I found this box of tea at a natural health store on my lunch hour. Most places that carry Prince of Peace tea don't carry black tea, so I grabbed them. The 100 tea bags are individually wrapped in paper, so I transferred them to an airtight container after removing the plastic seal from the box.

The unbleached paper tea bag contains 1.8g of tea that is recognizably from Yunnan. It has the earthy, dry leaf mold smell characteristic of Yunnan teas. Adding the water brings out a bunch of brown sugar sweetness and something like raw almonds.

There's no bitterness and only a touch of astringency. The earth and sweet notes combine on the palate to remind me of toasted or baked grains, like dark rolls or maybe fried donuts. The finish returns to leafiness, reminiscent of year-old oak leaves. It reminds me of some shou pu-erh; it's earthy and reminds me of decaying leaves, but somehow without being musty.

Unfortunately, though the flavor is pleasant and interesting, it's also a bit thin. The lack of bitterness means that I could probably steep the tea bag much longer than my normal four minutes. Then again, perhaps they should have put the full 2g of tea in the tea bag.

At $7 for a hundred tea bags, this tea's priced quite reasonably. I'm just not as impressed with it as I'd really hoped to be.

Update: This tea is much better if allowed to steep longer. There's a lot of sweetness that doesn't develop with a shorter steep. The tea doesn't ever seem to get bitter, so six or eight minutes (compared to my usual four) only improves the flavor. I've also started using an extra tea bag (so three bags for sixteen ounces rather than two).

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Comments:

Alex Zorach wrote: on June 3rd, 2020

I've also noticed that the stores that tend to sell this brand, usually don't stock their black tea. I have seen it listed on their site, but have never actually seen a box of it in person. I see the white and oolong teas fairly frequently though.

I found it interesting that this was a Yunnan black (red) tea sold in tea bags; that's also not something I see very often. In fact I don't think I've ever seen it? I love black teas from Yunnan and some of them can be quite inexpensive relative to their quality. But usually what I like about them is that they are whole-leaf hand-processed teas, I rarely get broken-leaf teas from there, and I think the intactness of the leaf is one of the reasons I like them so much, so having a tea bag kind of defeats the purpose or removes the main reason I like these teas.

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