A good tea, but not really true to the Irish Breakfast style. Pricey, and requires a lot of leaf to brew strong enough for me.

Dry leaf has a slightly malty and strongly fruity aroma, and a heterogeneous color showing a lot of tips, which look dusty beige in color.

This is the smoothest Irish Breakfast tea I've ever tried. Its aroma is less malty than typical, and is strongly suggestive of Yunnan black teas, with a hint of smokiness in its aroma. Overall the character is more like Chinese black teas than I usually expect from Irish Breakfast. Fruity, like raisins, dates, and perhaps black plum. Only a hint of the malty character...more bready than malty, again, more like Chinese teas than like Assam.

Very full-bodied but exceptionally smooth. Very little bitterness...none of the "edgy" quality I usually encounter in these teas, and surprisingly little astringency relative to the amount of robustness and strength.

Even when I brewed this tea quite strongly, using more leaf than normal, and a 6 minute steeping, and I found it was still exceptionally smooth. When brewing normally, this tea was too weak.

At $36 a pound, this tea seems expensive to me, especially for an Irish Breakfast blend. The quality is top-notch, but I would prefer other teas in this price range. I was a little annoyed at how much leaf and how long a steeping was needed to make the cup sufficiently strong for my tastes.

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