I think I wrote a good number of tasting notes for quite a number of backlogged holiday teas for the entire month of December. whew. I do love my holiday tea collection… but those are usually on the flavoreds side… except for possibly Andrews & Dunham’s ‘Holiday’ tea which has always went insanely well with cookies. And there are too many cookies around here so I will definitely be steeping ‘Holiday’ a couple times to go with these cookies.
On to this tea: A smaller recent Harney purchase. I couldn’t help it with the holiday sale and the free shipping and my love of supporting smaller companies. But I’m not sure now… if their tea is found in grocery stores… is Harney a small company? I tried a harvest of this tea years ago. I remember it much darker and smokier. Now the black leaves with hints of gold are actually much lighter with a very fruity note… sometimes noticeable plum, sometimes some other fruits. The smoke is entirely gone in this harvest. It does have a starchy and slightly sweet potato note under all that fruit and it’s also very sweet anyway. I think others could pick out a billion other flavors here. The color of the brew is more amber than midnight murky. I will miss the older harvest. This one is very different but very good. My rating would probably still be an 88 for this harvest, but it seems a completely different tea now.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons // 12 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 min
People who liked this
Comments
I wouldn’t call Harney a small company anymore. With stores in Soho and Millerton, and their teas sold in Barnes and Noble, Target, and nicer grocery stores, plus their online sales and European market…they blend the teas for the Historic Royal Palaces society in England and just opened a new store in…Tokyo? Somewhere in Asia, but I am not sure where. But yes, not so terribly long ago they began in John Harney’s basement!
I’m glad Harney is doing so well then. :D
I saw the top 10 tea list recently on twitter… Harney was on it. I haven’t tried any of their tea. I’ll have to try. :)
tea companies list*
The only time I’ve tried their tea was some samples at a tea festival, heh.
What the heck, if I had the new teas from Harney before mailing out the teabox, I should have added some! They have free shipping all the time now, if you wanted to just sample a couple things (I know you’re on a NO NEW TEA ban right now though) (also they send a couple extra teabags along and sometimes in summer, hefty iced tea samples.)
tea-sipper, do you actually have 999 teas in your cupboard? Are you doing it on purpose to irritate OCD folks like myself?
No one is supposed to SEE the 999. I feel bad enough about it. haha. I’m a tea addict, what can I say. Most of the teas are last servings of a tea that I’m hoarding. But of course some of the earliest are at least eight years old… actually I’m surprised I don’t have even older teas.
I wouldn’t call Harney a small company anymore. With stores in Soho and Millerton, and their teas sold in Barnes and Noble, Target, and nicer grocery stores, plus their online sales and European market…they blend the teas for the Historic Royal Palaces society in England and just opened a new store in…Tokyo? Somewhere in Asia, but I am not sure where. But yes, not so terribly long ago they began in John Harney’s basement!
I’m glad Harney is doing so well then. :D
I saw the top 10 tea list recently on twitter… Harney was on it. I haven’t tried any of their tea. I’ll have to try. :)
tea companies list*
The only time I’ve tried their tea was some samples at a tea festival, heh.
What the heck, if I had the new teas from Harney before mailing out the teabox, I should have added some! They have free shipping all the time now, if you wanted to just sample a couple things (I know you’re on a NO NEW TEA ban right now though) (also they send a couple extra teabags along and sometimes in summer, hefty iced tea samples.)
tea-sipper, do you actually have 999 teas in your cupboard? Are you doing it on purpose to irritate OCD folks like myself?
No one is supposed to SEE the 999. I feel bad enough about it. haha. I’m a tea addict, what can I say. Most of the teas are last servings of a tea that I’m hoarding. But of course some of the earliest are at least eight years old… actually I’m surprised I don’t have even older teas.