This was a very strange tea. I did two steepings Western-style. After the first steeping, the first smell that hit me was of candied sweet potatoes. Usually when I smell this in a tea there is also an associated potato skin smell that is similar to dirt, but this tea was lacking that smell. This tea was smoother and very much lighter-bodied than what I was expecting from the initial aroma. The rest of the smells and flavors were difficult to make sense of because I hadn’t experienced a tea like this before. There was a flaky pastry scent, cotton candy-like sweet smell and the faintest aroma of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I also detected a fruity aroma that was closest to bing cherries, but Casey said it was more plum-like to him. There was a very mild minty sensation at the end of the sip.
In the second steeping I could taste some cinnamon candy spiciness and then suddenly tomato paste was there and became dominant note in the cup for me. There was even maybe a bit of an herbaceous smell. I wish I was joking about the tomato paste, but Casey smelled this too. It was pretty off-putting, although it didn’t taste at all like tomato paste, but this tea still gets high ratings from the first steeping about because of its uniqueness.
