Black Manas

Top o’ the mornin’ to you. (yawn) We had hail in the wee hours and it sounded like a million leprechauns were clogging on my roof.

This was the first Assam I could lay my bleary eyes on, and I’m glad I did. Loving its texture—not too heavy, not too thin. Loving its flavor, which is still prompting me to use adjectives like bright and fruity (which I usually associate with Ceylon teas). Looking forward to a second steep this afternoon.

Thank you Teajo Teas for this generous Sample!

With open arms I’m enjoying the first Spring arrival of high mountain rain.
Next to my desk as I was looking outside the window the very bottom of the Rocky Mountain’s settled their jagged bones and smoothed out to a gradually descending plain.

I am in love with the drama of Frontrange weather! The romantic in me wants to pair the right tea with what’s happening in the atmosphere.

Black Manas arrived in the mail right on time for my imaginings.

With black and billowing clouds rolling overhead, I prepared a pot of tea and a 3.5 minute steep (I am a dark brew lover).

Taking my tea-tray to the largest window, I sat watching the sky. Tea is part of what is outside after all, more than what is in my heated, electronic filled house.

When I poured, the tea was very dark. I expected a strong and malty flavor, but was pleasantly surprised with a light, sweet and brisk taste that wasn’t very malty. Huh?

“What’s this?”, I asked myself. Had I assumed from the reviews that this was going to be a malty tea like so many other’s? This wasn’t the case.
For me, the tea was barely malty and had a clean citrus essense with delicious rose and butter cookie flavor.

The tea was strong, full bodied… yet gentle and smooth.

Sweetened and with cream…Superb!

As much as I love very strong Kenyan Tea when I need my jolt of caffeine, I really like the floral background in this tea very much!

For strong black tea lovers like me who want smooth superior flavor, this has it all!

For a rainy day, nothing could beat a tea like this one!

Ackckck! Sil has pulled ahead of me! LOL!
Add to that, I can’t really drink too many cups of tea this afternoon, since I have a wedding to play at later! I wouldn’t want to be sitting there playing pretty music, on the verge of peeing my pants, so I’ll have to be careful, at least until after the gig is over!

I pulled this Assam out of the swap box I have from Sil, which WAS packed to the gills, but now it’s a little easier to move things around in there & find what I’m looking for. This tea is VERY bold! Initially it hit me right between the eyes with a sharp flute-like tone, along with a very low & bitter almost coffee-like bass, but there is some rich fruitiness emerging in the center & my tongue feels like it’s coated with velvet. This stuff is intense, a really potent brew!
I think that puts me at 245.

sipdown! (196) i tried this today a couple ways…mostly because the first sip i took went something like:
“oh look yummy tea”

GAH! ew!

yeah…no. not sure if i was just way over brewing it or missing something but no. no. no. Makes me sad because i feel like i SHOULD like this. but i can’t get behind it.

Miscommunicating with friends, cleaning the house, forgetting to eat… I wanted a nice strong cup of black tea with some sugar and plenty of milky substance.

Oh yeah, this is good.

And now I think my brother is coming over, because I’m cranky and don’t want to go out. I’ll be making him dinner for my birthday… what?

Edit: oh yeah. 200 tasting notes.

Thanks to Piccolo at Teajo Teas for such a generous sample of this tea!

I’m still not super familiar with the flavours of different black tea types, but assam seems to be one that I lean towards a bit more than others, so I was interested to try another version of it to train my palate a bit! I have to say that the tea tastes pretty much how I would expect. It’s malty and only just slightly astringent, with a bit of a raisiny finish (that part was unexpected and lovely!) I think I will try my next cup of it with additions, as I think it will hold up well.

Generally, I’m not the biggest fan of straight black teas to begin with, so it’s pretty tough to crack the ranks of teas I’d like to drink on a regular basis, and this one doesn’t make the cut for me, although I’m sure that any assam lover would be quite delighted with it!

Needed a nice strong malty tea tonight and this hit the spot! In the past, I would have added milk and sugar, but I’m loving this all on its own.

My house is a disaster and what do I do? I reorganize my tea cabinet.

This smelled of malt and hay when I opened the package.

From the description of “full leaf” and “whole leaf” I had expected a bit more unfurling of large leaves but they pretty much stayed the same size they were when dry. That’s okay though. Possibly just me not understanding what a full leaf tea should be.

This tastes like it smells. Malty and faintly of hay. A nice, standard golden reddish brown liquid. It is a bold and basic black tea. Hearty and full bodied, I’m certain it would stand up well to milk and sugar if one desired such. Smooth and with a hint of dryness at the end of the sip.

This one is nice, The the aroma of the dry leafe is fruity and slightly minty like the scent of juicy fruit and doublemint gum together at the same time.
We fist tried this one early this morning with breakfast and it was really just perfect for breakfast, usually when we have an Assam for breakfast we bring out the sweetener and milk because thats the way we like our breakfast tea and it really held the milk well it was creamy, smooth and malty with slight astringency and was so delicious that Lance had 2 cups which is rare for him He said it’s better than coffee in the morning lol.
I went on to try it straight with nothing added and it taste better to me that way it was malty and mild with a slightly bitter astringency to it which I enjoyed and it had a fruity note that was like that of raisins in fact it was like raisin bread toast or something, very delicious. It was not quite as strong as I was expecting it to be when I had it straight but I usually go for really strong brewed ctc type Assams AND this one held milk very well which was probably why I was expecting it to be a little stronger with nothing added.
Damn good tea!
http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/

5/5

Love this, goes right in that category in my mind of “reach for this when you crave the taste of tea you remember from a long time ago, just that thick blackblackblack flavor bordering on bitter but done really well” where A&D Double Knit Blend, Persimmon Tree Vintage Black, and Golden Moon Sinharaja fall. Where it’s both coffee-like in many ways and yet very…“old-fashioned tea” tasting. It’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea but when I do crave it it’s the strongest craving ever. So glad to have this one.