I enjoy this drink, but I can only say it is: grassy and slightly bitter. What is your opinion?
Please Describe the Taste of Black Tea.
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Have you tried different black teas? They can vary tremendously in taste.
I'm partial to golden monkey in particular although I like many others.
I'm partial to golden monkey in particular although I like many others.
Slightly metallic, slightly floral, remotely sweet, remotely bready, with slight echoes of licorice and artesian well water.
Malty... sort of like Guinness. But I like lemon and honey in it too; I don't drown it, but just a touch.
Shanez is correct. Asking for the taste of black tea is like asking for the taste of "meat". You need to be more specific about the type otherwise it's a spectrum of potential tastes.
Or, how does an IPA beer taste!?!?!?
My hot tea is an Indian brand is Wah Bakri. Love it brewed in a Brown Betty.
My hot tea is an Indian brand is Wah Bakri. Love it brewed in a Brown Betty.
Black tea is a pretty broad category. Imagine if we classified tobacco not by strain or location grown but simple by how it was cured. Well that's how tea is classified. Yes sometimes they tell you where it is grown but not always. And they tell you how "cured" it is black is the most Oolong is somewhere in the middle, green is just barely and white is basically not processed much at all. So long story shortened a second time black, green, white only says so much about how it tastes and more about how much caffeine it has. I've had black teas that taste like honey and flowers and ones that taste like burnt tar and the thing is as long as they're not in a tea bag I seem to like them (cut seems to effect how much I like the taste more then what the original leaf is).
not as much. White tea isn't fermented at all. Or at least that's what people tell me, never processed tea personally so they could be making things up.
White tea is specifically unopened bud tips that have been dried fast enough that they don't ferment, but it has not been heated like every other tea so the enzymes which cause oxidation are still present. Therefore, it is slightly more oxidized than green tea.
A type I love, that is in the same vein as Latakia is lapsing sushong. Both are smoked versions of a substance
and white tea tastes great but does not have much kick at all. Which makes it great for late night when you need a little more get up and go but still want to sleep.
It tastes like Rattray's Black Virginia if you add some sugar.
Inexpensive tea bag black tea could be orthodox tea, being the finings/dust or the "broken" grades of leaf which came out during whole leaf tea processing. It could also be 'cut tear curl' (CTC) tea which is shredded before fermentation.
Orthodox tea will be more variable, much like what everyone described already, but generally a little stronger than the whole leaf grades from the same leaf due to more thorough oxidation and larger surface area.
CTC tea is usually less complex and stronger. Kenyan CTC can't be beat as far as CTC goes (imho). Tim Hortons "steeped tea" is an example of CTC.
Echoing the above about varieties, but straight black English tea tastes soapy and astringent to me. Love Lapsang Suchong, tastes like a campfire!
As there are no tea farms in the UK, this could reflect your dislike for the tea of many different countries, but probably not Chinese tea. Certain teas are more astringent. Chinese tea is generally low in astringency because the Camilia strains grown there are simply that way. Some higher altitude Chinese teas are so smooth that its impossible to overstep them. Yunnan can go 8 minutes no problem.
But with Darjeeling or Ceylon, you're talking 3 minutes max.
The key to a strong cup made with astringent teas (aside from filtered water and preheated pots), is to double up on the amount of leaf or (bag), and to keep your brewing time really short, like 30 seconds to a minute. It's counterintuitive. I know, but astringency comes out more over time so you can get more of everything else before those tannins come out.
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