 | "An Earl Grey whose bergamot flavoring is included almost as an afterthought... smoky and earthy, with a hint of an almost butterscotch-like aftertaste, this blend is actually pretty good despite its somewhat unorthodox taste."
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Merry Christmas everyone!
I was probably not the only inveterate tea-lover out there today who woke up to find more than one canister of tea in his or her stocking. Santa (actually my mother-in-law) got me not one but four - a three-pack of bagged white teas from CeylonTea and a canister of loose organic Earl Grey under the “Archer Farms” brand. Both of these brands were completely new to me, but since I’m never one to pass up a new Earl Grey experience, it was the Archer Farms canister that got the first taste test.
My usual - and sometimes disturbing - tendency to thrust my nose into a newly-opened canister of tea once again kicked in tonight, and wow it was good. The thick and fresh aroma of bergamot was all-encompassing. Really, this is one of the finest-smelling teas I’ve come across in quite some time. It immediately got my saliva glands working so I prepared a cuppa and got down to business.
Once again, the difference between the smell and the taste of this Earl Grey blend was rather pronounced. The aroma of the raw leaves really makes you expect a perfumed and fruity drink. But the primary flavor here was the smoky, earthy tea - the bergamot taste, while definitely there, was definitely more of a muted background characteristic. Even more pronounced than the bergamot was one of those peculiar pseudo-flavors that I can only describe as “almost butterscotch,” which was really noticeable only in the aftertaste. I’ve experienced this butterscotch flavor before in the past in certain teas (memorably, Harney and Sons organic peppermint - which was awful awful awful) but here it seemed to actually work. It worked pretty well as a compliment to the smokiness of the tea, and surprisingly enough, didn’t seem to conflict at all with the tertiary bergamot taste.
Smoke + butterscotch + oil of bergamot = tasty? If you asked me that yesterday I’d have laughed so hard I’d probably have spit up whatever tea I was drinking at the time, but, well, there it is. I liked this tea. Which is all the more surprising because I’m an absolute nut for bergamot in my Earl Grey blends, and in this tea its included almost only as an afterthought. I don’t know that I’d ever make a specific trip to purchase another canister of it, but certainly I wouldn’t balk at the option.
“Archer Farms,” by the way, is not really the quaint and bucolic mom-and-pop establishment you may have in mind when you hear the name and see the cutesy packaging. Its actually just the corporate name for Target’s line of organic “premium foods.” Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Its just that when I first got the canister it looked like the kind of thing you’d pick up at a little old barn on the side of rural route 9 while antiquing on the weekend, and not a mass-produced foodstuff created by a vast and (presumably) evil multinational corporation.
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Stephen Teaviews.com Reviewer » Read more about this reviewer on Stephen's profile page. » Find a list of recent posts by Stephen. |
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