After bringing this breakfast tea home from a conference, I tried it at dinnertime while eating a tub of cottage cheese. The tea brewed up very dark, quickly, such that a spoon disappeared from view below about the top two inches of liquid. This wasn't too surprising, considering how finely chopped the dry-bag leaves were. Yet Tazo didn't skimp on quantity here, as the bag inflates fully with the swelling of the wet leaves. The dry-bag smell was mostly plain, straight tea, not very strong; however, wet-bag and in-cup aromas got decidedly more robust and a bit malty. I don't know if that was the power of suggestion from the packaging, or real from some included Assam. I'm inclined to believe the latter, since the tea also tasted suitably strong, the way I like it.

Outside the maltiness, I didn't detect any other obvious flavors but straight-up tea, a little sour and a little bitter, but neither a turn-off, so this isn't anything that should excite tea connoisseurs much. Yet it was a hearty, strong drink that takes sweetener well, and that I would be glad to try some more. The aftertaste was a good deal more bitter than the tea, almost unpleasantly so...but faded after a few minutes. My sense is that this tea has a good caffeine punch to it. Caffeine doesn't register much for me; regardless, there was a noticeable alertness boost during and soon after consumption of the tea. I doubt the cottage cheese did that.

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