The next entry from a Revolution variety pack delivered one of the strangest experiences I've had with a tea. Sniffing the dry bag (pyramid sachet) rendered an unmistakably familiar aroma that took me many tries to recall its specific origin. "Sniff, sniff, sniff...I know this...sniff, sniff, sniff...where have I smelled this before?" On and on, this maddening exercise proceeded for several minutes.

Then it hit. The dry bag smells like the inside of a Pier 1 Imports store! Say what? I kept sniffing a little longer to make sure I wasn't hallucinating or "smelling things". I haven't been inside one of those stores in a couple years, but readers who have will know exactly what I'm typing about. It's that odd but somewhat pleasant scent arising from a blend of finished and unfinished wood (always including cedar), decorative dried plant material, and a collective of all the scented candles, incense items, potpourris, and whatever they use to clean the store and polish its floors. The composite of all that comes out in this dry aroma. Given how much stuff emits scent molecules in such a store, I could argue that this is the most complex tea aroma in existence. :-) If forced to pick the most dominant component, I'd say cedar.

Curiously, I hardly could get anything but straight-tea smell in-cup. The flavor itself was smooth, rather sweet for an English breakfast tea, hardly bitter at all, a little malty (Assam component), and pleasant to drink, albeit not particularly strong, even after swirling the bag around and squeezing it out in-cup. This probably wouldn't resteep well, for those who try. But it was a pleasant, easy drink—nothing I'd make effort to buy for home use at its somewhat high price, but a tea I'd gratefully accept if offered or served.

So what of that Pier 1 smell? It came back a bit in the finish of the sip, aftertaste, and wet-bag aroma, but nowhere nearly as obviously as in the dry bag. Weird!

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