This is a very strong, bold-tasting green tea that is among my favorite green teas ever sampled. I sampled this tea, my first from Octavia Tea, for the first time, in a new and very cute cafe, Velvet Sky Bakery, in Jenkintown. It was brewed in the Adagio Ingenuitea infuser, incidentally, my first time having tea brewed in one of these.

The dry leaf is pleasantly aromatic, but I think this tea's true wonder only comes out after brewing.

Aroma is intensely floral and fruity, but not in the usual muscatel manner of Darjeeling black teas, but rather, with tones of raspberry, red currant, or even cranberry. There are fairly strong cinnamon qualities in the finish.

Very strong flavor...even though there was only a modest amount of leaf used. This is a strong tea: both sour and bitter, but in a pleasant way. I found it reminded me of the bold flavor of cranberry juice--it went very well with the scone that I ate with my tea.

I didn't get to experiment with brewing; I suspect that a briefer steeping or perhaps cooler water may bring out the mellower aspects of this tea, but I actually liked it as is. The aroma was superb.

I would definitely recommend this tea; it's my second-favorite green tea to come out of the Himalayan region (my favorite being a long-leaf green from Makaibari estate). The only thing about it is that it is on the bitter and sour side, so I recommend it only for people (like me) who enjoy stronger-flavored green teas.

This tea is not cheap: $14.50 for only 60 grams...that's a steep price. But it was exceptional quality. This is not an everyday tea but I thought it was top-notch for something I ordered in a cafe, and I think it is on par with many of the best artisan teas I've tried.

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