As Duncan says the first thing that strikes you about this tea apart from its colours and long leaf shapes is the earthy smell, something we have often found that led us to dislike the tea, but in this case we were more than pleasantly surprised by the first pot.
Yes - some of that smell does last into the brew but it seems to add to the character of this very tea - tea.
In many ways it seems to us a very old fashioned brew - a very good old fashioned brew, that was possibly even better on second brew and even third, when the slight change of flavour seems to remove entirely the earthy compounds. We found it both soothing and refreshing and always emptied the pot.
So then Tanin at its best, and a great addition to our tea larder.
