I’m getting from this. What started out with a pleasant, mild sweetness has become something more like something that’s gone bad. It was fine for the first five sips or so but as I progressed with this cup, I found that the flavors became less sweet and pleasurable and more tannic.
And now that this cup sits in front of me, I can’t really offer any redeeming words about it. I wish I could.
I do thank my friend, though, for sending me the sampling. I do appreciate it.
Keemun Classic 2014 Harvest Black Tea from Capital Tea Limited
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Capital Tea Limited
Tea Description:
Small, even and slender wiry black leaves with a forward classic keemun aroma. This tea produces a strong, rich tasting and full bodied tea liquor with a sweet and subtly smoky aroma and with prominent cocoa flavour notes. Highly recommended!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I looked forward to trying this Keemun because I’ve enjoyed the other teas that I’ve tried from Capital Tea Limited thus far. Unfortunately, this Classic Keemun leaves me wanting.
There is a strong leathery note that is prominent and up front. As I mentioned on Steepster about this tea, it is almost as though the leather notes want to pull all the focus on them to disguise the fact that this is not a very round tasting tea. It doesn’t have that well-rounded, pleasing flavor that I have come to expect from a top-notch Keemun tea.
I’m not getting a strong cocoa flavor as promised in the above description. Beyond the leathery notes, I do get some notes of chocolate and also a smoky presence. But I wouldn’t call this a “rich tasting” or even a “full-bodied” tea. It’s kind of thin in the flavor department, lacking that round, satisfying taste that I want from a Keemun.
Not my favorite Keemun.
To brew: I placed a bamboo scoop of the leaf in the basket of my Kati Tumbler and added 12 ounces of boiling water and steeped for 3 minutes.
Golden Monkey Superfine Grade – 2014 Harvest from Capital Tea Limited
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Capital Tea Limited
Tea Description:
Young, fine and tender prominently golden tea leaves with an intensely forward aroma. These leaves produce a rich, medium bodied tea liquor with a very smooth and sweet flavour that is full of finesse. This tea has a wonderful depth of flavour and is highly recommended.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Really nice! This Golden Monkey has a rich, full-flavor that I want in my first cup of the day, the kind of tea that will help you get a move on!
I received a sampling of this tea from a friendly sipper on Steepster, which is an excellent community of tea drinkers. I like to call Steepster “Facebook for tea drinkers.” Anyway, I’m so grateful to the community because it allows me the opportunity to try some teas that maybe I wouldn’t have been able to try otherwise.
Like this Golden Monkey, for example! To brew this tea, I poured the sampling I received in the basket of my Kati Tumbler and heated 12 ounces of tea to boiling and let the tea steep for 3 minutes.
The aroma is sweet and chocolaty with notes of smoke, earth and leather. These notes translate to the flavor as well, because that’s exactly what I’m tasting! Notes of earth and leather, with background notes of smoke. There is an overtone of chocolate with a sweet undertone of caramel. Luscious!
It’s a remarkably smooth tea – I’m getting virtually no astringency. In the aftertaste, I experience a very slight dryness, but it is so slight that if I wasn’t focusing on it, I don’t know that I would have noticed it. It’s not bitter. It’s just pleasant deliciousness from start to finish.
Another great tea from this company!
Bemolapur Estate Assam STGFOP1 Black Tea from Capital Tea Limited
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Capital Tea Limited
Tea Description:
Small tightly rolled leaves with a high proportion of golden tips. These amazingly aromatic leaves produce a highly concentrated sweet and full bodied tea liquor with an incredibly rich dark chocolate-malt character. An outstanding breakfast tea to enjoy with milk.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I love it when I find a really excellent Assam tea – and this Bemolapur Estate Assam from Capital Tea Limited is indeed excellent! The flavor is full and robust! This is the kind of tea you want on those mornings when you need to shake the sleepy, because it’s got plenty of gusto!
To brew this Assam, I heated the water to 205°F and poured the sampling I received into the basket of my Kati Tumbler. Then I poured the water over the leaves and steeped the tea for 2 1/2 minutes. This is a tea that I’d recommend tinkering around with to find just the right time and temperature for you, because although my cup was not bitter, it was somewhat astringent and I suspect that the tea would have been bitter if I steeped it for another 15 or 30 seconds.
