The Persimmon Tree, Vintage Black

The Persimmon Tree Description:
Vintage Black loose-leaf tea is a delicious addition to anyone's tea collection. This flavorful blend of bright, brisk Nilgiri loose black tea and smooth rich Yunnan golden buds makes the perfect pick-me-up. Enjoy on its own, with milk and sugar, or iced with a splash of lemon juice.

Sample provided by The Persimmon Tree

My Review:
You ever wake up thinking, "Man, I need a cup of tea." You look at your collection and everything seems too fru fru or wimpy for the morning cup of bold that you are needing. Well, me too. This morning in fact. Then I remembered I had this setting to the side waiting to be reviewed.

The Persimmon Tree Vintage Black Tea

When the top is removed from the canister, the nose is met with tea. It is kind of fruity and winelike with a healthy dose of malt but mostly it is rich, comfortable, tea.

On examination the dark leaf reveals some golden tips in the broken Yunnan leaf. There are also dark little pellets that I assume to be the Nilgiri in the blend. Nilgiri is grown in southern India and most of it is of a crush tear curl production method (CTC). It appears that is the case here as well.

Prepared in 195 F water with a 3 minute steep in my Bodum press. The result is a hearty brew in the familiar orange brown color. No question. This is tea.

The taste is satisfying for an early morning cup. Strong enough to catch your attention without being bitter. It has a good amount of astringency as do most breakfast teas. It tastes woodsy. While hot I find it has a leather taste. Puerhs that I like, I often comment of having a horse tack note, like the smell of worn saddle leather. This is not puerh. It is a black tea blend but I find it to have leather notes that are even more like the horse than what I normally encounter. I really like that. I haven't noticed others recording this note, so maybe it is just me today. I also notice malt in the aftertaste.

For the milk and sugar crowd, this would take it well. I used sweetener (Splenda) and it livened up the flavors and slightly reduced the astringency. This is exactly what I was craving today.

You can find Vintage Black here.

About The Persimmon Tree:

(From their website) The Persimmon Tree® offers our customers some of the world's finest organic teas and botanicals. Not only are most of our fresh high quality teas from around the globe hand-blended and organically grown, some of our teas are also fair trade, ensuring fair working conditions, fair wages, and a better life for tea workers from countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

At The Persimmon Tree®, our mission is simple: to enrich people's lives through the pleasure of tea.