Teatulia's Bengal Breakfast

Vendor: Teatulia
Website: http://www.teatulia.com
Twitter: @Teatulia

Tea: Bengal Breakfast
Type: Black in Bags

Description: "Teatulia's Boldest Black Tea. Excellent for a clear start to the day with a mighty palette that will transport you to the base of the Himalayas, ready to take on anything!

Brewing instructions: Steep tea for 1-2 minutes, or until brewed to your liking.

Opening the package: Teatulia was kind enough to send me a sample of this tea to try. When I opened the envelope, I found a plastic bag inside with a paper telling me all the information I just put for the description and brewing instructions inside. Also included were three teabags. The inside of the plastic bag was littered with black tea dust. Upon opened the bag to inspect the teabags, I found them to be silk pyramid style bags about the size of pyramid bags you can get from Lipton. The tea inside was broken up pretty badly. I'm not sure if this was due to transportation methods, or if all their teabags are this way. So far not looking too promising.

First Brew: I brewed a cup with one bag for 1 min. 45 sec. with boiling water. This produced a brew that was similar in color to Darjeelings I've had in the past. The smell also seemed reminiscent of this, but not too much so. The taste was good, not bitter. Nothing too exciting about it, but it would make a good everyday breakfast tea, which is what it is billed as. It wasn't very strong though. Typically for brews of this length I use more tea. The bag also left a residue of tea dust in my cup. The leaves did swell to take up most of the bag.

Resteep: Resteeped for 2:30 with boiling water. The produced a cup noticeable lighter then the last brew, so I won't even attempt a third brew. It smelled and tasted the same, except for much of the strength being gone. I did notice a bit of sweetness in the aftertaste with this brew though, which seemed strange.

Thoughts: I'd like to try out their loose leaf version of this sometime. I'll go ahead and use my remaining two tea bags, but I probably won't purchase any of this for a while, if at all. It was good, but plain. I'd suggest this as a tea to introduce someone to loose leaf. I'd also like to add that I thought it would produce a stronger brew. I suspect that it would with more leaf added, so I might brew my two remaining bags together. I've spent a bit of time on Teatulia's website, and it all sounds great, so I look forward to trying more of their products.

Has anyone else given this vendor (and more specifically, this tea) a try? Post your thoughts in the comments. I look forward to hearing them.

(I had some pictures that I took, but they didn't turn out well at all. I'll try and take some with my next brew and get them posted here. Need to work on my lighting...)