Fortunately, I cut off the steeping time at just the right time for my palate because what I’m getting is a sweet, malty richness that I love from an Assam tea. Bold! Delectable notes of dark chocolate with an undertone of honeyed caramel.
I liked this tea served hot, straight up. But I did let part of the cup go cold (I got distracted and was away from my cup too long!) and it’s quite tasty as a cold tea too (again, straight up). It would also be nice with a dollop of honey (to accentuate those honey undertones) and a splash of milk (the creaminess of the dairy together with the malt would be outstanding).
A really lovely tea.
Mintberry Pine Green Tea Blend from M & K’s Tea Company
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: M&K’s Tea Company on Etsy
Tea Description:
Sweet roasted sloe berries doused in honey and liquid hibiscus, tossed with fresh spearmint and 3-distinct green teas, paired with real pine needles. That’s Mintberry Pine. It’s our limited-edition green tea holiday blend that offers a more complex, subtle taste (as opposed to mint exploding in your mouth with the force of a white hot sun). If you’re a green tea lover, mint lover, berry lover, or all three, this tea is perfect for you. Get it while it’s here!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
When I saw that M&K’s Tea Company had some really intriguing holiday blends, I decided that I needed (yes, needed) to try them! Fortunately, they understood this need and they offered a Wintertime Tea Sampler! This sampler offers five different teas: Moroccan Mint, Pine Needle Tea, Winterwolf Tea, White Vanilla Peppermint and this Mintberry Pine Green Tea. These samples were all packed into a special sampler package that’s just the right size for stocking stuffers. It’s a handsome package, something that Santa would be proud to give!
Before I received my package, I received a message from Marty (the “M” of M&K’s, I think!) explaining that the Mintberry Pine (and the Pine Needle Tea) are both very subtle teas. He recommended steeping them a little longer than the package directs and to allow plenty of steep room for the leaves (let them steep loose in the teapot instead of using an infuser tool).
To steep, I grabbed my small teapot (4 cup size) and dusted it off – it’s been a while since I’ve used this! I have gotten spoiled with my Breville! I warmed the teapot and poured the contents of the sampler into the teapot and heated 16 ounces of water to 180°F. Then I poured the water into the teapot and let it steep for 3 1/2 minutes. The package suggests 2 – 4 1/2 minutes, but I couldn’t bear to let a green tea steep longer than 3 1/2 minutes. I was willing to sacrifice a little of the mint, berry and pine flavors but I didn’t want a bitter green tea.
Yes, the flavors are a little subtle, but I like that I’m tasting all the elements of this tea and that the green tea doesn’t taste bitter.
I like the subtle flavor of the mint here. I like that I have a crisp, cool minty taste without it tasting like I added a shot of mouthwash to my cup of green tea.
The berry notes add some sweetness and not a lot of tartness (which I was a little apprehensive about because I saw liquid hibiscus up there in the description). There is a light, tingly tart tone that tickles the tongue (try saying that five times fast) in the aftertaste, but that’s to be expected with berry blends. I’m also picking up a delightful honeyed note from the honey roasting process. Nice touch.
The pine needles are the softest flavor component of the three elements in the name of this tea. I do get a very slight, resinous pine note to this that hits the palate right at the start and then it quickly disappears and reappears just after mid-sip, just to remind me that it is there. It’s very faint and it’s something that I think I’d have missed if I didn’t search for it.
However, as I continue to sip, I taste more and more of the pine, and by the time I’m halfway through my second cup of this tea, I’m getting a nice pine note. It never becomes a strong presence, but it certainly is a noticeable presence at this point.
And let us not forget that we’re drinking tea here. There’s a soft, buttery note of green tea. It’s lightly grassy (and I think that the grassy tones accentuate both the pine and the mint notes in a positive way), and it has a nice mouthfeel. It’s not bitter nor is it overly astringent, even though I steeped it longer than I typically would steep a green tea. I think that this could have even gone another 30 seconds to 1 full minute longer without bitterness!
Overall, a very unique blend. Certainly festive and definitely different from the other teas that everyone else is producing out there! Bravo M&K!