While the dry leaves have a more mildly fruity generic black tea sort of smell, the brewed tea has a wonderfully sweet aroma of figs and raisins, and a similar taste. It's actually hard to taste anything else because of the strength of those notes: there's a background earthiness or something to add some substance and body, preventing it from tasting like pure fruit juice, but I can't identify any specific flavors aside from the fruit. This isn't a complex tea that evolves from one note to the next in your mouth. It's a dried fruit bomb, and I love it. Octavia's online pricing is rather high for a broken leaf Assam, even one this good, but if you find it being sold by the ounce somewhere at a lower price, I highly recommend it.

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Alex Zorach wrote: on May 7th, 2018

I haven't tried this particular one, but the way you describe this resonates with how I feel about Octavia's other black teas...I generally like them a lot, but their pricing does seem a little high for teas of similar quality.

I notice there's a huge difference in price though between the large (one pound) and small (tin) sizes...and I have been told though that the company has even better wholesale prices. I discovered them through a local cafe in Jenkintown, Velvet Sky, that serves them, and they've been very happy with them as a provider. They're certainly way ahead of the teabags served in most cafes, and I'm always happy when I come into a coffee shop or cafe and see Octavia being served!

Alex wrote: on May 9th, 2018

If I bought a pound the price per ounce would be reasonable, but I'd probably get tired of it before I used that much. A local tea shop sells it in one ounce bags for $6, and samples for under $1, which is how I tried it. With all the full leaf Assam in the $3-5/oz range, I'd rather try a few more before settling on a more expensive broken leaf one.

As far as coffee shops and tea, all the third wave coffee shops I've been to have loose leaf tea, and not just Earl Grey and breakfast blends, but also stuff like dragonwell and Taiwanese oolongs. Tea bags are only found in chains like Tim Hortons, which doesn't have good coffee either so I wouldn't have expected good tea.

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