This is the last of my tea haul from the Rare Tea Company! I was pretty excited for this one because I love a good black tea and because in my head I was envisioning something like Kinnettles Gold, which I love.
First Impressions
The leaves are long and thin, with a nice malty scent. It’s a good first impression and I’m super excited to try this!
Tasting Notes
First round: This wasn’t as malty as I expected. It’s a smooth amber-coloured tea, with mild woody and floral notes. There’s also another note that I recognise but can’t quite put my finger on…
Second round: I made this second round with milk, mostly because the website said that it stands up to milk. To be honest, I was a bit worried about adding milk because of how smooth it is (and the lack of malty notes) but the milk really enhanced the taste of the tea! I felt that it gave the tea some sweetness and richness that boosted the flavours in the tea. I may actually prefer to have this with milk rather than straight.
Third round: This was the round where I realised that the unidentified note from the first round was… “spicy”! Can’t quite put my finger on why I missed it or what makes it spicy but that was the impression I got. It seems like the more tea I drink, the more impressions I get from the tea. This was the round where it felt like the teas were starting to reach the end of their lifespan but to be sure, I decided to steep it one more time.
Fourth Round: While I’m still getting the spicy and woody notes in this cup, it’s a lot fainter and the tea has definitely reached the end of its life. The flavours here die down very quickly, a huge change from the first cup.
Spent leaves: The leaves here are mostly whole and smooth to touch! Interesting – I still don’t know what varietal it is but it doesn’t really look/feel like a var assamica leaf to me.
Conclusion
Initially, I was thinking of doing a follow-up post where I compared the Kinnettles Gold to this Huntington Hand Rolled tea, but now that I’ve tasted this, I don’t think there’s much worth to compare them. This is an elegant tea that goes well with milk, and I think it’d be great for afternoon teas. I won’t hoard it the way I do the Malawi White Antlers, but it’s also a tea that I’d be happy to push onto friends.