A First attempt at Mixology

In my review of Nilgiri, I noted that it was a key component in Irish Breakfast, a common and flavorful blend.  In fact, the two most basic components of Irish Breakfast, Nilgiri and Assam, were sitting right next to each other in my cupboard, so it was only a matter of time until I decided to give mixing my own Irish Breakfast tea a go.  This past weekend found me at a loss as to which tea I felt like making, and I decided, today was the day.

I've read a little here or there about mixing teas, and it's as simple as mixing two or more teas together, but also a bit more complicated than that.  Different teas, and especially different leaf sizes will require different brewing times, so we have to be sure that the leaves of each constituent tea are as close in size as possible, then figure out just how long we're going to brew our creation.  Luckily, my Assam and my Nilgiri are roughly the same tea grade, and they both brew for about three or four minutes, so for my first attempt, a lot of the guesswork is taken out of it.

With a sense of "Let's just do it, and see what happens" (this may be why I am not an engineer), I dumped about half a teaspoon of Assam and half a teaspoon of Nilgiri in my pot, added boiling water, and steeped.  The result was a cup that tasted close to, if not exactly like Irish Breakfast.  The flavor was close enough to encourage me to keep trying, yet far enough off to make me wonder what I did wrong.  Am I missing an ingredient?  I know some Irish Breakfast blends feature Ceylon, but I didn't think it was obligatory.  I do think I could use some work on my ratios; I think I probably added too much Nilgiri and not enough Assam.

So, then, my first attempt at mixing my own blend was not a rousing success, but neither was it an abject failure.  I'll keep at the Irish Breakfast, I think, until I get it down, before I try something more complicated.

Coming up next, a week devoted to Earl Grey!