Harney and Sons, a great tea company that I recently discovered is actually somewhat local, has been featured quite a bit recently. Quite a bit is a relative turn of phrase, considering I find the free time to write about twice a month. But regardless, I've found myself writing about Harney and Sons a lot lately mostly because I really like their teas. Today's review is no exception: Queen Catherine black tea is a blend of three (non-specified) Chinese black teas, and is one heck of a cup of tea.
Queen Catherine is named for one of England's queens, but which one? At last count, I think England has had at least 91 queens named Catherine, and that's not counting off spellings like "Katherine." (91 may be a little off, but we're busy people, far too busy for fact checking.) What actually is fact is that Queen Catherine is named for Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of Charles II, who first introduced tea to England. (Catherine, that is, not Charles II, who spent years in exile thanks to Cromwell beheading his father and later dissolved Parliament for dissenting with his opinion.) A nice tribute to the lady responsible for bringing tea to the British Isles, and a fairly fitting blend, since all the early tea in Britain would have been Chinese.
I make this with the usual parameters for black tea: a rounded teaspoon to a mug, water at a full boil, steeped for about four minutes. As with other full bodied Chinese black teas, Queen Catherine is good with or without milk, and I expect might do well enough with sugar, though I barely use the stuff these days.
I'd love to actually know what the three teas to go into this blend were, as it would be a fun exercise to try them individually. I suspect there's some Keemun in here, but as I've mentioned in the past, I'm woefully bad at picking out teas from a blend. At any rate, this is an excellent blend, a strong cup with hints of earthy cocoa, pleasantly bitter coffee, and mild smoke. Although it's not specifically a breakfast blend, and of course has no Assam like we often find in breakfast teas, this makes a solid morning tea. The body is full, especially for a Chinese black, which I sometimes find thin, and the mouthfeel again reminds me slightly of coffee. In fact, I think the full body, strong flavors, and hints of coffee make this a great cup for someone hoping to switch over to tea.
Score: 95 (A)
Sounds like a good cup!
ReplyDeleteIt's delightful to me that Harney and Sons is not an actual English company. Several years ago I bought a box of tea of theirs that was holiday themed, and it was perfectly Victorian. I felt like I should have had mince meat and baked plums each time I drank it.
Interesting. Tea is so ingrained in my mind as being a British thing that I'm surprised to learn that it was only introduced a few hundred years ago. I'm not terribly conversant in English history, but I just assumed it went much farther back than Cromwell/Charles II...
ReplyDeleteThe idea of trying each individual tea, then the blend sounds intriguing as well. In the beer world, I've found that sending pedantic emails to breweries has paid off in finding the answer to such obscure questions, as they're often quite responsive (though not always, I'd say I've gotten about 75% of my emails answered, which is still pretty damn good).
Jacob - Their tea selection and packaging support the notion that they're so very British. I've looked at their gift sets, and "Victorian" is a good way to describe them. Sometimes I really enjoy that, it feels like you get a piece of culture along with your cup of tea...like having a dram and picturing myself kilted and repelling English invaders. They're located just over the Connecticut border, in Millerton, NY...probably a bit far for a day trip, but if I'm ever near that area for something else, I'll have to check them out.
ReplyDeleteMark - That's an excellent idea! It never occurred to me to try emailing the companies. I imagine they're going to be enthusiastic about their creations just like craft brewers.
Coffee was briefly the big thing in Englad during the early 17th Century (think of those coffeehouse scenes in The Baroque Cycle) but was fairly quickly replaced by tea, probably because it was cheaper to import (probably more complicated than that, though...) It's an endlessly fascinating subject, and I think I should devote a series of posts to it...maybe dovetail them in with reviews of really traditional teas. That may take some time to write, but it sounds like a neat idea.