Review of No. 22 Blend Tea Bags

AromaFlavorValueTotal
9 of 105 of 55 of 590 of 100
SuperbExcellentOutstanding

Murchie's promotes this as a more robustly flavored version of their No. 10 Blend, which I reviewed very favorably in 2019, and I agree. So I'll give it a few more points. The component teas are:
GREEN: Jasmine and gunpowder
BLACK: Keemun and Ceylon, with some bergamot.

No. 22 Blend is yet another in a growing arsenal of green/black blends Murchie's sells, and whose difficult blending art they seem to have mastered. As with most such teas, the steeping balance between too delicate for black and too bitter for green is a relatively narrow window of time and temperature, but the attention to both tea quality and flavor balance (bergamot and a lesser level of jasmine) makes it work. This seems fairly tolerant of some oversteeping or hotter/black-tea temperatures; though the bitterness grows over time, it's slow, and takes a long time to get cloying. It also seems to gain more flavor, more quickly, than most other black/green blends for short steeps. Either way, a really nice, uncommon floral/fruity essence shines through consistently at every step, from scent (wonderful in dry-bag form, sniffing inside the packaging), through taste to aftertaste. Yet the rich flavors of the base teas still are quite apparent. I have no substantive complaints, and only have half a star off the aroma since it's just a little more subdued than the taste.

Addendum: I inadvertently left half of a big cup of No. 22 Blend sitting out on the porch on a cool night. Resulting conclusion: this would make a good iced tea too.

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