Library Blend Tea from Murchie’s Tea & Coffee

library-blendTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black & Green Blend

Where to Buy: Murchie’s Tea & Coffee

Product Description:

Murchie’s Library Blend Tea is a mild blend of green & black teas featuring Ceylon, Jasmine, Keemun and Gunpowder teas that is delightfully aromatic with a rich, smooth flavour. Anything but boring, and as great as the classics in literature!

Learn more about this blend here.

Taster’s Review:

Because this Library Blend Tea from Murchie’s Tea & Coffee is a blend of both black and green tea leaves, I brewed the tea at a lower temperature (185°F) and steeped it for just 2 minutes to avoid scorching the tender green tea leaves.

This is an interesting blend.  I’m not quite ready to call it “tasty,” but it’s interesting.  The black teas – Ceylon and Keemun – brewed at a lower temperature and for a shorter period of time offer a mild black tea flavor and they meld with the green tea flavors.  There’s a gentle flinty flavor to this.  It’s … smoky … but not quite … if that makes sense.  It tastes like the soft wisps of smoke when attempting to light a fire:  before the fire becomes a blaze.

The green tea lightens the body and the flavor.  There are notes of earth, hints of a grassy taste, and the aforementioned wisps of smoke.  There is a light astringency to the cup.

The one thing that is holding me back from really liking this is the jasmine.  It just tastes a little off.  You know me, jasmine is one of my favorite florals, but, it isn’t working for me in this blend.  The floral notes here taste contrived.

Overall, I would say that this blend is just OK.  Not spectacular in any way, and I found myself wishing that this would have been made a “simpler” blend by eliminating the jasmine.  It’s alright, but not a tea at the top of my list to try again soon.