This tea smells pleasantly fungal and like straw, like damp autumn leaves and moist earth. The flavour is very soft and smooth and it never gets bitter or sour. I have, in the past, forgotten about it and left it to steep for more than five, maybe even ten minutes, and it's still been smooth. Even when it's strong, though, it seems slightly thin to me which feels at odds with the earthiness of the aroma.

As an aside, I often get the feeling that my ratings are on the low side. On one hand I want to be as honest and accurate as possible, and I take earlier ratings into account when rating a new tea. On the other hand, I don't want to be too harsh on perfectly good teas...
I'm giving this one a relatively low rating because I don't enjoy it as much as other teas, but it is by no means a bad tea.

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Comments:

Alex Zorach wrote: on August 2nd, 2017

In terms of your ratings being on the low side...we actually adjust for that in calculating teas' overall rankings. Like, when we calculate the percentile ratings for teas that have multiple ratings, we take into account the tendency of some reviewers to rate higher and others lower. Your ratings actually have an exceptionally good spread, which makes it really useful...especially things like you throwing in a low tea bag review like your one of Pickwick's English Breakfast.

This is actually immensely helpful for us because it allows us to calculate the difference in quality between the mainstream tea bag brands, and the true artisan teas. A lot of reviewers stick mostly (or exclusively) with one or the other, so the few times people cross over and rate both, it helps us a lot. This is what I try to do, and why you'll find lots of tea bag reviews interspersed with the high-end loose-leaf teas I actually like to drink on a daily basis.

I know what you mean too about making a distinction between more "objectively" bad teas, and teas that you don't like. I often feel this way for example about milder white teas...things like silver needle. I often just am not crazy about that type of tea, and especially given how expensive it is, I tend to give it low ratings. On the other hand, when it comes to strong Assam, or young sheng Pu-erh, I'm easy to please and will often give run-of-the-mill teas in these categories pretty high marks...just because it's what I actually prefer.

I do try to acknowledge this in my reviews too, because it makes it more useful for others reading them, and I like that you do this here! Basically, you're a fantastic reviewer and I really appreciate your reviews!

Teuvo wrote: on August 2nd, 2017

Thank you so much! I'm immensely relieved to hear that reviewers' tendencies are adjusted for. Especially with many of the green teas in the 60-80 range - I love many of those a lot but I still want to keep the teas that are now in the 85-100 range far enough above them. I'm a lot less worried now about not doing my favourite Vietnamese teas (among others) justice!

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