Thank you to Jim, who brought this back for me from Tanzania!

I was really impressed by the quality of this tea. It is among the best finely-broken CTC teas that I've tried. It reminded me quite a lot of the Fahari Ya Kenya Tea, although I think I preferred that tea slightly to this one.

Like the Fahari Ya tea, this tea consists of finely-broken tea of two different grades. One is fine pellets, typical for CTC tea, but it also has some fine fibrous pieces of leaves which are different in color.

The aroma is earthy and malty, with a faint hint of wintergreen--only a hint, in contrast to the Kenyan tea that had more of this aroma.

This tea is very robust, thick-bodied. The amount of body also depends on the brewing method: because it has such fine particulate matter in the loose-leaf, if you use a coarse strainer, a lot of the leaf will actually come through into the cup. This makes the cup more full-bodied but can also make it unpleasantly astringent.

I found that the best results with this tea were produced by using a paper tea filter. This prevented the fine particulate matter from getting out in the cup, and it also slowed down the brewing process a bit.

This tea is powerful, and it's easy to oversteep. I recommend a teaspoon of leaf and a 2 minute steeping, but even that produces a strong cup. Any longer and it becomes noticeably astringent. I found I was able to enjoy a cup steeped for a full 5 minutes with a heaping teaspoon, but it was definitely on the harsh side.

Overall though this tea was impressive quality and it's pretty cheap. I would prefer it to any of the mainstream black tea brands in the U.S, although it pales in comparison to some of the artisan teas I've tried, coming out of Tanzania and other African countries.

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