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I am still trying to clean out my backlog. I have consumed so many samples from Teabox over the past 2 1/2 weeks that it is ridiculous. I haven’t counted in a while, but I kind of doubt I am any closer to catching up on my reviews than I was a week ago. At some point in the very near future, I will probably just take a day and post reviews. Until then, I will be posting one or two new reviews each day. So, with that in mind, allow me to get started on that. I finished a sample of this tea a couple weeks ago. It greatly impressed me, and I’m not one who is easily impressed by Nilgiri teas.

I prepared this tea in the Western style. I steeped about 3 grams of loose leaf material in approximately 8 ounces of 194 F water for 5 minutes. I did not attempt any additional infusions.

Prior to infusion, the dry leaf material produced mild aromas of eucalyptus, wintergreen, wood, and flowers. After infusion, I caught scents of fresh flowers, white grape, cucumber, butter, wood, watermelon, and wintergreen. In the mouth, I found an interesting and surprisingly complex, harmonious mixture of thyme, eucalyptus, wintergreen, cucumber, wood, fresh flower (lily), honeydew, watermelon, sweet basil, malt, toast, cream, tree bark, and white grape notes. The finish was very smooth, offering lingering impressions of melon rind, lily, malt, cucumber, eucalyptus, and wintergreen.

This was an incredibly nice Nilgiri black tea. It was totally not what I normally expect of Nilgiri teas. Incredibly complex, smooth, and challenging in a good way, this would be a perfect tea for someone looking to move beyond the typical, widely available Nilgiri black teas. Prior to trying this tea, I was aware that the Glendale Estate had a great reputation among Nilgiri tea enthusiasts, and now I understand why. Definitely try this if you are at all interested in the black teas that are coming out of South India.